If you stop a college student on campus and ask them how they are doing, they will respond with something related to their classes and/or their work load. The focus of our lives are so school and work centered, our immediate responses and topics of conversation are almost always on these subjects. This intense sense of stress and overworking is not conducive to our mental health, and it affects too many students. We unfortunately feel this need to do more and keep busy--fill our days with constant work, and this far too important aspect of our lives needs to be addressed.

Constantly among college students, there appears to be an unspoken competition of stress and work. If you are not doing as much, you are not doing as well, and are not as good at school. Some treat it as a joke, laughing while hearing someone's schedule and wishing them good luck finding time to sleep, while they internally feel incompetent for not doing as much as the other person is. Conversations include listing all you have to do that week, answered by all you have to do that night, out-working the other person. You need to graduate with multiple majors as well as minors and concentrations, or you're lazy for not losing as much sleep worrying about all you need to do and having to do it.

Sometimes we put this pressure on ourselves, feeling like we aren't accomplishing as much with our lives if we take any breaks from our hours of studying, but often times that pressure is put on us from the school itself.

Schools often support events for calming students, and de-stressing them during finals, but the main reason we need those events is because of the school itself. Professors treat their classes like they are the only ones their students are taking, and give work loads that can last hours. On top of all the work that the school forces us to finish in order to do well, we are also encouraged to join as many extracurricular groups as possible. Part of the "college experience" is to be in many societies and go to many events. Myself, I have on top of my classes and homework: theatre productions, acapella, writing for The Odyssey, ultimate frisbee, and trying to keep up with my friends.

How did it come to be that school became a place of needing to do as much as possible and competing to find out who has the most stress? Why are schools promoting this overactivity among students? Yes, there will be a lot of work to do after college, and in a sense college prepares us for this, but by giving us so much to do it also stresses us out about the future. School derives from the Greek word for leisure. When did this change?

It is needless to say that stress is not healthy for a human body. It causes lack of sleep, irritability, and all around feeling like crap. Yet for some reason, schools create this paradox of trying to accommodate for students while making us do as much as we can (mostly making us feel the need to do all we can and more).

We need to change this social construct of stress in school. Schools should focus more on helping students and promoting positive mental health. Provide more forms of support for mental health, don't shove all events in students' faces, and let it be okay for students to do less. And students, don't feel like you are forced to constantly fill your days with activities. Take breaks. Don't feel like you need to go to all the social events, and let yourself just relax and get the sleep your body needs.

Let's make school mean leisure again.