Welcome to our March article on mental health at University. Starting university can be a wonderful and exciting experience, but it can also bring its own unique challenges. It’s natural to feel nervous or overwhelmed during the first few weeks at university, and it can be a while before you feel like you’ve found your feet.
Loneliness
Loneliness whilst at university is a common experience that can feel unpleasant and affect your thinking but is something that can be overcome.
The pandemic has disrupted education delivery and social lives leaving many students feeling lonely, as a result of online delivery of lectures or limited in person delivery of lessons. We are social creatures who benefit from being around others and therefore, these feelings of isolation and loneliness can be compounded if we are missing home.
Loneliness can feel painful and troubling. It can bring other emotions with it, like sadness, frustration and anxiety. You might be annoyed with yourself or feel like you should be able to manage better.
In reality, loneliness is a normal human response to the absence of something we need. It’s like feeling thirsty as a response to needing a drink. Loneliness is simply a warning sign that we need to act to improve our social connections and can be a result of a lack of quality social connections. You may spend a lot of time around other people and still feel lonely.
The key to overcoming loneliness is to focus on spending time, with others, that feels meaningful and enjoyable. You may wish to consider focusing on helping other people, as when we help other people we connect with them and their needs and that connection is positive for us. Or you could try to find ways to help friends, family , or spend time doing enjoyable activities with others – you could join a volunteering scheme or join a Students’ Union society or club at your university.
Loneliness can influence how we evaluate our social interactions, where you may feel that you aren’t enjoying time with others. Even if you used to enjoy time with friends more, it’s still better to have a little bit of pleasurable company than none at all. In time, you will find that your ability to enjoy social situations will increase again.
Research suggests that only 3.5% of students disclose mental health difficulties to their university.
75% of students who are struggling disclose to their mates, which shows that friends can play a key role in supporting each other’s mental health.
Second term blues
If you’re finding the second term more challenging than you expected, taking some steps might make it easier to manage. It is quite common for some students to find the second term more challenging than they expected and start thinking – is there something wrong with me? Is university not for me? Have I chosen the right course or location?
These second term blues are a common experience and will usually go away after a short period of time. The first term can be scary but also exciting. This excitement can help to power you through. However, once settling into university, it may not seem quite as exciting now.
By accepting this as normal can reduce the impact it has on you. Remind yourself that many students go through this, that it will go away and that your past experiences of being a student will help you. You got through the first term – you can do this. Try to stay active, create good routines and structures for each day, be proactive in taking care of your wellbeing and try to plan some fun into each week.
Try to get outside in daylight for 20-30 minutes most days, even if it is gloomy outside. Exercising outside can also help raise your mood – even a brisk walk may improve how you feel.
Friendship groups at university often move around at the beginning and end of term. People you were close to may drift away, while other people become more important to you. You might feel that the friendships you made in the first term don’t feel quite as good now. Or you may feel you haven’t made any friends yet and are worried about being isolated. This is a natural part of university life but it can cause some people to feel upset or worried. So, keep trying new things and creating opportunities to make new friends. Consider joining some Students’ Union societies or inviting a course mate for a drink.
If you are concerned about your academic performance, use the support available to you at your university. This may be a personal or academic tutor, a study skills advisor or mentor. It is never too late to improve your academic skills and your university wants you to succeed, so don’t be afraid to ask for help to improve.
You may have discovered that your finances don’t stretch as far as you’d expected or that the Covid-19 pandemic has made it harder to get paid work. If you are experiencing money problems, worry can prevent you from taking positive action to improve your circumstances. Managing your emotions around finance can be an important step in taking control of your money. Thinking about the problem makes us anxious, so we avoid thinking about it at all and pretend things aren’t that bad. Or we worry so much that we can’t think straight and struggle to decide on a way forward and so don’t tackle the problem. Consider putting together a student budget and finding sources for extra finances.
Managing worry or stress
Managing stress or worries can impact you physically. You may notice that when you think about any university issue you get uncomfortable feelings in your stomach or chest, you may clench your jaw or hold your shoulders tight or you may feel physically agitated. This can lead to headaches, tiredness and irritability. Your sleep can be disrupted causing you to sleep too little or too much or your academic work may suffer if you find it reduces your ability to think and concentrate. How you feel may also have a negative effect on your relationships.
Accepting the situation you find yourself in, and working to take control of your situation or difficulty is usually the best way to reduce your worry and anxiety. Which can be easier said than done and you may need to take some steps to feel calmer, before taking positive action. There are a number of ways that you can do this, be aware that different things work for different people, so it may help to experiment with some of the suggestions:
Breathe: when we are anxious we breathe in short, shallow breaths. This helps to keep us on edge and increases our anxious feelings. Consciously controlling your breathing can help to reduce these feelings, so you can think about what you want to do and then act. You may want to try breathing deep down into your stomach and exhale for a longer.
Ground yourself: by connecting physically to your surroundings. It may help to feel your feet on the ground, or you back against the back of the chair and just concentrate on these sensations for a few moments.
Relax your muscles: starting in your feet, tense up your muscles for a few moments and then let them relax. Then work up your body. This will gradually help you to relax.
Face reality: worry will convince you that the problem is worse than it is. Get yourself into a calmer state and then look at the true picture.
Reach out for support: you may find it helps to chat to a friend, family member or member of support services at your university.
Identify positive steps forward: taking control will make you feel hopeful and help you to stay motivated to address the problem.
Sleep
Quality sleep can help us to manage negative thoughts and emotions and provide us with the energy to tackle the problems we face. Here are a few suggestions to help improve your sleep.
Caffeine has a half-life of 8 hours, so try not to have caffeine or energy drinks during the few hours before bed. If you find it very difficult to get to sleep, try to cut out all caffeine after mid-day.
Make your bedroom comfortable and make your bed a place that your brain associates with rest and sleep. If possible, try not to work on your bed or you may find that laundering your sheets more regularly helps you to sleep better.
Try to get some natural daylight during the day, 20 to 30 minutes in sunlight will help your brain calibrate daytime and night-time, making it easier to sleep at night.
Regular exercise can help to improve your sleep, by tiring out your body and helping you to reduce anxiety and stress.
Try to have the bedroom at around 18°C, as this is suggested to be the best temperature for a restful night.
Try to get a routine of waking up and going to bed at the same time every day, including weekends.
Try to not use any screen-based devices for at least an hour before bedtime. This includes phones, iPads, laptops, PCs, Kindles and TVs. Try to reduce your exposure to these devices during the evening. Set a time when you will stop checking or answering emails or messages.
Put your phone on ‘do not disturb’ or remove it from the bedroom altogether, so that you don’t continue to monitor it for incoming messages or alerts.
Establish a restful pre-sleep routine that you can follow every night. This may involve reading, listening to music, preparing yourself for bed (taking make-up off, changing), releasing nice smells into your bedroom, breathing exercises, preparing for the next day etc. Going through the same routine will prompt your brain to prepare for sleep.
Warm baths and showers can help your body to relax and by encouraging your body temperature to drop can induce feelings of sleepiness.
Avoid, or try to limit, your alcohol intake before bed – alcohol doesn’t help us sleep well as whilst it metabolizes out of your body it can wake you up.
Don’t fight thoughts that appear as you are trying to go to sleep. Tell yourself that you will think about them the following morning, then either write them down or imagine locking them in a box for now.
Studying successfully with a mental health diagnosis
If mental health difficulties are affecting your ability to study, these suggestions can help to put you in a better position to succeed and manage your wellbeing.
Mental health difficulties can sometimes have a big impact on concentration, motivation and our ability to focus on the tasks we need to complete. The impact of medication can also impact on your ability to focus across the day. But with the right support and help, there is every reason to believe in your ability to be successful as a student.
Consider applying for the Disabled Students Allowance
The Disabled Students Allowance (DSA) is there to cover the cost of additional support that you might need, due to your mental health difficulty, during your time at university. This could include specialist equipment, non-medical helpers, any extra travel or other disability-related costs related to your studies. This is provided on top of any existing student finance and you do not need to pay it back.
Talk to your university about reasonable adjustments
If you have a diagnosed mental health difficulty you will be eligible for reasonable adjustments to your course. This is the case whether you apply for DSA or not. Reasonable adjustments will vary but can include having additional time to complete assessments, extra time in timed exams or alternative assessments.
Reasonable adjustments are there to support you to achieve your potential and reduce the impact of your mental health difficulty. To receive reasonable adjustments, you will need to provide recent medical evidence of your diagnosis, such as a GP letter or letter from your care team.
Think about what has worked with study before and what hasn’t been helpful
If you are attending university, you will have engaged in some form of study previously. This is really important knowledge that you can use. Think about what worked before and what didn’t. Were there times that your mental health difficulty made it difficult to study and work effectively and how did you cope with this? Think about what you need around you to work to your best and put these things in place.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions and seek support
Although your personal tutor will usually not be a mental health professional, they can be a great source of support during your studies.
If you feel comfortable doing so, it can be helpful to let them know that you have a mental health difficulty. You do not have to share in great detail, but letting them know will help them to understand your experience.
You might want to discuss with them any particular concerns you have about your studies. The earlier you seek help, the better as your university will want to support you to succeed and to overcome any challenges to your learning. Alternatively, consider talking to the university mental health advisor.
Social Anxiety
Social anxiety is something that is experienced by many students at all levels of study. The thought of engaging in day-to-day social activities with other people may make you feel overwhelmed and anxious or you may believe that you are the only person who finds social situations difficult. Some people have found the circumstances created by coronavirus have exacerbated their anxiety. However, there are ways in which we can manage and overcome social anxiety.
Get to know your social anxiety. Anxiety is often building long before we notice it, so it may be useful to think about what particularly triggers it.
- What is happening when you begin to feel anxious? Who is there? What are you doing or thinking about doing?
- When it is triggered, what thoughts start to go through your mind and how do these thoughts make you feel?
- When the anxious feeling comes, can you notice what happens in your body and write this down.
- Finally, when the mind and body react, what does this make you want to do.
Are your usual responses helping you?
It can be helpful to think about what your social anxiety leads you to do, that might not be helping you in the long term, known as ‘safety behaviours’, which are things we do to make it all feel a bit more bearable in the moment. For example, avoid the situation or avoid looking at other people because you are worried they might be staring at you and this will make you feel worse.
Whilst these often make us feel a bit better in the short term, they don’t help us in the long term. When we avoid things, it often leads us to feeling annoyed with ourselves or feeling guilty about what we haven’t done. We also miss opportunities to engage in things that are good for us.
Identifying behaviours that may make you feel less anxious in the moment, but make things worse over time, can be an important step towards taking control of them and changing them. For example, if you avoid going to lectures, because you’re worried your lecturer may ask you a question, then you miss out on learning and potentially enjoying your subject and may then become worried about your academic progress. Whereas if you can make it into the lecture, you can start to take back control from the anxiety.
Be kind to yourself and note your successes. Consider trying something that feels possible and positive, as you achieve one small step you can move on to the next. During the pandemic some of your teaching may have been delivered online and you may have avoided these sessions. Try joining them but leave your video camera off or if you have been attending but felt unable to speak in discussions you could put a comment in the chat box.
If something doesn’t go to plan, try not to criticise yourself. It takes courage to consider attempting and with every achievement you make remember to congratulate yourself.
Breathing exercises can help to reduce the physical impact. Relaxation techniques which target the muscles in our body may also help to reduce physical tension. The mind and the body are connected, so if we can calm the body down the mind usually follows.
Support from others. It may be helpful to speak to people that you trust to let them know how you’re feeling, where they can support and encourage you. If social anxiety is getting in the way of your studies or your enjoyment of being a student, access any support available at your university or contact your GP.
Seeking help
Take time to talk and reflect on what’s going on for you now. That may be talking to your partner, a family member, close friend. If you don’t feel able to open up to those close to you (perhaps as you don’t want to worry anyone), therapy can be beneficial. It offers a safe space to reflect on why you are experiencing low mood, look at positive ways to reduce and manage it, utilising practical strategies and techniques to cushion yourself.
If you are worried about a fellow student, remind them about help that will be freely available on campus, as well as their GP.
Helpful links
Take a look below at these specific sites to help support you.
About student mental health – Mind
Mental health at university (thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk)
We have a helpful section on our website about what to do if you/someone else is feeling stressed or mentally unwell Frequently Asked Questions – The Wellness Consultancy along with a list of useful self help resources on our website thewellnessconsultancy.org.
You may be a parent of a child at university and have concerns or could be struggling yourself to adjust to not having a child at home. Whatever your difficulty, please get in touch with us.
Helen Hyland
Child and Adolescent Therapist