Advice for managing the stress of academic life

While a rise in the number of students seeking mental health services doesn't necessarily mean that there's a crisis in student mental health — it might simply indicate greater mental health awareness — it does highlight the challenges of academic life for a lot of young people.

We spoke with George Radiotis and Heather Ross to get two different perspectives on student mental health in general and depression in particular. Radiotis is a psychotherapist at the Student Wellness Hub at McGill University. Ross comes to the subject from personal experience. She's experienced several bouts of depression throughout her life, starting in her undergraduate days, and shares what she's learned on her blog betterme.ca, as well as by coaching university students in time management and goal-setting. Radiotis and Ross told us what makes university life so challenging, and what students (and everyone else) can do to make themselves more resilient.

Academics, adulting and stress

Post-secondary education comes with a big step up in responsibility and demands. The academic work is harder and students are often learning to take care of themselves for the first time. Ross told us that being away from home and their usual support systems as well as the vast tracts of unstructured time involved in university can make managing all these things more challenging. As Radiotis puts it, "in addition to all the academic stuff, we're 'adulting' for the first time. People are making decisions about their relationships and career that may affect them for the rest of their lives," and that helps create a feeling that the stakes are very high.

Perfectionism, says Radiotis, can also make all of these challenges much harder to handle. "People feel like they can't make a mistake. They have a sequence of events mapped out in their mind, and if they don't go according to that plan, they beat themselves up over it." And when people are struggling with mental health, they are often even more inclined to blame themselves. 

The stress of these combined challenges can trigger depression and anxiety, which in turn makes academic work more daunting. Radiotis is careful to distinguish between the effects of different mental illnesses. "Anxiety tends to cause more worrying and mind racing and makes it hard to focus. Depression is more of a system shutdown that makes it hard to get out and about each day." However, says Radiotis, all mental health struggles "impact our cognitive abilities: our focus; our memory; our ability to learn things. And that's the crux of academics." 

Managing perfectionism

To tame perfectionism, Radiotis recommends that new students manage their expectations of themselves. "Remember, it's very common to have a dip in GPA when you get to university. Things are harder and more complicated. If you are a perfectionist about your grades, this may set up a cascade of other events that will make things more challenging for you." Mistakes are how people learn, so when we make them, says Radiotis, "we should focus on how we can adapt and learn rather than thinking 'I've failed; I'm not good at this.' Try to be a more positive coach to ourselves rather someone who sits at the sidelines and yells at us when things aren't going well."

Prioritizing self-care

Sleeping and eating well, maintaining a solid support network and social life, and exercising all promote your mental health. Not attending to these things puts you at risk. Ross likens self-care to an airplane oxygen mask: "If there's a loss of cabin pressure, put your mask on first. If you're not taking care of yourself you can't do anything else," she says. "When I ask students who come in for help if they are sleeping, eating well, exercising, that all went out the window a long time ago." When people feel overwhelmed, self-care is usually the first thing that people cut to meet other demands. This is a mistake because these things are what give us the focus and energy to deal effectively with other challenges. 

Ross says building strong healthy habits before depression hits can both be preventative and can make it easier to keep taking care of yourself when things get tough. Don't leave this stuff for your "spare time," says Ross. "Schedule exercise and sleep like you schedule your classes. Treat it like you have a meeting with yourself." When you don't put things in your schedule, it's easier to let them slide. Building self-care into your schedule treats it with the importance it deserves, and helps to build up good habits.

Asking for help

While getting help can sound like an obvious first step, people often avoid taking it. "People can feel ashamed when they are struggling," says Radiotis, "and that can prevent them from reaching out. Ross herself says that it was only on her third bout of depression that she reached out for help right away, and that it made a world of difference. "You have to ask for help and be willing to take it. This isn't easy for everyone because if you're a high achiever and your identity is built around that, it can be difficult to accept help from people."

University campuses have a wealth of services available with plenty of points of contact. Radiotis says, "It can be your academic advisor, your floor fellow in residence, or your peers. There are phone services and access advisors. If the person you speak to can't help you directly, they can probably tell you who can."

Keeping track of what helps

If you're experiencing, or have experienced, depression Ross recommends keeping a record of your patterns. What did you try? What effect did it have? Make a list and keep it handy so you can refer to it if depression strikes again. Ross has posted her own "what worked for me" list here. Hers includes things we've mentioned such as regular exercise and asking for help, but also things that don't jump immediately to mind, such as using to-do apps and calendars to get thoughts out of her head and to combat the memory impairment associated with depression. 

There are no one-size-fits-all solutions. "This is an individualistic thing," says Radiotis, "so I try to explore with the person what has happened in the past and what helped them. Sometimes the only way to figure it out is trial and error."

Mental illness is extremely common, but it is also individual. Different things work for different people, in different situations. Therefore, it's best to have a repertoire of coping strategies rather than depending on just one. As Radiotis says,  "The hammer is a great tool, but it's not very effective when you're facing a screw. It's best to have an entire box of tools and the ability to recognize which ones will be effective in each context."

Clifton Mark writes about philosophy, psychology, politics, and other life-related topics. Find him @Clifton_Mark on Twitter.