Being a college student comes with stress related to studies, work, money, personal relationships and more. In a survey conducted by the VOICE, out of 30 students, 53% said school is their main stressor.
Maya Gordon, a 19-year old student at Mercer, says, “I could say what you want to hear [about how I deal with stress] like different coping mechanisms and things of the sort but as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized it’s easier said than done.”
Instead, Gordon says the reality is, “I tend to shut down and cry in my room.”
According to Bud Livingston, a Health Professor at Mercer, the first step in managing stress is managing the causes and being aware of symptoms. A reaction to stress is the flight or fight concept, he says: your instinct it to handle the situation is fight or run.
While much research and many tests have been done on stress, The Franklin Institute for the Sciences website states, “As science gains greater insight into the consequences of stress on the brain, the picture that emerges is not a pretty one.”
According to Mercer’s Senior Counselor, Dorothy Gasparro, who has been a counselor for 14 years, students struggle with the transition from high school to college, managing the differences between expectations and reality, and not having adequate support networks.
In a VOICE survey of 50 students conducted for a previous article, 75 percent said they have problems with anxiety and 65 percent said they suffer from depression. Taking time to deal with these issues can cause students to miss class and assignments which in turn leads to more stress.
Professor Livingston suggests a variety of ways to begin to think about handling stress. These include: trying to shift how you view your problems, controlling emotions through meditation and exercise, building a social support network including family and friends, doing activities like deep breathing, praying, and trying to get seven to eight hours of sleep per night.
With so many common stressors among students, Gasparro says, “There are a lot of resources; there’s me, the success coaches, clubs, and SGA to get involved and to reach out to for help.”
