Understanding Stress: The Back to School Edition

Posted by Jennie Benjamins on September 01, 2023

Back-to-school stress is a feeling that almost everyone experiences! The return to academic demands and the adjustment to new schedules, classmates, and teachers is no small task for students. It comes with a fair amount of uncertainty and apprehension. Let’s unpack back-to-school stress and explore what might help as we get closer to September.

What is Stress?

Stress is a natural human response that arises when an aspect of life feels uncertain, or we are confronted with new challenges, threats or changes. Stress is experienced as uncertainty, worry, overwhelm or just feeling off. Stress manifests in physical ways – it may affect appetite, sleep habits, and energy levels, or contribute to an elevated heart rate and sweaty palms. Stress activates the “fight or flight” reaction in us. This means you might respond to stress using any of the following strategies:
1) fight (face the threat aggressively),
2) flight (run away from the threat),
3) freeze (be unable to act against the threat) or
4) fawn (appease to avoid the threat).
These are natural human responses and no one response is better or worse than the other.

It is important to differentiate between good stress and bad stress. Good stress is typically short-term and can help to increase energy or motivation. This type of stress can be helpful and encourage action or provide direction. For example, you may notice some anxiety bubbling up about the first day back at school. You may feel unsure and nervous. As a result, you may engage in extra preparation for the first week back – organizing school supplies, talking with friends, or adjusting your routines. After the first week back, you may notice feeling more comfortable and at ease, the school routine normalizes and the stress and anxiety subsides.

Bad stress typically lasts longer and decreases energy and motivation. Using the example of going back to school, you may continue to worry or feel anxious after a couple weeks of school. This may decrease your energy level and negatively affect your day-to-day routine. This can perpetuate feelings of anxiety and worry. If left unchanged, it can be exhausting and depleting.

If you’re not sure if you’re feeling good or bad stress, ask yourself the following questions:

How long have I been feeling this way for?
How is this impacting my day to day life? Is it positive or negative? Am I motivated to make a change or work towards a goal?
Does my stress make sense in relation to my situation or environment?
Is there an end point in the not too distant future when my stress may subside?

Stress (both bad and good) comes and goes throughout life. At times you may need external help to deal with it – from friends, family or a mental health professional. In other circumstances, you may be able to cope with it by yourself.
Here are a couple tips for managing back to school stress:

Sleep, sleep, sleep: Perhaps you are tired of hearing this (pun intended) but sleep is critical. During the summer, clients often comment on how they are sleeping better, and how rejuvenating it feels to be “caught up”. Prioritizing your sleep, not only helps with stress, but supports wellbeing in all areas of ife. Think of it as the glue that holds each person together as they navigate the ups and downs of daily life. On average, a teen needs 8-10 hours each day. For an adult it is 7-9 hours each day.
PRO TIP: About one week before school, start to transition back into your typical sleep routine during the school year. Try going to bed 15-30 minutes earlier each day until you reach your school year bedtime goal. This will help ease the transition from late summer nights to school year bedtimes.

Move your Body: Whether it’s dancing, walking or running – moving your body helps to reduce stress, increase self-confidence, support better sleep and release endorphins (a healthy high). It’s a meditation in motion, an intentional focus on a task. It also provides a helpful distraction from overwhelming or anxious thoughts.
PRO TIP: Do what you love – any movement counts. Don’t add extra stress by pushing yourself to try an activity you know you don’t enjoy.

Embrace the “Good Enough” Mindset: During the school year, students are often overwhelmed with multiple deadlines, heightened expectations about performance, and trying to balance it all. Trying to be perfect can be overwhelming and exhausting. The “Good Enough” mindset is about learning to experiment with what you can do well by minimizing your effort. It prioritizes self-care (sleeping, exercising and eating well) and accepts limitations or circumstances that are beyond your control. For example, “I’m confident I can achieve a 70% grade on this test. That is good enough considering I had three assignments due this week.”
PRO TIP: Remember to practice self-compassion and reassurance when implementing the “Good Enough” mindset. A helpful self-compassion practice is talking to yourself as you would a good friend. Ask yourself the question, “Would I expect or ask my friend to do what I am asking of myself?”

Take a Break: Get into the habit of taking a break – learning how to relax and find your peace. Instinctively, this might lead you to seek out time on your phone or catch up on a show, both of which can be helpful ways to turn off your brain. However, it might also be worthwhile to ask yourself the following questions to better understand how your break makes you feel:

Do I feel better or worse than before?
Am I relaxed and ready to get moving again?
What was I hoping to feel at the end of my break? Did it work?
Do I need anything else from this moment right now?

PRO TIP: If you are looking for a new way to take a break, click here for a list of pleasurable activities.

Being human comes with stress. Learning to see both its value and its challenge is the first step to accepting it. As the school year approaches, acknowledge the feelings that come with this change, and embrace preparing for stress and for the opportunities coming your way.

References
McKay, M., Wood, J. C. & Brantley, J. (2019). The dialectical behavior therapy skills workbook (2nd ed.). New Harbinger Publications., Inc.