One student's journey dealing with stress

By Mike Morris

I walked into the office of Loyalist College’s mental wellness nurse this morning. It was small, but it was big enough for both its owner and myself. The office was equipped with the usual desk chair, computer equipment and general office supplies. This was the office of Katrina Levasseur, and it was the perfect time to talk to her.

This morning Levasseur had some information to give about students under stress, and how they should deal with stress. It was near the end of the fall 2012 semester on campus, which meant there were a lot of students preparing for final assignments/exams. Levasseur said that such things were causing students stress.

“Well typically there might be some symptoms,” Levasseur said when describing how students identified with stress, “so, trouble sleeping, a change in appetite, increased heart rate, more irritable with other people, difficulty focusing.”

Levasseur said that stress is good when it is positive and beneficial, so you might feel challenged, but the sources of stress are opportunities that are meaningful to us. Two examples she gave were graduating from college or receiving a promotion.

Besides her services, Levasseur said there were other services available to students to help them deal with stress. These services include long-term counseling, student success mentors (who help students stay organized), accessibility services, and a peer-tutoring centre.

Levasseur said that there would be an increase in anxiety because of the upcoming due dates mentioned earlier. She said that some students were dealing with their stress well, but that other students needed to develop coping strategies. There had been a number of students coming to see Levasseur for her services as of late.

“I’m pretty busy right now,” she said, “so I probably see six students a day, and I’d say five out of six students are dealing with stress related aspects.”

Levasseur said she had been talking to them about strategies to stay, to reducing stress, finding a support system, being realistic, setting goals for themselves, getting organized and taking charge, taking breaks and giving themselves “me time”, taking good care of themselves (eating and resting), learning to say no, getting regular exercise, laughing, and learning to relax. She had the same advice for students as before, but she added that she does breathing exercises with them.

A website called HowToBeFit.com said that exercise does indeed relieve stress. According to this site, exercise has been proved in study after study to improve people’s health and well-being. However, HowToBeFit added that many people take exercise off their “to do” list before anything else, in their hectic lives, when in fact it should be the last thing to be taken off the list.

There were students on campus with different stress-related situations, some of them in need of help coping with stress, and some of them not so much. Every one of them had their own ways of dealing with stress. Nursing student Marley Blakely said that she was very stressed.

“Exams are coming up,” she said. “Just taking time for myself, in between studying.”

Christine Crow, a student who was sitting with Blakely at a table in the Shark Tank Pub, said she too was very stressed. She said she had the same reasons to be stressed as Blakely.

“It’s a stressful time of years,” Crow added. “Just taking things one day at a time.”

Matthew Day, a Loyalist student, said he was not very stressed, which was a big contrast from Crow and Blakely. Day said he had just gotten into peer tutoring, his projects “are going good,” and that he is ready for his exams.

Les Laterno said he is fairly stressed because of problems with his insurance company, and that he has to look into getting a student loan to pay for his schooling. Laterno said he was “just trying it one day at a time” to deal with his stress.

Cathy Bradshaw said she wasn’t very stressed.

“I’ve got a lot of space between classes,” she said, “so it’s not that bad. I work better under pressure. I like when it is close to the end of the semester.”

Brandon Druid said he wasn’t very stressed either but he did not give much of an explanation, other than he didn’t care that exams were coming up.

It turned out that some students were as stressed out as Levasseur said they might be. However, some of those students were more relaxed than most of the students Levasseur said visited her.