Faculty of Pharmacy
5th Grade – Pharmacy Student
Medical Perspective of Stress
When you experience stress, your adrenal gland releases epinephrine and cortisol, often called the stress hormone. Cortisol causes an increase in your heart rate and blood pressure. However, too much cortisol can have damaging effects such as fatigue, irritability, headaches, diarrhea, anxiety, depression, weight gain, increased blood pressure, poor sleep, and depression. Unfortunately, some students turn to drugs and alcohol to relieve stress, which can cause even more damage to students’ physical and mental health.
Given the high health risks associated with stress, there is a need to address stress among students and find ways to help them cope effectively with stress.
Survey at Tishk International University (TIU) – pharmacy
To measure the impact of stress among TIU students, I conducted a survey using questionnaire forms and distributed them among 60 male and female pharmacy students. The students were allowed to choose more than one answer for each question. The collected data indicated that almost all students experienced physical and mental impacts of stress. Due to the large number of options for each question, I focused only on the top three percentages obtained from each question.
1. Hours of sleep per night during exams:
2. Most pressing stress factors in their current academic context:
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3. Level of stress during exams:
4. Personal methods to relieve stress:
5. Ability to handle stress when they are experiencing it:
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6. Usual causes of stress in their lives:
7. Usual BEHAVIORAL effects of stress:
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8. Usual PHYSICAL effects of stress:
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It is worth mentioning that small amounts of stress for short periods of time can be healthy, as good stress motivates students to prepare for exams or make positive changes in their lives, however, stress becomes harmful when it occurs for too long or is chronic. Therefore, it is essential to eliminate the cause of stress and help them to effectively overcome stress.
Cause of Stress Among University Students
When students transition from high school to college, they face both social and academic challenges due to the new roles and responsibilities they have to undertake. Social challenges include living away from home for the first time (homesickness), living among strangers, cohabitating with roommates, financial problems, and family problems. In addition, academic challenges include mastering large amounts of content in small amounts of time, studying for exams, meeting deadlines, fear of failure, and competing for internships.
Measures to Reduce Stress Among University Students
Research suggests that to enable students to handle stressful situations, there is a need for both individual and social coping resources. In general, individual coping resources are described as the actions and thoughts (coping strategies) that individuals use when facing stressful situations. While there is no perfect way to completely eliminate stress, getting involved in activities that improve students’ mental and physical health can significantly reduce the stress they experience in university. Engaging in activities such as attending art or music classes, swimming, jogging, gardening, or hiking can help reduce stress.
On the other hand, social support refers to an individual’s perception of being loved, valued, and taken care of. This type of social support comes from family, friends, mentors, as well as universities that can have a tremendous impact on the well-being of college students. Some studies highlight the unique potential of universities as a social coping resource to help students cope with stress and maintain their mental and physical health. To function as a social coping resource, mutual trust has to be established between students and the personnel, which enables students to feel safe and respected throughout their studies. When faculty members care for their students and understand them, it promotes a positive perception towards the university. Teachers, administrators, faculty members, and student counselors are all part of an infrastructure that universities could use to prevent and reduce stress among students. It is worth noting that academic stress experienced by students is considered more stressful when there are scarce resources offered by universities. Therefore, universities need to invest more resources in addressing these issues and involve students in effective programs aimed at reducing stress. This promotes a positive study environment in which students feel safe and comfortable.
Unfortunately, universities have not taken the necessary steps needed to address mental and physical health and its negative impacts on students, which ultimately affects the quality of education.
Conclusion
Students enrolled at universities, face several stressful events. Therefore, adopting strategies to help students cope with stress is essential. These strategies include providing individual and social coping resources aimed at reducing stress among students. The need for social support and coping resources are argued to be high and the university itself should therefore serve and offer social support to reduce stress and ease the transitioning to university