It’s All a Balancing Act: Anxiety Tips and Tricks from One University Student to Another

When we think about anxiety or talk about anxiety, it takes on this huge and implacable form; this dark, shapeless maw of teeth and spiralling strings with a figure crouched in the middle of the maelstrom, head in their hands and despairing. It can be talked about like a diagnosis and like something which has attacked its subject and needs to be removed.

But it can be more complex than that. At its core, anxiety is a protective mechanism designed to prepare the mind against threats and isolate potential triggers. Its insidious nature is both a blessing and a curse, and it has its impacts on everyone in one way or another.

The discussion of anxiety at the level of university students often has to do with workload, homesickness, and the stress of transitions; university students being placed under massive pressure and coping with massive new emotions is so common it’s practically a guarantee. The fear and the worry approaches in different ways depending on the person and takes root with different triggers: what if I can’t handle the workload? What if I miss my family too much? What if my flatmates are terrible?

And of course, underpinning it all: what if I can’t make friends?

Whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, social situations are stressful things. Each new friend or friend group brings a thousand of these slippery ‘what-if’ questions, the kind of thoughts that make your gut curdle lying in bed at night but don’t really tend to help much-- if at all-- in the daytime.

At their worst these kinds of internal tremors produce a sort of existential dread, sending thoughts running round the mind like greyhounds on a racetrack in a pointless, often frustrating feedback loop of ‘not good enough, never good enough’-- a mantra that you might not even realise is there!

It is always worth remembering that your thoughts can be so much quieter than you think, that the negative impressions of your day-to-day aren’t always blaring in the mind but can creep in at busy moments and impact your mood; potentially without you even noticing it.

Different ways of thinking can form grooves in the brain and well-worn thought patterns easy to fall into. For some people a bad day can drop them into a spiral of worries, while others have an easier time of shrugging their shoulders and moving onto the next big thing. And there’s nothing wrong with this; it’s simply something to take note of.

Living alongside your brain, rather than in it, is a superpower and a lifelong skill that not everybody knows how to develop. But the gift of spell checking your own mind and sitting next to anxiety, sometimes holding its hand instead of letting it consume you, can help so much when navigating the trials and triumphs of a new life.

Techniques

Becoming more aware of your body when working in tandem with your mind is an incredible tool that can reduce anxiety (although not eliminate it entirely, of course) and make it easier to cope with. The growth of a personal toolbox to navigate the troubling, often tempestuous landscape of the mind is beyond value and can soothe the pain of being overtaken by your own thoughts.

It happens to everybody. Anxiety’s best and worst trait is that it leaves no stone unturned, leaves no memory unscathed. The happiest man in the world, or that friend you know with what seems like a million close relationships, or a well-adjusted monk with deep connection to their own spirituality, still wake up and experience days where everything just feels a bit off-kilter and a bit more ragged around the edges.

And there’s no shame in any of that. It all depends on the person, after all, and what personal factors in their workloads or hormone balances or relationship dynamics is bringing anxiety more to the forefront of the brain on that day.

But the growth of that personal toolbox to gently smooth out the edges of the brain on days like that can really help to push away pain, and banish the sensation of being controlled by your own mind. Below are some anxiety tips and tricks from one university student to another, to help tighten your grip a little bit.

1. Listen to your thoughts

This may seem a bit of an odd phrase considering it juxtaposes everything I’ve talked about above, but it’s true. It’s not even hard to do-- at first, at least.

Listening to your thoughts doesn’t mean allowing yourself to be reeled in by them and then trapped by that spiral of ‘what-ifs’ and stresses I keep talking about, but it does mean looking at them from, almost, an outsider’s point of view.

Practice thinking and feeling alongside your thoughts and feelings. Notice your stream of consciousness in how it rushes past you:

There’s so much you have to do but you don’t have the time… and you want to go out tonight but you should work, and you should try to find a job too but you’re worried too much about not having the time and oh, that one friend looked at you a little funny earlier and maybe she doesn’t like you, and maybe you’re an idiot who shouldn’t even be doing this degree and maybe everyone is smarter than you, and why hasn’t your mom called back yet, and where are you going to live next year, and what if you don’t get along with your flatmates--

And try, just for a moment, to look at your mind from a more sympathetic point of view. Take a mental step back and think, ‘is this helpful? Is this true?’ Pinpoint what is a negative thought and what is something constructive and useful in the moment.

When you notice that pervasive sensation of anxiety and dread lodging a stone in your stomach, remind yourself that this may be negative thinking. Simply put a label on it: ‘oh. That’s a negative thought’ and try to move on. Or else tell yourself, ‘hey. None of that can be proven and isn’t actively happening at the moment. All is well.’

The more time you take to sit and acknowledge your brain, the easier it will become to detach your consciousness from the sticky, animalistic ugliness of overanxious thinking.

This doesn’t have to be meditation (although meditation is, of course, incredibly helpful in speeding up this process) but can rather take the form of micro moments of self-care, as you take the time out of your day to consider your own mental state and remind yourself that, no matter what anxiety says, your everyday worries are not national emergencies.

2. Look beyond yourself

The most exhausting thing about anxiety and, according to some, depression, is its intrinsically selfish nature. I’m not saying that it’s selfish to be thinking and worrying and planning your life constantly, but the repetition of ‘I’m scared. I’m hungry. I’m not cool. I don’t have enough friends. I’m…’ is both unhelpful and boring in its consistently self-centred nature.

Being so overly focused on one’s personal image doesn’t do any good. It doesn’t solve urgent problems and it doesn’t make the world spin easier on its tracks; in fact it can do the opposite. By being so hyper aware of our own lives and our own behavior we can forget to account for others, and to help others in whatever ways we can.

Just last week I texted my mom at four in the morning before I considered I might be waking her up, and sure enough, I received a complaining text about it the next day.

The demand for control in our own lives doesn’t make us bad people, but trying to turn off the faucet of our own desire and self-interest can both facilitate a smoother path for our thoughts to run by turning them towards a more external goal, and make those around us that much happier.

For example-- think about the next time you’re meeting someone for coffee or talking to a friend after class. Before starting that conversation, think to yourself, ‘I am going to be completely focused on this person.’ Try smiling wide as they talk, ask multiple insightful questions, and resist the urge to spin into long stories about yourself or your own life. Focus all your energy on another person and examine how it makes you feel.

I’m not saying you have to do this every time; but I have found that there is something wonderful about letting another person become, however briefly, the centre of an interaction. Praising someone or making them feel good about themselves through positive body language will, in my experience, almost always bring a sort of glow to someone else.

When people feel as though we’re being liked and being thought of as interesting, we feel happier. It’s as simple as that. Bringing out positive feelings in another person and perhaps (you never know!) Soothing anxious thoughts of their own is an incredible sensation and permits you to live outside of your brain; even if it’s only for a few moments.

It’s an easy enough practice and it does bring, I promise, satisfying results.

Beyond that, doing your best to think about others and their own experiences throughout your day is often just a breath of fresh air, a moment to turn off the constant stream of ‘me, me, me’ centric-thinking that everyone-- not just those struggling with anxiety-issues-- could use a respite from.

3. Search for acceptance

Often-- especially nowadays, in the great age of online diagnoses and trigger words thrown around casually-- it can be easy to look at the mind and think of its thought patterns as an enemy, something to be shot down and overcome and beat into submission.

Additionally, we live in an age where dopamine is highly accessible and where it’s become easier than ever to numb yourself through entertainment in order to hide from the acknowledgment of your own thoughts.

But there is a powerful lesson to learn here, to accept as you move through life: there are good days and there are bad days.

This seems obvious. Overly simple even. But it’s a lesson that takes time to sink in and requires experiencing a mix of good and bad experiences. Some days the mind is more on edge, its teeth more sunk into your day-to-day routine; things just happen to be a little bit more inconvenient maybe, or your hormones are off-balance, or the morning news seems particularly devastating.

And some days are just lighter. You receive a compliment from your strict boss. Your friend from back home calls to chat. You buy a slice of cake from a cafe and it turns out to be just what you needed. There is a beautiful simplicity to those sorts of days, just as there is something more stressful and greyed-out to the bad ones.

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Anxiety Tips and Tricks from One University Student to Another

It’s all a balancing act, a matter of riding your personal waves. It’s taken me a long time to realise that bad days don’t have to be fought, that good days don’t have to become my the standard of life. Recognising your personal thought patterns and eliciting an understanding of how you can listen to the tempo of your own heartbeat brings a sense of relief to the mind, and adds finesse to the stratagems used in deciphering our inner turmoil.

Allow things to pass, and make sure to pay attention to every second of your day whether it’s good or bad. Easier said than done, right? But there are, as always, methods to the madness. To each their own, and try to remember that it all becomes gentler on your mind in the end.