Stress, of any kind, is an integral part of a student’s life. Barring the initial few years of your school life, maybe up to primary school, stress, and the feeling of being pressurised becomes a constant all throughout your learning years.

With increasing competition, limited opportunities, and pressure from peer groups, parents, family, and society in general, the feeling of getting drowned is becoming more commonplace and evident when I interact with my students.

I, through this blog, wish to identify reasons that cause stress among students and then suggest ways to cope with and manage your stress, to be able to perform your optimum.

To some extent, a bit of pressure about your studies, performance, and grades is justified and quite natural, the problem arises when the stress becomes overwhelming and completely perplexes a student from giving his or her best. This state of perplexity leads to more stress and a vicious cycle sets in, sometimes leading to disastrous results.

Common reasons for stress:

Procrastination- (the biggest killing reason):

One of the most common reasons is the habit, students develop of postponing their work and not doing it on time. Studies, assignments, homework, and projects are a few things that are constant and regular and if, as a student, you do not have the habit of completing them punctually, then over a period of time they compile into a big task and seem overwhelmingly daunting.

For instance, I see so often, that students who have their project deadline after 20 days, spend their first 15 days thinking that there is enough time and only when the deadline comes closer, they wake up from their slumber and start working. However, now the time is limited and other assignments have piled up too.

This results in nothing but increased stress, sleepless nights, and a slipshod and a low-quality output affecting their overall grade.

Lack of planning:

Time is always in limited supply and there are many tasks that a student has to accomplish. Only if you, as a student make an effort to divide your work with the available time and stick to the deadlines, you would be able to complete your tasks and be able to keep stress at bay.

I, so often, observe that students move without a specific plan picking up one subject than the other, doing one task then shift to another, and not being able to complete any. So many incomplete tasks and loose ends lead to an increase in stress and pressure.

No prioritizing:

1. With limited time and so many tasks, it is but natural for students to become a little disoriented. The assignment and tasks, chores can be classified into various categories depending on their importance and urgency such as tasks that are:

2. Important and urgent

3. Important but not urgent

4. Urgent but routine chore

5. Neither important nor urgent

If you do not learn to categorize tasks into such categories, most often you would be running around, wasting time, missing deadlines, and eventually becoming stressed.

Comparisons: 

Comparing ourselves with others has always been the cause of unhappiness, discontentment, anxiety, and stress. I would in fact call it the mother of all reasons causing dismay, dejection, and depression among the young.

Even well-meaning people around, you, which include your parents, siblings, friends, and teachers, who have a tendency of constantly comparing you with somebody else. The process is so common that you too, though inadvertently, get into the same mode and start comparing yourself with others and ironically always with those who are better off than you. This eventually leads to a strong feeling of inadequacy deprivation, even jealousy, and anxiety. All strong emotions causing stress!

Undue higher expectations from yourself:

We all have been trained and programmed to demand a lot from life. Not only others but we ourselves expect a lot from ourselves.

If you too are the one who expects a lot from yourself, maybe for yourself or for your family and relatives, etc. but aren’t realistic about your own capabilities and set undue high expectations from yourself then you are surely bidding for more stress.

Hesitant about seeking help:

Another common reason, I have noticed and counseled students against is, the hesitation they have in seeking help, asking questions, and clarifying their doubts in the class.

If you too feel that by asking questions and clearing doubts in class will make you look inadequate and weak, then you are definitely into this vicious trap. By not asking questions, doubts keep piling up and start hampering your performance, which further exacerbates the situation, besides the constant pressure of being in a dilemma of asking or not asking.

So, well!! I have thrown some light on the reasons that create stress among students. Now we should see what we can do to reduce stress and handle each of the reasons that we have discussed above. This is what, I suggest you do:

Don’t let things get piled up:

There is always a dilemma of choosing between pain and pleasure such as delay and enjoying the time we have, in doing something that is more interesting and joyful or to spend it on doing something that is boring or feels like a compulsion, such as doing homework, making assignments and studying.

However, if you look rationally you would find that just by choosing to delay and procrastinate in fervour of short-term pleasure, you are doing nothing but, piling up a huge amount of pain in the end.

Thus, it always pays to be a bit more disciplined and set out a specific time every day to do things that are important and have the tendency to become pain points later.

What you need is a little discipline and willpower and the reward would be a life, less stressful besides enhancement in the quality of your work.

If you are wondering about the lack of willpower, which has always worked against you, then you should read my blog on how to improve your willpower, incrementally by following the process which is very easy.

Plan your day and the week, at least:

If you just take a little time out every day; maybe just a few minutes in the morning to plan your day out, make a priority list and decide what topics and chapters to study, you would find that you will not only achieve more in your limited time but would also be under much less stress.

In fact, a little exercise of planning will have a far-reaching effect on you in terms of increased spare time, improved outcomes and results, and obviously lesser stress. And this whole exercise will take just a few minutes of yours but in return give you a feeling of being in control. A sure stress buster by all means!!

Prioritize and get rewarded:

It so often happens that we spend time on things that are neither important nor very urgent purely because we fail to decide what needs immediate attention.

The exercise, as discussed earlier, would surely help to plan things better, however, before we get into planning our day, what is more pertinent, is that we, on the basis of importance and urgency, prioritize our tasks.

Anything, that needed attention and execution but remained unattended, would occupy space in your mind constantly and continue to seep your energy and peaceful countenance. This constant list, that keeps playing on your mind of things that are pending and whose deadliness have come closer, will not let you be at peace and become a major cause of stress.

On the contrary, the moment you prioritize them after vetting them on the urgency and importance the tasks won’t look to you so daunting and haphazard. This will help you to not only complete them in time but will also give you the feeling of being in control.

Compare, but don’t:

The heading may sound contradictory but you would see that it stands true. Each time you get into the mood of comparison you should remind yourself that this is a never-ending process. There is no one in this world who would not find somebody ahead of himself/herself in the same field or the other.

I would like to explain this to you with an analogy: sometimes, children get into the mode that when they are travelling with their parents, ask them to overtake the vehicles that are moving ahead and beat them behind. You may continue this for some time, but you need to realize that there will always be somebody ahead of you. This is something that I have always experienced in my life.

Similarly, in life, there is always somebody who is ahead of you however well you may do or whatever efforts you may make. Each one of us has our own time zone, and we all are moving at our own pace. Sometimes we may be ahead of others and sometimes behind.

It really makes no sense that we compare ourselves with others and if anyone is doing that with you, you should simply learn to ignore them and carry on.

However, if you still wish to compare yourself, then do that with yourself. Let me explain this a little more.

Well!! We all have a responsibility to constantly improve ourselves and grow because anything that is not growing would eventually deteriorate. Hence, there is no other option but to carry on improving ourselves.

So, compare yourself with yourself of the past and see that you have picked up some new skills, improved your knowledge, learned something new, even improved upon your health, relationships, etc. And, if you find that you are no more the same that you were a period of time ago and have moved forward. Then, rejoice!! You are growing.

This comparing ourselves with ourselves and seeing that we have grown and if not then making efforts to do so is actually a very healthy comparison and will give you confidence, excitement, and renewed vigour.

Lower your expectations from yourselves:

It may sound so contrary to the common advice you get of reaching to the moon, beating everybody in any race be it your studies, career, or life. But I would continue to insist that you should lower expectations from yourself. You get into a race of proving yourself to others and set goals and aims which are not realistic then you are heading towards failure and eventually a disaster.

Life is not a 100-meter sprint, where the winner is decided immediately, it is rather a marathon where everyone who finishes the race has a sense of accomplishment. You should also start appreciating your small wins, achievements, and accomplishments and continue to tread on. You would once develop the habit of appreciation and gratitude, and be much happier and content.

Moreover, if you continue to work sincerely, persistently and with positivity, the law of cause and effect, which is an eternal law, will work and make you reach higher than even your expectations. In short, set small goals, achieve them, acknowledge and celebrate them, set new goals, and repeat the process. I am sure you would end up being happier and at peace.