Anxiety Within The College Community
By Paula Feitosa
Unlike past academic years, there is an increasing rise in anxiety amongst new college students as it is speculated that every collegiate student has some form of anxiety. Cultural shifts suggest a higher report of mental health related issues due to the lack of negative cognitation that surrounds the mental health. Higher reports are more likely to happen when the stigma against the topic of mental health is lessened.
There are several factors that contribute to the increase in anxiety of college students. Specifically, going from a known environment into an unknown environment. Humans instinctively push away from the unknown and it’s shown that people fear things they don’t know about. For example, an unopened door in an abandoned house causes much more fear than an unopened door in your house.
Fear is tied heavily to anxiety because the bodily responses in vastly similar. Muscle tension, increased heart rate, and shortness of breath mark the most significant physiological symptoms associated with both fear and anxiety. In the example above, you experience fear in relation to the known whereas anxiety is what you feel when you experience an unknown threat. This is most likely the reason why anxiety is likely experienced by every college student in a university.
A fellow (and anonymous) Southern Virginia University student shared his experience with living on campus. This student talked about having major issues changing from home cooked meals to cafeteria food. It was different, which added to some stressful situations. He was uncomfortable eating there at the cafeteria from the start due to not having a friend group prior to coming to school. This caused a stressful situation multiple times a day, everyday, for the entire semester. It might not seem like a lot of stress in each situation, but the student adds that this stress never stopped until he found a group to be with during meals.
“Each day, going to the cafe was borderline terrifying because I am not the most social person and I have to go to the cafe during the busy hours. This was very stressful all the time,” he said.
On top of the environment change, he was also given a change in course material and difficulty. With this new stress piling up, and his coping mechanisms for stress not up to par, he experienced extreme anxiety. This change heavily affected this student at Southern Virginia University. As school with most of its students from the west coast, the shift in environment and lifestyle can be alarming.
Some solutions to these issues are in the athletic program at Southern Virginia University. A female student responded with a similar situation, saying that she is a very shy person and prone to stress.
“Before coming to school, I was not really a part of a team. Until coming here, I was more of a loner and focused on my abilities playing my sport. When I got here, I was picked up by some of my teammates and bonded really quickly, making classes and walking to and from campus a more normal and stress free experience.”
Another leading factor of stress is more of a gender-specific factor. “Substantial evidence indicates that women report greater fear and are more likely to develop anxiety disorders than men. Women’s greater vulnerability for anxiety disorders can be partly understood by examining gender differences in the etiological factors known to contribute to anxiety. In recent years, however, males are being pushed to be more open to emotion and expressiveness which in turn shows an automatic increase in anxiety.”
Parents can also be a stressor for students. This stress can come in many different ways. While it is expected for parents to feel concern for their children, showing too much concern can cause the student to never adapt to their unknown environment and instead seek returnal to their comfort zone. This is commonly referred to as helicopter parenting. The opposite of this is never talking with their child and leaving them out in the unknown with no way to cope. It is advised for parents to talk about once a week with their kid to make sure they are adapting, offering advice and support when needed. Communicating this way promotes adaptation and coping of the student while also easing their anxiety. One female student shared that she was raised by a very dominant mother who would make decisions for her about everything. She expressed that she didn’t realize she had trouble making decisions until she came here and was given freedoms that she had never experienced. She explained that everyday her choices were made for her. What she did, where she ate, what she would wear, and how long she studied. This lifestyle, however, evaporated when she came to the school and was intolerable to her at first. She had to confide in her counselor and has been working consistently at having her daily decisions not impact her stress levels.
As we’ve discussed, there are a lot of factors that play into the feeling of stress. One of the largest contributors to anxiety, however, is falling behind in school. Once a student falls behind, it is almost a guarantee that they will feel some sort of anxiety. If this happens and a student doesn’t obtain successful coping mechanisms, they will remain behind and increase in anxiety throughout the year. Monique Trump, a clinical psychiatrist and parent of a Southern Virginia student, talks about how the stress oftentimes feels like it jumps at you late in the semester due to projects and finals all being due at around the same time. Her audio file below explains that this abundance of homework creates an environment that is likely to suppress sleep, which also creates a high chance of anxiety buildup in students.
How can we overcome this issue?
While the issue of anxiety in college is a very difficult thing to overcome, it is important that we need anxiety to function properly. It is a mental process that pushes us forward and helps manage our daily lives. Coping with anxiety is a major thing students will need to master. But, once mastered, can ultimately be very beneficial. Anxiety is why most students wait till the last minute to do an assignment. It is when they feel the highest level of anxiety that they will either do their assignment right then or give up on it completely. If they had better coping mechanisms, they could do an assignment before it pushes them into a high level of anxiety.
In her Ted Talk “Anxiety,” Olivia Remes talks about how to employ a coping mechanism of failure. The idea she explores is to attempt everything badly first. This tricks your brain into giving it permission to start on whatever it is that needs to be started.
Here at Southern Virginia University, students share a commonality of religious views that can help bring students together. When you come to Southern Virginia, consider joining a majority of students in attending church on Sunday. It can be calming to know that one out of seven days a week you are not doing something new. By creating a sense of normalcy in the unknonw, you will be well on your way to managing your personal anxiety levels.
Finally, after a brief interview with the Southern Virginia’s Wellness Center, they reinforced several of the main points that were expressed above: sleep, exercise for at least 30 min a day, and eat well. Some of the other tips they expressed were to develop an attitude of hope. The Wellness Center also wanted to stress the following:
Some anxiety is normal and not always bad; at appropriate levels it can help you perform and you can learn from those experiences.
The goal of this article is to shine light on how easy it is to develop an overwhelming level of anxiety if you are unprepared for school. If you do have higher than normal anxiety levels, it is important to recognize this and form steps that can help you lower your stress levels. Anxiety is normal, and everyone has some level of anxiety. But, how you manage it is the biggest indicator of success in college. Lastly, it’s also important to realize that because everyone is stressed and handles their stress differently, you should be kind to everyone. Be kind and love one another.
