Engineering student Ahmad sits, alone in his room, staring at a bottle of sleeping pills. Taking all those pills, he thinks, will solve all of his problems.
In 21 August 2017 the National student survey revealed that 82% of students at UK universities suffer from stress and more worrying than that, one in five students have had suicidal feelings. Students who have poor organizational skills tend to experience more stress in schools and colleges, usually because they are not properly prepared for the challenges ahead of them. Lack of support from parents and teachers can also add a lot of stress in students and they may feel that a lot is expected from them. This is a cause of stress that can affect hard working students in particular.
“Student’s stress is higher than general public,” says Doctor Abdullah Umer Rehan Physiatrist in city hospital Peterborough. “Approximately 80% in random stressed students did not get the mental health care they needed, stressed students cannot learn and also that stressed students are more abused more than others when they are in stress.”
There is no specific treatment for stress. “But there are some treatments which could help,” says Dr Abdullah. “Talking with trained professionals can help you learn to deal with stress; Cognitive behaviour therapy is a type of talking treatment which helps you”. The expert also left some advice for people who are struggling with this problem: “Talk with someone who could not judge you, do some exercise. Swimming is a better option, watch entertaining movies, spend time with family, read books, do not stay alone, try to be social and creative, try to love yourself, these things, help to resolve complicated feelings or try to find a way to live with them.”
Stress manifests itself when people feel burdened and they do not know how to overcome those problems. Some students have study tension when their exams are near or when their projects deadlines are closing, and in many cases, students stress more about their love life then their studies. There is also work tension, when people feel big amounts of pressure to finish their tasks in the intended.
“I am always in stress because I have a lot of pressure from University,” says Muhammad Pasha, a physiotherapy student at Coventry University. He complains stress has taken over his life and that all he does is think about university tasks and little more than that. He even claims that they gave me a lot of work to do, “I have a lot of assignments, presentations, and exams, I cannot eat properly I cannot sleep properly, I have a lot of pain in my shoulders, my mind always stuck in studies. Sometimes I motivate myself saying that these problems are temporary, but somehow I am not getting out of this problem”.
Ahmad, the mechanical engineering student from University of central Peterborough thought seriously about suicide due to all the pressure he was feeling but he never took those sleeping pills. “I could not handle the pressure of work and study at same time; this pressure brings anxiety, depression, tension and stress together and I cannot manage both things. With this I feel pain in my shoulders, I feel lazy and I get headaches. I’m also irritated by usual things, sometimes I cannot even breathe easily. Some days ago, I visited my family doctor, who claimed this was all because of stress, he gave me some medicines and further recommended me to join the gym, and go out for morning walks to get rid of this problem”.
Ahmad is doing better and with a smile on his face he confesses that “I’m feeling better now because i have finished my exams”.