You look at the clock on the wall, and there are exactly four hours until your final exam. It is dead quiet all around you. You hear your heart pounding against your chest. It feels as though you are out of breath. Your head is throbbing and you can’t help but think that this is all your fault.
What if you hadn’t partied so late last night?
Even though you knew your final exam was tomorrow, you still took that five-hour nap. You have stacks of assignments waiting to be done. Your performance at work and school has dramatically declined. You’ve even started ignoring your friends and family.
There came a point where you just gave up. It feels as though you’ve lost control and you’ve been feeling this way for a while.
Does this sound familiar? We’ve all experienced high levels of stress at some point in our student lives and there are two types of stress. One of them is acute stress, which is needed for us to progress through our daily lives as it motivates us to move forward.
“Moderate levels of stress actually improve performance and efficiency. However, lack of stress can make you feel bored and too much stress can make you feel overwhelmed. So balance is very important when managing your stress,” says Tony Tran, Peer Assisted Study Sessions leader for Bethune College.
Another type of stress is chronic stress, which is unhealthy and can seriously hinder your ability to cope with life and its demands. Unlike acute stress, it stays with us for long periods of time.
You start viewing the simplest tasks as threats. You start losing control of your thoughts and actions. You even start doubting your capabilities, leading to low levels of self-esteem.
Persistent levels of high stress can also lead to obesity, diabetes, and other chronic health conditions. But no matter how hopeless and daunting everything may seem, there is always a way to step out of this mess.
Remember, you are not alone. According to the 2009 American College Health Association, 38 per cent of York students reported that stress has negatively impacted their academics over the past year. So don’t think that you’re a failure, stress happens to all of us. We just have to learn how to cope with it.
You should also identify the source of stress. You may think that school is the root of all your problems, however, you have to look and analyze much deeper. What is causing you to stress out? Perhaps, it is the fact that you are not getting your assignments done on time. Or maybe, you just can’t seem to understand what the heck is going on in your MATH 1014 class.
After you figure out your source of stress, it is important to break down the problem into manageable blocks and find a solution. For example, if you are stressing out about your calculus final, it is a good idea to see whether you are having problems with the basics or just parts of a chapter.
Next, try to think of external sources of help. For an academic problem, you can always go to your respective college and seek peer tutoring help. For instance, if you need help with a science or math question, you can always visit Bethune College and get help through one-on-one peer tutoring and benefit from their PASS sessions. These sessions are small informal study groups, facilitated by an upper-year student who excels in specific course material.
“It’s good to try to keep up with the material, even if it just means reading your notes for 15 minutes each day. And then as soon as you get stuck on something, ask for help. Spacing out the workload will make you stay more organized for your test,” says Tina Ngo, a peer tutor for Bethune College.
If you need any academic advice regarding your degree requirements, grades, petitions, or anything else related to your academic pathway, you can contact the academic advising offices for your faculty.
However, if you feel as though it’s too late for you to seek academic help and that you can’t stop feeling distressed or anxious, you can seek out counselling services.
“In terms of stress management, I definitely recommend using Personal Counselling Services or Counselling and Disability Services.
As a post-secondary student, it’s very easy to forget about your well-being. I find that scheduling an appointment with PCS helps me commit to putting that time aside for me,” says Michelle Hong, a team lead for the mental health and stress team at Health Education and Promotion at York.
PCS provides short-term individual, couple, and group counselling services to York students. They also provide workshops that aim at personal development. They can be reached by giving them a call or dropping by at their office.
In order to live well and stress- free, you should also practice self -care. You can make small lifestyle changes, which can dramatically improve your mental health and wellbeing. Make sure you get six hours of uninterrupted sleep, which is much better than eight hours of disturbed sleep.
Sleep deprivation can slow down attention, concentration, and problem solving skills, all of which are extremely important in school. Certain foods such as caffeine or foods saturated in fats and carbohydrates can aggravate stress. So, instead of hitting up Popeye’s every day, try exploring the wide selection of healthy meals at dining halls in colleges.
“Grades are like the currency of our university careers,” says David Kim, a mental health and stress management team lead. “Oftentimes we can neglect exercise to spend that extra bit of time studying, when a bit of exercise can actually boost your grades and help you de-stress.”
“When you exercise, you increase blood flow to a region in your brain called the dentate gyrus. It’s a vital constituent of the hippocampus which is involved in memory formation and cognition,” says Kim. “It also stimulates growth factors called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which is pretty much brain fertilizer. It helps with neurogenesis and can buffer against the toxic molecular effects of stress.”
“Next time you have an hour break between classes, try going for a run or do some strength training at Tait McKenzie,” he says. Kim also says that many people end up ignoring their leisure time. Take at least 30 minutes out of your day for relaxing and downtime. However, don’t go overboard and end up forgetting all about your assignments and work.
According to the 2009 American College Health Association, 59.5 per cent of York students reported feeling isolated within the past 12 months.
If you are feeling stressed or overwhelmed, try to seek support from friends and family.
You can dramatically reduce your stress levels through their emotional support. According to a study done by University of North Carolina in 2005, hugging releases oxytocin, also known as the love hormone. This action alone can dramatically reduce blood pressure, which cuts the risk of heart disease.
Another thing critical to self-care is learning to say no. If your schedule becomes hectic and overwhelming, see if there is a way to reduce the workload. Finding the balance between work and play is key.
In the end, you should be able to accept the fact that sometimes you need help managing your student life. You also need to acknowledge that stressful situations happen. Don’t grow hopeless and start thinking that you’re a failure.
Instead, have a positive outlook and confidence in yourself that you can and will improve in life. You should hope for the best and prepare for the worst, you just have to be willing to improve your situation.
To make life a little easier, Excalibur compiled a list of contact information for the services mentioned in the article. To see where your faculty’s academic advising office is, visit http://acadresources.yorku.ca/advising.htm
Aisha Nasim, Contributor
Featured illustration by Miny Pham
