As most of us know, college can be stressful. People deal with anxiety in all different aspects of life, but most students have a hard time having to go to college. Students can easily get anxious trying to juggle school, work, friends, and family while trying to figure out the rest of their lives. A majority of students can bounce back, but intense, uncontrollable and frequent feelings of anxiety that affect their daily routines may be a sign of an anxiety disorder that’s developed over time of dealing with so much stress.
The causes? The stress of schoolwork, relationships, and finances. The more we think about everything they have to do, the more the students feel like they’re paralyzed. Anxiety has now surpassed depression as the most common mental health diagnosis among college students. Students need help, now more than ever with this strong overpowering urge to break down and give up. Students have to deal with the stress of school work and doing well in college. This is something that a majority of students deals with.
We are stressed our entire lives about going to college and having to do well and get a career. That’s scary. That seems to be all we can think about when we’re in college, is ‘What if I fail? “. There’s also the stress of work. Now, not all college students’ work, but a majority do because they are trying to avoid having to pay off student loans for the rest of their lives. That then adds on to the amount of stress and causes more anxiety. Trying to balance school and work and having to worry about thier finances can come crashing down on students.
A recent study by the American College Health Association found that nearly one in six college students has been treated or diagnosed for anxiety within the last twelve months. The causes coming from so much academic pressure at earlier ages, overprotective parents, even from overuse of social media. Anxiety has always played a role in the development of a student’s life, but now more students are experiencing anxiety so intense and overwhelming that they are seeking professional counseling. Treating anxiety has become a challenge for campus mental health centers.
Many college clinics have had a major increase in clients reporting with anxiety. For example the counseling services at the University of Central Florida — one of the country’s largest universities, has seen a large increase in the number of clients by 15. 2 percent over last year. Their counseling center has grown quickly, to the point that some supply closets have been converted to counseling offices. More students are seeking help partly because the stigma around mental health issues is lessening, noted Stephanie Preston, a counselor at U. C. F. A disturbing trend in college student health is the reported increase in student stress nationwide.
Stressors affecting students can be categorized as academic, financial, time or health related, and self-imposed (Goodman, 1993). Academic stressors include the student’s perception of the amount of work they are being dealt by each of their professors. Students report experiencing academic stress at predictable times each semester with the highest sources of stress coming from taking and studying for exams, grade competition, and the large amount of school work to complete in such a little amount of time. When stress is perceived negatively or becomes excessive, students experience physical and psychological impairment” (Murphy & Archer, 1996). Methods to reduce stress that students can use include time management, social support, and taking “down time” or relaxation. Leisure satisfaction, or “down time” is defined as “the positive feeling of contentment one perceives as a result of meeting personal needs through leisure activities” (Seigenthaler, 1997).
Despite relationships among the amount of “down time” and perceived stress having been studied in a variety of settings involving retirees to school related settings, relationships between amount of relaxation and academic stress of college students has not been directly studied. The only scientific research that specifically related relaxation to academic stress was that of Ragheb and McKinney, who established a negative association between academic stress and leisure satisfaction.
A limitation of this study, however, was that it measured academic stress using seven items that were extracted inclusively from occupational stress inventories. “The concept of time management is generally defined in terms of clusters of behavior that are deemed to facilitate productivity and alleviate stress “(Lay & Schouwenburg, 1993). Effective time management strategies increase academic performance and are frequently suggested by academic assistance personnel as aids to enhance achievement for college students.
Productive study methods are characterized by “time management” and “strategic studying”. Although suggestions of starting large projects and assignments long before due dates, breaking down large tasks into smaller sections, and doing small tasks on a regular schedule could all help a student with the amount of anxiety and stress that they are dealing with but yet students ignore these techniques and find themselves having a tough time and struggling before exams. The components of time management were taken from Macan, et al. (1990).
The tendency to structure time and time of relaxation would help in reducing the amount academic stress that students deal with. Academic stress would show a significant positive correlation with anxiety, and a significant negative correlation with self-reported time management behaviors and time of relaxation of college students. A person who manages their time better will have fewer physical and psychological symptoms of stress. The greater amount of time of relaxation that students show, the lower their academic stress will be.
Since college women and older students report better time management skills than college men and younger students, it was thought that females and older students would have effective time management behaviors and consequently less academic stress and anxiety. A sample study consisting of 249 full-time undergraduate students at a Midwestern university, mostly sophomore and women students responded to the survey, in regards to health behaviors, 25% were smokers and 72. % consumed alcoholic beverages (had one drink) in the last week. Most students reported heavy of drinking alcohol on the weekends. “Academic Stress: Gadzella’s Student-life Stress Inventory” is a scale designed to assess the students’ perceived academic stress and reactions to stress. A higher score was indicative of greater stress and reactions to stress, showing students had higher amounts of anxiety than they previously ne of the most common problems that college students face is anxiety.
The pressures of being in a new environment, being away from home and their families as well as the stress and pressure of wanting to do well in college can overwhelm most students. As well as having to take responsibility for themselves and learning to live on their own. Anxiety disorders are becoming more common in students attending universities and college. They involve changes in mood, thinking, behavior and the physiological process. It is important to remember that with help anxiety disorders are treatable and that students can learn alternative ways of coping with anxiety.
It is usually not very helpful to pretend that anxiety will simply go away on its own. It takes time, but learning to juggle school, work, and a social life will become easier as time goes on. Students can easily get anxious trying to juggle school, work, friends, and family while trying to figure out the rest of their lives. But learning to ask for help and being able to manage your time in an effective way can help reduce the amount of anxiety the students have and the possibility of developing an anxiety disorder from mismanagement.
