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Many students can experience a mix of feelings during their university degrees. The challenging tasks trigger feelings of uneasiness and stress that can impact students performance, health and wellbeing. It is not easy to beat those feelings, and it is not okay to live with them. This post will help students to get over their fear and anxiety.
The uneasy feelings of stress, fear and anxiety happen when students are going through a stressful period of exams and assignments which require both attention and time. Those feelings are a double-edged sword as they can help push students to work harder, but they can also make students fall into analysis paralysis that can prevent students from taking action.
Why do students experience those feelings?
Why do students experience stress?
Stress happens when students feel that they can not finish the task on time. The best way to prevent stress is to become a better planner and start working on your assignments as early as possible. You can learn more about balancing your university life to become a better planner here.
Why do students experience fear and anxiety
Fear happens when students do not have enough knowledge or information to do the work, making students afraid of losing marks or failing. Although fear can push Students to do better, it can also make students too fearful of falling. Anxiety usually affects perfectionist students that are always trying to obtain higher marks. The study can be less stressful if you focus more on learning and less on results. Learn more on how to stand out as a student to deal with stress.
6 Tips To Beat Stress, Fear And Anxiety
1- Become a planner
It is essential to plan things early to beat stress. Your worries will become less if you know exactly when you should finish an assignment and how to finish it. Therefore, noting down all your assignments and tasks in your calendar early in the semester can save you time, make you more organised and less stressed.
In addition, students must start working on their assignments very early to get all their questions answered by the teacher early to finish the tasks. Waiting until the last minute to do something will only make you more stressed, preventing you from getting feedback on your work before submission.
2- Take break
If you are the type of person who is usually anxious during the study, then taking a break can help to energise you and make you more productive. There are two types of breaks you can do to beat anxiety. First, you can allocate a specific time during the week to do a particular activity such as doing a sport or socialising with friends that can help to ease the pressure of study and change your mode.
The second is taking small breaks during your study. Most people do not realise that studying more does not necessarily help because most people lose focus and interest quickly when studying, specifically after the first hour. That is why it is essential to take a short 5 minutes break every 40-30 minutes. The break can be calling a friend or eating a snack to increase productivity, reduce anxiety and keep things interesting.
Watch this short video of Marty Lobdell explaining how taking short breaks during your study can make you study effectively and be less stressed.
3- Do not overthink and do your best
When students are uncertain of something, they tend to overthink too much. The issue is that overthinking can make you stressed and prevent you from doing the most important thing: study. Therefore, do not try to be a perfectionist and just focus on learning to get over any feelings of stress and anxiety.
4- Study to learn not for marks
Students should focus more on learning than getting good marks. Study to learn not for marks will reduce fear and stress and form a better connection between the student and the topic, increase productivity and improve the lessons learned process. Studying only for marks is not good, because studies are more concerned about their performance than understanding the subject, leading to stress.
5- Form connections with other students
A great way of beating stress and anxiety is to form connections with other students. You will realise that what you struggle with is usually the same as other students. That has a tremendous psychological effect on people because you will realise that you are trying your best. Therefore, other students can be an excellent resource to help finish an assignment or get your questions answered.
6- Ask for help
If you are struggling with multiple issues, it is vital to ask for help. Most universities run private consultations to help students deal with fear, anxiety, and stress and find a way to reduce those effects on students. On the other hand, stress might happen because you are struggling with understanding something; in this case, you should ask your lecturer and other students for help.
