With the summer coming to a swift end and the school year fast approaching, perhaps you are noticing your anxiety levels rising. Elementary school, high school and college/ university students may all feel the stress of a school year for various reasons.
What will I wear on my first day?
Will my friends be in my class?
Will my course load be too heavy?
How on earth am I going to get through all those readings?
It’s no wonder students feel the pressure and overwhelm that a new school year can bring, academically or socially. In this post, I will share three short but effective tips for managing your anxiety.
Attend to your body
Anxiety, just like other emotions, is going to impact our bodies. Maybe like me, you notice that tightness in the chest-feeling starts to mount. Maybe you start to shake or tremble; you feel restless; your heart rate increases or you get that queasy feeling in your stomach. No matter how anxiety impacts you, it's important to attend to those physical sensations. We can do so in many ways, but below are two examples:
Breathing exercises. There are a plethora of breathing exercises that exist to help us to steady and regulate our breathing. Breathing, while simple, can work to activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which cultivates that sense of rest. You can try box breathing, belly breathing and other variations to help!
Progressive muscle relaxation. Progressive muscle relaxation pairs breathing with muscle relaxation. Breathe deeply in while tensing a muscle group… Breathe out and release that tension. There are many guided exercises online that will take you, muscle group, by muscle group and act as a helpful guide.
Grounding Exercises
When anxiety shows up, it often has us worried about something happening in the future or something that happened in the past. It can thrust us right out of the present moment, and create a cycle of concern over matters that are ultimately out of our control in the here and now. Grounding exercises help to bring us back to the present moment and reduce the anxiety we are feeling.
A simple but easy example of grounding is the 54321 exercise. In this exercise, you slow down and take a moment to become aware of your surroundings by engaging your senses. Ask yourself, what are:
5 things you can see
4 things you can touch
3 things you can hear
2 things you can smell
1 thing you can taste
Grounding ourselves using our senses is a great way to bring us back to the present moment. After we do so, the third and final tool below might prove as an effective next step!
Checking the Facts
The difficult and sometimes sneaky thing about anxiety is that, so often, it can have us worried about things that just aren’t true. Oftentimes our presumptions or assumptions about a situation are the real source of anxiety, rather than the situation itself. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) has a simple but effective skill called Check the Facts that helps us to evaluate whether our emotion is rooted in the facts or not.
First, start by identifying the prompting event that is causing your anxiety. Describe the observable facts of the situation. Then consider your assumptions, interpretations and thoughts about that event. Are you assuming a threat or a catastrophe? How else might you look at the situation? After you have taken the time to consider these matters, ask yourself, does your anxiety, its intensity and/or its duration fit the facts of the situation?
Checking the facts alone can help to regulate your anxiety at the moment. Give it a try!
Back-to-school anxiety is a reality for many students and something that can persist into the school year. It’s important to remember that this experience is entirely normal, and some tools exist to help you. If you or your child/teen is struggling with back-to-school anxiety, the above tools are a great place to start. Speak to your clinician to find out how you can better manage the anxiety that comes with the beginning of a new school year.
To learn more about it, start by booking a
15-minute, free of charge,
Meet and Greet with
Leah is a registered social worker providing counselling to 13+ population with her specialty areas being: Shame, Self-Esteem & Perfectionism, Grief and loss, Emotional Regulation, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Substance Addiction, and Faith-Based Counselling.
Comments