With the end of the college semester leering, students are rushing to study for approahing exams and get their last-minute assignments done, but what should we do when it all gets too much? Around 1 in 6 people in Ireland will experience mental health problems like anxiety in their lifetime. According to a journal published by the Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine 32% of young males and 36% of young females suffer from anxiety. Students feel increased levels of stress coming up to the end of the year and especially the end of semester two.
A first year student Ciara Ferguson says “Sometimes I find the amount of assignments overwhelming especially at the end of the year when there are so many presentations and assignments due at the same time”. With this increased amount of pressure sometimes students don’t know where to turn, and often are unaware of the service their colleges offer to them in these difficult times.
In UL different workshops are run during the week and sometimes they do tackle issues like college-induced anxiety and worry. As well as this, meditation classes run on Mondays and relaxation classes from Tuesday to Friday. Student counselling services are available on campus every weekday, with hours allocated for drop-in services.
There are a few self-care tips that can be done to tackle anxiety yourself in your everyday life. Some tips include repeat your worry until you’re bored silly and the worry seems tedious and significant, set aside a few minutes a day to write down and schedule all tasks that are making you anxious, breathing exercises etc.
Assignments and exams are of course a big part of college life fourth-year student Beth O’ Neill says. “Although I understand that continuous assessments and assignments are necessary in order to measure how well a student is performing academically – and I prefer them to exams – they do place an enormous amount of pressure on the student, especially those that occur on a weekly basis.”
So, if you feel like everything is getting too much at the end of this semester know you aren’t alone and there are loads of relaxation methods that will help keep your composure while you try to get through the last few weeks of college. If you feel like everything is becoming too over-whelming, do not hesitate to talk to someone – a problem shared is a problem halved.