As fall semester nears its end, college students in Utah County share successes and challenges with balancing mental heath and school.
Frontiers in Psychology conducted a survey that included all of the questions from the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale and from the Perception of Academic Stress Scale in 2022 and found that students who reported higher academic stress also reported worse mental well-being in general.
Stormey Nielsen, a clinical social work specialist and therapist based in Murray, works with various college students in Utah.
“When we feel overly stressed all the time, or we fall into a depression because there's like pressure to perform and do well … I would say, yes, like the amount of schoolwork does correlate with poor mental health in that way, but I do think that there are ways to balance it,” she said.
Nielsen advised college students to prioritize self-care.
“I think as college students, we neglect rest because there's always so many things that we need to do, but making time to rest,” she said.
The term "self-care" is often used but under practiced, Nielsen said. Although it sounds simple, it is an effective solution to improving mental health while in school.
Students can practice self-care such as eating healthy and staying physically active, she added.
Grace Mahoney, a student at BYU, shared her personal experience with school workload and how it affects her mental health.
“I definitely feel more stressed when I have more homework to do and more stuff to do, and like trying to find that balance just makes it harder, because I lose balance in other parts of my life,” she said.
However, she finds ways to maintain her mental health by doing simple things, she said.
“I try to bring other little pieces that help my mental health overall. So like just looking for a little positive things that make me smile,” she said.
Tanner Trejo, a neuroscience student at BYU, found that procrastination has a big impact on his stress levels.
“I feel like school workload does not really affect my mental health that much,” he said.
If he procrastinates and distributes his work load in a way that is not efficient, then it may cause more stress and lower mental health, Trejo said.
Trejo makes sure to accomplish goals for finishing assignments sooner than later so the workload doesn't catch up with him, he added.
Jay Conover, a business student at UVU, said at times he does not feel enthusiastic about school assignments.
“It takes time away from things that I could be doing that could make me grow,” he said.
When assignments don’t seem beneficial to his learning experience, Conover does not receive much from it, he said. He would rather be doing something else that can help him grow.
To avoid the monotony that homework can bring, Conover likes to stay busy with non school related activities.
“Getting out, being active, and having aspirations on things you want to do, and then just having goals and learning new hobbies and new tasks, because it keeps things different,” he said.