Mental Health

Effective Strategies to Deal with Student Stress

All you need to know about how to deal with failure, manage stress, and build resilience.

Photo by Hello I'm Nik on Unsplash

High school and university are stressful for so many. One in four students experiences stress and difficulties with their mental health. We worry about grades, finances, our health as well as our friends and families. Students need mental health resources and strategies now, more than ever.

Learning to Deal with Failure

I started university hoping to finish with an A+ in each of my courses, fueling a successful application to medical school. The first midterm examinations of the year hit me hard. I underestimated the difficulty of my lofty goals set myself up for disappointment. Your grades do not define your worth as a person. Everyone fails.

It doesn’t mean that you’re stupid or worthless, but rather a sign you might need some help to improve. Seeing others succeed where you fail can make you feel less intelligent than your peers. Above all else, no amount of academic success is more important than your mental health. Rest assured, many other students in your class share the same fears and experiences. Sharing failure just isn’t commonplace (yet). In the spirit of sharing, here are just a few times I didn’t achieve my goals:

• Failed to receive >10 scholarships during my undergraduate studies
• Unsuccessfully applied for more than ten different research positions
• I failed my first-year calculus exam
• Got rejected from a business start-up accelerator
• Got rejected from several writing and communication positions out of graduate school

Preventing Procrastination

Do you spend more time procrastinating than actually working? With multiple distractions all around us, it becomes harder and harder to stay focused. It isn’t a unique shortcoming, humans have procrastinated for hundreds of years. The earliest records of it date back to Ancient Greece. Perses, the brother of Ancient Greek poet Hesiod, is the first recorded procrastinator. Hesiod wrote about how Perses avoided his work and duties, after squandering his inheritance:

“Do not put your work off till to-morrow and the day after; for a sluggish worker does not fill his barn, nor one who puts off his work: industry makes work go well, but a man who puts off work is always at hand-grips with ruin.”
— Work and Days, Hesiod

Many of us are less productive studying at home than in a library setting. That’s inevitable, but it doesn’t mean we can’t improve our routine. It’s clear, both through academic study and personal experience, most of us want to reduce how much time we waste when we procrastinate. To understand why we procrastinate, let’s think about where our motivation comes from:

• Expectancy defines our chances of success. Notice we are more motivated if we are quite skilled, finding the task easy.
• Value tells us the importance, reward, or joy of completing a goal or task.
• Impulsiveness describes how prone we are towards short-term rewards.
• Delay describes how far away the deadline for a task is. The larger the delay, the lower the motivation.

We prioritize short-term emotional rewards over the completion of difficult or daunting goals. Our impulse to scroll through social media provides instant validation or gratification. Meanwhile, completing more arduous tasks delays this feeling. Sometimes we aren’t very good at regulating our emotional control. We go for the easy gratification (trust me, I’ve been there too).

“We prioritize short-term emotional rewards over the completion of difficult or daunting goals.”

The second important factor in understanding procrastination is deadlines. The less time we have left to complete a specific task, the more motivation we have not to procrastinate. We can say that short-term emotional rewards no longer outweigh the harms of pushing back this task.

These paradigms all feed into the motivation equation! We have task-dependent factors: delay and value. We also have task-independent factors that vary between individuals: impulsivity and expectancy of success. Now let’s use this information to make actionable choices that help avoid procrastination:

• Break down your work and tasks into sizeable chunks.
• Use a timer to set regular working times and breaks.
• Do not skip breaks or meals

Use Student Mental Health Services

Most universities and colleges provide access to counselors or therapists. A lot of stigmas are attached to seeking help or mental health resources. Nonetheless, reaching out for help is one of the bravest steps that you take as a student. Sometimes if you reach out to a supportive professor, they might work with you to move deadlines. Resolvve provides integrative therapy combining academic coaching, career counseling, and psychotherapy.

Practice Stress Reduction

Our physiological stress response is regulated by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. This master regulator is responsible for a cascade of signaling within our body. Sometimes a stress response is beneficial, helping you finish work at the very last minute. However, high levels of stress are risk factors for developing anxiety and depression. Luckily, there are plenty of exercises you can do to relieve stress.

You might recall that during stress, there is an elevation in heart rate and breathing rate. Quick, shallow breaths are hallmarks of anxiety and, panic attacks and reduce levels of oxygenation in the body. Since our breathing is biologically connected with our heart rate, breathing exercises prove beneficial. Slow deep breaths reduce both psychological and physiological levels of stress.

Try taking a moment to breathe deeply through your nose. See if you can breathe in over five seconds. Then gently exhale and repeat. There are plenty of guides you can find online to walk you through the process in more detail. The more you practice, the better you become at regulating your stress. Find five to ten minutes during your busy day for yourself, where you can focus on reducing your levels of stress.

Another way to relieve stress is simply to go outside. What is so great about the great outdoors? Well, there’s sunshine, wildlife, and exercise. These factors can reduce physiological levels of stress. Scientific studies support the benefits of natural green spaces for psychological stress reduction. The combination of nature, fresh air, and wildlife are somehow capable of reducing our physiological levels of stress.

Practice Resilience

Resilience is our ability to bounce back from challenging events. If we pull an elastic band it will return to its original position, unscathed. However, if we pull the ends of the elastic too far apart, it will remain a little bit stretched. If you pull it too far, it will break. We know that increased levels of stress lead to poor cardiovascular outcomes. In this way, resilience is protective of our physical and mental health. Practice these methods to build your resilience.

Take Care of Your Body and Mind

We all have terrible days, where we just want to lay in bed and eat chocolate all day long. Try to keep up any healthy eating habits, whatever that may mean to you. Exercise and going outside, in whatever capacity you may manage is helpful. Even just walking outdoors for 20–30 minutes could make a difference for your mental well-being.

Just continue doing whatever is comfortable, and if you feel extra adventurous, perhaps walk a little further or go for a jog. This will also help you feel tired at the end of the day, contributing to a great night of sleep. You can also read our other articles on sleep for tips on sleep hygiene.

Along with the psychotherapy and educational resources at Resolvve, we hope that you can reduce your levels of stress and thrive in school and beyond.

**Please note, this is article is not therapy or a replacement for it. Engaging with it does not constitute a therapeutic relationship of any kind with the writer. Please seek professional help if needed.**