What is mental health?
Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It surrounds a broad range of factors that have both good and bad effect on how individuals think, feel and behave. Mental health is essential for a person's ability to cope with different stresses and challenges of daily life. It also controls and impacts how we maintain positive relationships and make different contributions to society.
Exams
Students undergo a lot of academic pressures. This starts from a young age and tends to increase the older an individual gets. Exams themselves have a major impact on a student's mental health as it can cause a number of things to happen. A lot of the time individuals have a very high expectations of themselves. This leads to them feeling like they are very unprepared which leads to them being stressed and actually cause physical symptoms such as headaches and sleep disturbances. The pressure that people put on themselves to do well in their exams can sometimes trigger anxiety. Anxiety can have a huge toll on someone's performance as it can lead to having difficulty concentrating, feeling panicked and have racing unfocused thoughts. Both the feeling of stress and anxiety in some cases can lead to depression. Common symptoms of depression are sadness, hopelessness and lack of motivation which combined can leads to negative thoughts and feelings. This is likely to impact academic performance. However mental health isn't always negative. If the exam was a success often it leads to boosted self-esteem and increased motivation. This can elongate good mental health leading to a happier academic future.
Living alone
Living at home with your family is easy there is constant food in the house, a support system, and a town your used too. So, when you go to move into your first-year accommodation at university it can be very daunting. All of a sudden everything you're used to all disappears. This can be very hard to get used to. If you struggle to be sociable and outgoing it can be very hard to make friends. Having no friends whilst trying to get used to a new city can make you feel very lonely. Loneliness can lead to intense sadness and even depression. Going through all these new experiences defiantly isn't something you want to be happening. There are things however that ca be done to prevent this from happening. Every university has so many different societies. It's almost certain that there will be something that you enjoy doing. Joining the society with people that have the same common interests as you will make it a lot easier for you to meet people. Not everyone's experience is like this though. Some people thrive when moving out for the first time. It allows people to have opportunities and expand on their personal growth. It can help people because more independent as they gain new experiences by living on their own. They learn how to cook, clean, manage their own money ect. This can often create a positive mindset which can lead to good mental health.
Money troubles
Everyone knows university is expensive. And not everyone is fortunate enough to have help from their parents and the majority of peoples student loan doesn't even cover their rent. This means a lot of the time students need to work on top of having to go to university. As important as it is to be able to afford to live it is just as important to have an actual life. Nobody wants to have FOMO towards their friends so they always do everything they can to feel included. Going out clubbing, eating out, shopping etc. As well and good as this is it comes with a price. University assignments, work, socialising and everything else that comes with it there is no time for a break. It also all becomes very expensive. Especially with the cost-of-living crisis at the minute everything is getting more and more expensive. All of this combined is likely to send your brain into overdrive. This can cause anxiety and there are uncertainties about whether you can afford anything and even depression and there is so much going on you don't know how to cope with it all.