Have you ever felt like your life was falling apart and you were out of options? Many students face this issue in today’s world. health concerns are a rising problem among schools today. Many students struggle daily with mental health and are afraid to reach out and ask for help. These students then are struggling with things that can be helped. The main causes behind these reasons are:
These are the main issue plaguing students today. A lot of these can be prevented and unfortunately continue to occur at a faster rate every year. This graph shows the increase in visitations between St. Pauls's Hospital and Vancouver General Hospital. It shows an increase in cases of mental health issues and that it has a steady pattern of rising. Unfortunately, this pattern will continue to increase unless the necessary changes are made. Every day a student has a mental health struggle and doesn't get the help they need or they don't know who they can go to for help. Mental health is becoming a continuously increasing issue with students because of college, the state of the world, and parental figures.
Students have three main reasons why they struggle with mental health issues like anxiety and depression:
The ever-increasing and tedious amount of schoolwork is causing students to feel pressured and is causing burnout. Yvette Mucharraz, a professor at Harvard, reports, "One of the main challenges I observe both in my research and in my students is the effect of burnout. I have groups of full-time MBA, executive MBA, and executive education students, and, especially with female executives, I’ve noticed increased levels of burnout over the last several years."
Schools are making their curriculum harder, and some students are just struggling to keep up. This increases anxiety levels and causes students in an increased level of burnout and fatigue.
The state of the world today is the second reason. Covid and School violence are at the forefront of every student's mind. Students are going to school not even knowing if they are safe in their own classrooms. This shouldn't be something students should have to face. Nellie El Anny, a Harvard professor, states, "Open conversations about mental health are critical. It should not have taken the COVID-19 pandemic to get us all talking more about mental health in higher education. These conversations should have been happening a long time ago. Perhaps the silver lining is that it has pushed us all to talk more openly about mental health, which has always carried stigma and awkwardness."
Trying to put forth a solution to this issue is something thats very hard to do. This topic had been very heavily debated but it includes these three things:
These three things will help students get the help they need. The problem is, students feel a sense of loneliness and dispair because they feel like nobody is going to listen and understand. This just simply isnt true. There are always people and organizations that want to help these students but we need to get the resources to these kids so that they can get the help they need.
Students are very scared to reach out cause “adults don’t understand.” Having people that relate to these teens is exactly what we need. This is a solution that will help millions of students worldwide that suffer with anxiety and depression. Mental illnes is no joke amd it shouldn’t be treated that way.
HBP Editors. “Harvard Business Publishing Education.” Harvard Business Publishing, 30 Sept. 2022, hbsp.harvard.edu/inspiring-minds/addressing-mental-health-in-the-classroom.
History Cooperative. “A Beautiful Mind: The History of the Treatment of Mental Illness | History Cooperative.” History Cooperative, 22 Sept. 2016, historycooperative.org/a-beautiful-mind-the-history-of-the-treatment-of-mental-illness/.
Kilgus, Stephen P, et al. “EBSCOhost Research Platform: EBSCO.” EBSCO Information Services, Inc. | Www.ebsco.com, 2022, https://www.ebsco.com/products/ebscohost-research-platform.
Student Shares Story of Mental Health Struggle and Survival - Oklahoma State University. 10 Nov. 2020,