Welcome to our summer article on coping with transitions in education. Many children and young people will be moving from one school to another, moving to 6th form, college or university in the next few weeks. Coping with change is often a struggle for many people and even if it’s something we have anticipated positively as the reality draws nearer then anxiety and worries can develop.
Starting in a new school, college or university can be a wonderful and exciting experience, but it can also bring its own unique challenges. The summer holidays are over and here we are in September and about to make a new start. It’s natural to feel nervous or overwhelmed during the first few weeks and it can be a while before you feel like you’ve found your feet.
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Research suggests that only 3.5% of students disclose mental health difficulties to their university.
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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? If you’ve chosen a college or university, you may worry it’s not for you? You may have doubts about the 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 college/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.
What can help
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 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 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 other activities.
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 everyone 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 thought. 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 stress or worries can impact you physically. You may notice that when you think about an 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. Try breathing in through the nose to a count of 4, holding the breath for a count of 4, breathing out through the mouth to a count of 6 (and consciously imagine releasing negative feelings or body tension as you do that).
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. Try finding a smell that you find calming and can connect with pleasant memories – put a few drops of that smell on a tissue or in a small bag and keep it in your pocket. If you feel overwhelmed smelling this can help you connect to positive times.
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 a member of staff trained to help. Lots of education settings have a team to help with emotional and mental health issues – seek them out and go and have a chat.
Identify positive memories and what has helped in the past: remember 5 positive memories in write these down in detail – connect each memory with a positive statement about you eg “I am happy, I am proud, I enjoy achieving things”. Visualise these memories clearly and reinforce what you did in each situation to help make it positive.
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 metabolises 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.
Coping with social anxiety
Social anxiety is something that is experienced by many students at all ages.
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 teacher/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 class, 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.
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 school, college, 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 a family member or 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 friend at school or student, remind them about help that will be freely available, as well as their GP.
Helpful links
Take a look below at these specific sites to help support you.
Barnardo’s | Children’s charity | Barnardo’s (barnardos.org.uk)
YoungMinds | Mental Health Charity For Children And Young People | YoungMinds
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. Take a look at the parents’ guide on YoungMinds.
Transitions and change | Mental Health Parent Guide | YoungMinds
Rachel Wesley
Trauma Psychotherapist and Clinical Supervisor