I won’t pretend to be an expert on anxiety, but I have experienced feelings of anxiety of the social kind as well as general anxiety towards various aspects of my life. I spent over a year and a half in what I can only describe as a depressive state which, combined with these crippling feelings of anxiety, affected my ability to focus on school work. My motivation to make this post was triggered by several messages I’ve received in the few months that I’ve been a studyblr, asking me how one can balance studying and anxiety. I have attempted to compile a list of resources that will help anybody out there who suffers from anxiety, no matter how severe. Some of these resources are external sources and some are just personal views/pieces of advice based on things that really helped me. Some will relate specifically to studying whilst some will relate generally to taking care of oneself. They won’t work for everyone, but I hope these help at least one person feel better.
Pacifica From simply telling the app how you feel to conducting deep breathing exercises, this app aims to flush away as much of your anxiety as possible by combining elements of mental and physical relaxation. Logging your feelings like this can help you track patterns and triggers in your anxiety, which can help you prepare or control for those triggers in future. Nobody’s anxiety is the same, so this helps you understand your own anxiety as opposed to the general umbrella-term definition of anxiety they give online. This technique might not be equally effective for anyone, again partly because of how diverse anxiety is, but part of understanding your own anxiety is also understanding what doesn’t work. So trial it for a week or so, and if it doesn’t work you absolutely don’t have to continue using the app.
Self-help for Anxiety Management (SAM) Similar to Pacifica, SAM was developed by a team of Psychologists, Computer Scientists and students at the University of West England. This app has great reviews and not only has it been trialled by the student demographic but it was developed in part by them too. This app also enables you to build your own bespoke toolkit of in-app resources based on what you find personally helpful.
My self care tag features a lot of posts (by other people) that have resources to help you look after yourself. Most of these are nothing to do with studying or academia; Instead, they focus on general wellness and self care
How to deal with anxiety when learning by David Mansaray
Printable anxiety self-help guide by Moodjuice
Anxiety and panic attacks by Mind
Managing anxiety with creativity by Mind
10 best ever anxiety management techniques by the Australian National University
How Do You Feel? By This Way Up This page helps you establish exactly what emotions it is that you’re feeling and gives you self-help advice based on that specific feeling/those specific feelings. They even offer courses to help you control and hopefully overcome your anxiety. They report that 80% of users benefit substantially from using their programmes, whilst 50% emerge reporting that they are no longer affected by anxiety. A 3-month supervised course costs $59 AUD. Online courses/iOS courses are also offered, but those are only available in Australia. If you’d require a parent or guardian to pay on your behalf, please ask the cardholder’s permission before you purchase the course. Courses are viewable here but you can navigate the site to find courses that fit different, specific needs.
20 scientifically backed ways to de-stress right now
These are things that have worked for me personally, so I’m sharing them with you in the hope that they help some of you too.
Break things down. Looking at the big picture can be daunting and triggering. This works for general tasks as well as for academic ones. Break down your day into a list of all the individual things you need to do. First of all, externalising the information and making it a visual list as opposed to a jumble of thoughts will help you make sense of everything. Then, look at the tasks you have and see if they can be broken down further. For example, if you have a 30-page chapter in a textbook you need to read, break that down into 6 sets of 5 pages as opposed to one big lump of 30 pages. Then, take it five pages at a time. Each fifth page that you read is a stepping stone achievement towards the main achievement and having those smaller, more readily achievable goals to aim for really will help. This also works with academic topics in general. If you have a really complex concept you need to digest and remember that you just can’t make any sense of, break it down into the simplest terms possible. For example, start with “In the English language, there are consonants and vowels.” Once you’re certain with that, try and further that to “There are front, central and back vowels.” And “There are nasal, plosive, fricative, etc. consonants.” Get comfortable with each extra step you take before you take another step towards the more complex stuff. Learn things and break them down until you could teach them to someone else.
Widen your margin of error. This one was the most difficult for me to achieve, but if you work towards it, you will get there. It’s all about accepting that perfection is unattainable. Nobody is perfect. Everyone messes up, everyone makes mistakes, and everyone makes wrong decisions. It’s a part of life and it’s a part of how we learn. Whether it’s tripping over your words whilst talking to someone or failing a test, you need to allow yourself to accept that it’s happened and you can’t change it. Focus on what you can change (i.e. your future) as opposed to what you can’t change (i.e. the past). Sure, you could have gotten a B on that test if you’d studied more. But you didn’t. And you can’t change that now. So why worry about it? Worry about making sure you do get a B on the next test by studying further in advance. It took me so long to learn to think like this but now I’m able to put things into perspective. If I’m worrying about something I ask myself “Why am I worrying about this?” and then “Can I change this?”. I often find that the things I’m worrying about are either things that have already happened and I no longer have control over, or things that are yet to happen that I am totally capable of controlling for.
Try to avoid catastrophizing. It’s all so easy to think “I’ll never get this done today.” When you’re working on a really long, difficult piece of work. Sometimes, you get so caught up in thinking that you’ll “never get this done” that you waste precious time worrying about it when you could be making progress. Instead of saying “I’ll never get this done.”, try thinking “Okay, maybe I don’t have as much time as I’d like to complete this. But I’ll make the most of the time that I do have and do as much as I can.”
Trick yourself with early deadlines. This one was a game changer for me after dragging myself (and what felt like 1000 tonnes of anxiety through my third year at Uni). This year, when I’m told a deadline by a lecturer, I write it down in my planner two days before that date. So if a deadline for an assignment is 11:59pm on Friday the 15th of January, I write it down in my planner that the deadline is 11:59pm on Wednesday the 13th of January. Then I work towards that deadline as though that’s the actual due date. This means that even if I don’t start the assignment until “the day before it’s due” (the 12th), I still then have a couple of days to fix it up before the actual deadline. This won’t work for everyone, but it’s changed my life.
Change where you’re studying. Sometimes, you develop negative connotations with a certain room or space. Sometimes it’s good to associate a certain activity with a certain space, but a lot of people study in their bedrooms which is also the place they tend to go when they’re feeling anxious/depressed. So try switching it up. Study in the kitchen, or the lounge, or the library, or outside someplace, or at a coffee shop. Somewhere different that extracts you from the environment you associate with negativity and into a new, positive-feeling environment.
Talk yourself out of it. Quash negative thoughts as soon as they sprout. All it takes is a spark to start a fire, so you need to stamp that spark out before it can do any damage. This relates back to catastrophizing, where you feel like you’ll never get something done and then your mind takes you down this long, winding path of catastrophe after catastrophe and before you know it you’ve given up entirely on studying because what’s the point? If you counteract these negative thoughts with something more productive like “I might be starting a couple of paces further back than I’d like to be, but at least I’m starting.”
Hold a pen between your teeth. I know this seems ridiculous, but this is something that absolutely works for me. You know how people tell you to smile even when you’re not happy because it tricks your brain into thinking you’re happy? Well bullshit to that. Sometimes you just don’t feel like smiling right? Sometimes, even, you can’t smile because you feel so down. Instead, pop a pen between your teeth and hold it there, with your teeth bared. This has the same effect on your brain, only you’re not having to force yourself to smile. Besides, it might even cheer you up because you’re sitting there now biting down on a pen because some stranger on the internet told you to. But it genuinely works. You might not feel happy and dandy just because you held a pen in your mouth, but your mind will react in ways that you don’t necessarily pick up on.
Keep a diary. Don’t make it so that you have to write a page-long entry about your feelings every day because this can be as triggering as anything else. Instead, keep a little pocket book somewhere that you can access easily if you need to. Split the pages into three columns: How I feel; What caused it; and Action. In the how I feel column, write the emotion you’re experiencing. In the next column, write what triggered that emotion, whether it’s school work or a friend or a family member or a social situation. Next, write down what you’re doing to turn that emotion into something positive or something you can learn from. I used this technique last year, and it’s basically a way of logging your feelings in the same way as you do with the apps Pacifica and SAM. It helps you visualise your triggers but you have the added, positive element of seeing the action you’re taking to try and elevate your anxiety. Externalising your thoughts by writing everything down makes them seem more manageable.
Exercise. Exercise really helped me overcome my anxiety. Even if it was just 10 minutes, there was something so invigorating about it that I just wanted to keep going, mentally and physically. After I was done working out and I’d showered and felt good, I’d want to keep that feeling going by doing more productive things. Plus, working out helped relieve stress through physical exertion. Exercising always boosts my focus, motivates me, and releases stress, plus you can get fitter at the same time.
See a counsellor/doctor. Some people aren’t comfortable visiting a doctor because they think they’ll immediately be put on medication. This is when it might be advisable for you to visit a counsellor. Most universities offer a counselling department where trained professionals listen to your problems and provide advice where they can. They can recommend that you visit a doctor if they believe that you need medical assistance. If your anxiety is really bad, though, I wouldn’t rule out the option of going to your doctor.
I hope this helps you in some way. I’ll say it again: I’m not medically qualified to give professional advice. I am merely sharing what’s worked for me in the hopes that it helps somebody else out there who is suffering. These things won’t work for everyone because everyone works in different ways and everyone’s anxiety is different, so please don’t fall under the impression that I think everything I’m saying here is gospel. Thank you for reading, and good luck to all of you!
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