Attending college means a lot of things — we get to further our education, meet new people, and have an amazing four years before we have to become real adults. But we also have to deal with a lot of stress as college students. It’s a monumental change that we’ve gone through to move to university. Transitioning from high school to college is something that takes a bit of time to adjust to, and the biggest impact may be on our mental health. Our mind may be the largest part affected when we transition to university, and with the added stress of classes, it doesn't make it any easier. Not only does the stress of school affect us, but our social lives and every day pressure can get to us too. Our mental health is our best friend and our worst enemy most of the time. We get so cooped up in our world of school and life, that we forget that our mind can only take so much and shatter if it’s not looked after enough. I’m here to say, please, as someone who understands what pressure is, take care of your mental health.
As students at the end of our adolescent period in life, we’re moving onto the next chapter of our lives — adulthood. Becoming adults, we’ve become used to being independent and having to do things for ourselves. Though this is amazing at first, it does indeed add stress into our lives — something we’re going to need to manage. None of us want to have periods where we’re so overwhelmed by everything we’re going through that we can’t cope with the situations around us. Sure, we all get stressed about school — that’s natural. It’s expected of us to be a bit stressed in university. It’s normal for us to be pressured by our surroundings, with the expectations to get great grades. But if we let these thoughts surround us, then they’re going to eat away at us, stay in our minds for a long time, and make what we do super stressful.
No one wants to be stressed, but we can’t help it when we are. Stress is a natural mechanism and a part of life. When we work hard, we become stressed. Being in university just happens to bring the stress in us out more. The problem is that if we let this stress get to us, and don’t do something about the pressure building up within our minds, we’re going to be sitting in a hole that we’ve dug for ourselves, and eventually we won’t be able to get out of it.
We need to understand that while we are going to be busy in school, we need to manage our lives so as to release our stress in healthy and manageable ways. Finding the balance between work and relaxing can be difficult, but it's necessary if you want to be as successful as possible in your college career. While we do get pressured, the biggest problem that we have most of the time is our mind. The very thing we're trying to protect from getting burned out can be our best friend, as it knows us the best, it can also be our strongest enemy. We second guess ourselves so often because of the continuous stress we feel, and our minds making us second-guess ourselves. If we try eliminating the stress we feel either by watching a bit of Netflix, or going to the gym, them so be it. As long as we understand that this constant stress we may feel can be conquered, then we will be okay!
