As exams loom over colleges this month, students are trying to finish their semesters successfully. Sometimes students define a successful exam week as getting good grades and passing classes. While these are important, focusing only on academic success can harm mental health. Learning to manage stress in healthy ways is an essential part of the college experience. Want to learn how to handle the mental weightlifting of exam week? In this piece, we'll explore effective ways to strengthen your mental wellness for exam week and for your future.
What is stress?
Simply defined, stress is the body's reaction to the strain you experience under pressure. It can be a physical, mental or emotional response. Although it gets a bad rap, not all stress is negative. In fact, it is often a catalyst for growth. For example, the uneasiness you may feel when you step out of your comfort zone is an example of positive stress that may help you grow.
Everyone experiences heightened stress at some point. For college students, months like November and April can often take the cake for high-stress seasons. Students' calendars are jam-packed with end-of-semester social events as well as final projects and exams.
Knowing how to strengthen your mental health muscles in these moments is a valuable skill. According to the American Psychological Association, nearly a quarter of adults today rate their daily stress between 8 and 10 (1 being little to no stress and a 10 being a great deal of stress). Because elevated stress is a reality of our culture, it’s essential to know the signs of negative stress and understand how to manage it.
Knowing your stress response
Negative responses to high stress can crop up in several different forms. Here is a list of common reactions people have to high-stress situations to help you identify what you’re going through.
Anxiety and exam week symptoms
Our society frequently uses the word anxiety, but many people talk about it broadly rather than naming thought patterns or actions associated with it. In general, anxiety is excessive worry or fear. Sometimes it looks like looping thoughts that play over and over in your head or catastrophic fears where you exaggerate possible future outcomes in your mind.
Worry and fear can also manifest in physical symptoms, such as racing heartbeat, nausea, sweating, trembling, disrupted sleep and difficulty concentrating when the body perceives the fear or worry as valid.
During exam week, anxiety can take several forms. Along with the symptoms above, some anxious students become perfectionists, setting impossible goals and standards for themselves and then falling apart when they can’t meet the standards. Other anxious students will show avoidant behavior, skipping studying completely or procrastinating.
Depression and exam week symptoms
Feelings of hopelessness, sadness or loss of interest in activities often characterize depression. In general, students experiencing depression have a lack of motivation to get out of bed or study. They will procrastinate and withdraw. And likely, they will feel persistent sadness, guilt or hopelessness about their academic performance.
Burnout and exam week symptoms
This stress response often happens when people experience high-stress levels over a long period with no healthy breaks or self-care. Ultimately, you work to the point of exhaustion. Symptoms begin as irritability and reduced productivity but become severe fatigue and even illness.
How to build mental strength
1. Pursue support and free mental health resources
One of the best things about college is the sheer number of mental health resources available to you for free. From peer mental health coaching and group counseling to individual counseling and crisis resources, colleges know that students need support in psychological well-being as they grow academically and developmentally. These higher education experts also share timely educational materials through free digital newsletters and social media.
Beyond personnel in these offices, campuses build systems of support through student, faculty and staff mentors. Students can benefit from already having established relationships when they need advice. Look out for extra well-being resources during exams too. For example, at Berry, student volunteers who promote mental wellness known as peer educators set up a self-care tools booth that includes therapy dogs, coloring pages and fidget toys for taking brain breaks.
In the future, building a support network and knowing how to find resources to care for yourself will be an advantage.
2. Plan ahead
Most colleges share exam schedules at the beginning of the semester. Figure out when your exams are and which ones you need to prioritize. It’s likely you’ve completed a lot of the classwork before exam week. For example, if 80% of your work for a course is complete, you can figure out which exams and projects matter most. Sometimes your exam will not affect your overall class grade at all. Once you know which exams are most important, schedule out manageable chunks of study time.
In the future, knowing how to reflect on your responsibilities and decide what needs your attention most will be valuable.
3. Prioritize marginal activities
Think of margin as the space between two things. For college students, margin typically describes the time between social and academic activities. It's necessary breathing room or recovery time that helps you mentally recoup. Students often push marginal activities aside, like sleeping, eating and exercising, to pack more into the day. However, disregarding opportunities to recharge significantly impact a student's well-being. Once you build a study plan, make room for the marginal activities that keep you mentally, physically and emotionally fueled. When there is no room for eating, sleeping, breaks or exercise, you’ve built an unmanageable, overcommitted schedule.
Expert Advice:
Terri Cordle, a licensed professional counselor at Berry College who has worked in higher education for over 25 years says, “The best way for students to prioritize mental health is to plan ahead for self-care. But self-care doesn’t mean special activities or treats. Instead, it's about daily habits students do to manage stress: getting adequate and restorative sleep, eating regular nutritious meals, hydrating with non-caffeinated drinks, moving including exercising, spending time outdoors and having downtime where they are not doing school or work-related tasks.
These are the basics of stress-resilience and wellness. Remember: it is productive to take breaks to eat, hydrate, sleep, move and have some downtime. I encourage students to think of these activities as fuel for their minds and bodies. Without fuel, we all lack the energy it takes to focus and concentrate, have clarity of thought, be creative and problem-solve.”
In the future, you will likely juggle more responsibilities and activities than you do in college. Start building the practice of margin in your schedule now.
4. Pause
This practice is for in-the-moment stress response situations. If you find yourself experiencing physical symptoms of anxiety, depression or burnout while studying, practice breathing exercises or get up and walk outside for a few minutes. Meditation, prayer and mindfulness practices can be excellent tools for relaxation that can help you diminish physical responses to stress and regain concentration.
In the future, knowing how to settle yourself and your body will help you get past mental blocks that might keep you from success.
5. Practice positive thinking
If you are struggling with negative thought patterns, share them with a trusted friend or counselor and challenge negative thoughts. Then visualize yourself performing well or achieving your goals, as positive visualization can help boost confidence.
In the future, you will likely be able to name negative thought patterns with practice and push past them when your anxiety or depression is triggered.
In the end, remember that high-stress and pressure situations are a part of life you can learn to manage. Just like training for a race where your body experiences physical stress, building resilience takes practice and training to build your mental health muscles.
