Are you a college student dealing with anxiety?
If so, you're not alone. A new study just found students
are more stressed out now than they have been in a decade.
Symptoms ranged from difficulty handling schoolwork to
changes in eating, energy levels and sleeping patterns.
Why are our children struggling so much? Mental health
counselor and anxiety treatment expert Justine Carino says it's much more than
just the pandemic at play.
There's a lot of anticipatory anxiety around what the
academic expectations are going to look like.
The
Turn to Tara team brings us five simple things you can
do right now to feel better:
Carino says start with practicing mindfulness.
"One of the skills I like to teach is the rainbow
room. You go through the colors of the rainbow in your head. So, if you're
starting to feel really anxious, name everything in your dorm room that's red,
orange, and hopefully by the end of the exercise, you're a little bit more
present with yourself," says Carino.
Next -- learn how to challenge the way you're thinking. Ask
yourself -- is this thought true? Is this thought helpful?
Another tip is called give your mind a name.
"I tell people to literally name the anxious part of
their mind. To remind you of someone or something that you don't like so much,
right? This gives you some power to choose whether or not you listen to this
anxious part of your brain. You want the confident part of your brain to step
in and say anxiety, you're not taking the wheel," says Carino.
Tip four involves creating a mental health routine that you
can stick to. For some people, that could mean getting up early for a morning
run.
The last tip involves setting boundaries with people and
time.