Everyone experiences stress sometimes and no one will be able to make it through university studies without any stress. Good stress will improve performance and keep you alert. If the amount of stress is appropriate, leisure time and a normal amount of sleep will be enough to recover. In turn, when harmful stress is prolonged, it will affect a number of areas of life and diminish well-being. It is important to intervene in harmful, long-term stress and sometimes it is a good idea to seek help in order to put an end to the stress.

 Are you stressed?

Do you feel like stress is building up without noticing? Learn to recognise your personal ways to react to stress so that you can prevent harmful stress from forming with less effort. Stress affects body, mind and our actions. Common characteristics of stress:

• Body: pulse is elevated, muscles (e.g. neck and shoulder area) are tense, breathing is superficial, head is aching, there are changes in appetite, difficulty falling asleep and waking up at night, stomach issues
• Thoughts: unfinished work is going through your mind, increased worrying and dwelling on things, 'I cannot', 'I won't have time', 'I'm not able to' thoughts are common, thinking gets more narrow and it is difficult to see solutions or come up with new ideas
• Emotions: you are annoyed, frustrated, anxious, angry, nervous, tense, feel impatient
• Actions: struggling to prioritise things, difficult not to do anything or rest, messing about, jumping from one thing to another, toiling beyond your means, avoiding tasks, procrastinating

How can stress be managed?

• Invest in recovery: good stress will become harmful if we are unable to rest and recover from stress often enough. Do you remember to schedule free moments and at least one day off each week in your timetable? A regular lifestyle will also help: regular and versatile meals, good daily rhythm and regular exercise.
• Take on your assignments: avoiding and postponing difficult or laborious tasks will increase stress. Could you break down the tasks into easier sub-tasks or could you ask someone for help?
• Make a realistic timetable: if the stress is caused by accumulated tasks and a large workload, prioritise the tasks and make a timetable. Read more about time management.
• Set reasonable goals: if the stress is caused by the high level of demands you have set for yourself, try if you can reduce the demands at least in some area. Read more about perfectionism and self-compassion.
• Exercise while listening to your body: regular exercise and physical fitness help recover from stress faster. Physical exercise elevates your mood and produces experiences of success. If your body or mind appears to be going into overdrive, exercise while listening to your body, as high-intensity exercise causes physiological stress and makes you feel worse.
• Spend time outdoors: research has shown that moving or spending time outdoors calms down stress reactions in the body and mind. Even spending time in a park in an urban environment reduces stress. Read more about the influence of nature on well-being at the luontoon.fi website (in English).
• Talk about things that are on your mind: when you are stressed, it is harder to think about things from different viewpoints and come up with solutions to a situation that causes burden. Talking to others may make things clearer and it is often comforting to hear that others also face similar challenges and experience stress.
• Touch: touching releases oxytocin and helps regulate stress. Can you hug someone, ask a friend to massage your shoulders, or stroke a pet.
• Practise mindfulness: stress feeds off your mind wandering in future or past events, e.g. we are afraid of potential failure in a coming examination or regretting past choices. Mindfulness involves practising a state where all emotions are allowed. This is practised by paying attention to how things are experienced here and now. It does not entail analysing, but instead observing experiences as they are. Practising mindfulness regularly has been shown to reduce stress. You can find mindfulness exercises at freemindfulness.org, at Into (in Finnish) and the oivamieli.fi website (in Finnish).

When will stress become exhaustion?

Long-term stress related to studying may gradually become study exhaustion. You can recognise study exhaustion from the following features:

• exhaustion and tiredness that will not shift with normal rest
• becoming cynical, studying no longer feels significant or sensible
• your confidence is reduced, you start doubting your ability to cope with your studies and feel inadequate

Anxiety is often also related to exhaustion and your mood may be sad. If you recognise these symptoms, you must reduce your workload. It is a good idea to ask for support in order to deal with the situation and you can contact a study psychologist or the FSHS.