Introduction
Across the world, undergraduate students who enroll for higher education institution face a lot of problems in a lot of ways. Puberty is also a period where they face psychological and biological changes. A lot of transitions happen in higher education there are many challenges students face at this period like making financial decisions settling down with their independence. Trying to find adult relationships. And also there is a pressure to perform well in the exam and maintain good relationships with friends and family.
During the exam, the amount of stress a student feels can affect their mental well-being. There are numbers of teenagers who don’t know how to come out of exam stress because the society and family sometimes their peers judge them by their marks in the exam.
This adds in a lot of pressure to if they are not happy with their results students kill themselves and are in a great depression. Developing phobia anxiety during examination whatever they read will blackout and hands will start trembling they will start feeling like they cannot succeed in life depression will hit them wanting them to suicide.
A huge amount of gateway drugs creates a terrible impact on their lives. Foremost, the point is students tend to get along with the gateway drugs for managing and adjusting with the problems which they think they can escape with. The use of gateway drugs is the highly destructive option for adjusting to day to day life problems which as a result grows to a seriously awful mental health all in all.
More amount of consuming gateway drugs can be disturbing because it can lead to the interlink with self-harm behaviors, suicides attempts and unexpected death. There is less knowledge about meeting a counsellor or opening up with family and friends is always known as an uncomfortable act for many.
Students in under graduation settings having difficulties in adjusting as well as managing can be described as daily struggle such as continuous educational pressure. One of the highly predictable results is depression and anxiety and most of them have complicated results (Pereira,
2019). According to the survey 2019 by the University of Bristol on mental health and wellbeing of almost 800 thousand college students of North America for depression in 2019, 45% of students tested positive similar to 2018(Duffy, 2019). For anxiety, 35% of students found having moderate/severe anxiety levels which is 2% less as compared to 2018 survey (Joiner, 2019).It is observed that in a lot of countries stress, depression and anxiety is been increased more and affected the second, third, and fourth-year students worse during their university lives (R. Beiter, 2015). A study on American undergraduate college students found that students who are depressed scores GPA of almost half appoint less as compared to the non-depressed ones (Rowland, 2005). It was discovered that second and third-year students are at specifically at higher risk than of the first years of feeling about being worried and lonely, for managing they get along with gateway drugs (Walker, 2019). Students with low socioeconomic status likely to be pressured to fight for a limited scholarship or takes up different part-time jobs to cope up with their burden of stress, depression and anxiety, multiple studies says that the link of these situation affects the sleep cycle and has a risk of chronic sleep disorder and poor sleep quality of the university students (Denessen, 2018). In a survey of 2018, it says 50.3% of students thought of self-harm and 1 out of 10 thought it often, in 2017 thought of self-harm was reported 24% (Reay, 2019).
Mental health is not about the absence of mental illness, it is more about mental well-being. It is a state of mind where an individual understands his/her abilities and strengths and work accordingly to cope up with the day-to-day challenges and problems positively and productively towards his/her community (WHO). The above facts and figures signify that student’s face a lot of stress because of the demanding education system and academic achievement/performance are one of the major sources. Mental health problems are of different forms and types which can be experienced differently by each individual. Students may be dealing with more extreme examples of relatively common feelings and behaviors such as anxiety and depression. Or they may be experiencing extremely distressing and irregular thoughts which they find difficult to deal with and which people around them find difficult to understand.
The aim of this study is to analyze the positive well-being of undergraduate students across the world. To understand their stress level and mental well-being during the examination the goal is to show how examination stress can affect a student’s relationship and confidence level or also get into drugs or another effect the study shows that how a student faces psychological
Literature Review
Physical and psychological changes happen during adolescence. The stage is in between adulthood and childhood, taking decisions can be the hard part. At this age stress can be bad for them. Mild stress may improve their performance and help in doing cognitive tasks meanwhile high stress involves depression, anxiety and neuropsychiatric illnesses. Psychological problems during or after the exam is common among students. Mental health or mental wellbeing is a positive concept. They often want friends and family to support them during this period, if they don’t get the support that is when they lose control over stress management. Students neglect their mental health during exams more than ever. As teenagers they don’t understand mental health this will cost them a huge loss. There are multiple disorders like eating disorders, sleeping disorders, personality disorder, examinophobia, stress response syndrome, insomnia depression, anxiety, panic attack cold and viruses, circulatory problems, systematic or local infection, diabetes, stress-related disorders, and performance stress. Students find exam time very stressful, exam can be a big trigger for them. Those who are suffering from anxiety, sitting on the desk for a long time can be a big task as they will not be interacting with family or do what they like such as sports and hanging out with their peers, and doing things that make them happy. Revision can be a very hard time for them to keep their mental wellbeing in place. Mental wellbeing is harder to keep up during revision period, students feel that they are struggling a lot during exam time than obvious. The pressure of exam comes closer and some of the them give up and some fall into stress, anxiety, depression during exam period.
Eating disorder will affect a person’s mental and physical health it is a mental disorder and abnormal eating pattern of an individual. Student often get stressed during their university or high school examination as they often want caffeine or sugar to get them through the exam stress or deadlines. They will starts getting addicted to sugar which will harm them more than ever. By continuing eating sugar or caffeine during exam time they feel more stress and left behind with their friends during revision which will lead to obesity or eating disorder (Agars, 1999). Sleeping disorder will affect a student’s ability to sleep well. It is a condition which changes sleep pattern and leads to the risk of other health problems. Most affected are students, they suffer a lot from sleeping disorder. There is a great impact when it comes to sleeping disorder students have to cope with a lot changes in schools and university, new peer group, lots of freedom and a change in social situations. They also stay up all night to study for exams this may lead to sleeping disorder and insomnia, acute insomnia is the trouble falling asleep in three nights a week or chronic insomnia is the trouble falling asleep in three months (Gupta, 2014). According to the Psychological stress-coping theory, stress is the outcome of the link between the individual and the environment around him, the link is determined by the level of stress through behavior, feelings, thoughts and emotions which leads to the coping with the situation (Lazarus, 1984).
Examinophobia is a psychological state of mind which occurs during or before exam days. When students experience an extreme level of stress, anxiety, discomfort, and fear. Little amount of anxiety, fear, and discomfort towards exam is acceptable but if the intensity of these symptoms increases, it will lead to affect the performance of the student in the exam and then it’s called as test anxiety or examinophobia (Cherry, 2020). As explained by a private individual counselor of West Los Angeles, definition of stress is physical, emotional and mental. Factors that cause tension, external stresses form the psychological environment or social situations or internal illness. Some of the psychological conditions like anxiety and depression are common the healing is very poor in medical problems like high blood pressure, irritable bowel syndrome, diabetes not in control. Stress management is recognized as an effective treatment.
According to a psychotherapist, multiple situations cause stress and some of them are loss of a loved one, health issues, moving to a new town, misunderstands in home, some sings of psychological, physical, and emotional chronic stress are difficulty in sleeping, poor problem-solving skills, fear that will not go away, feeling overwhelmed (Dr. Gary brown). A personality disorder is the trait of personality, which will change during adolescence. There are two primary frameworks maturation processes and identity development in adolescents. Teen’s dysfunctional early childhood, genetic factors, and history of disorders can lead them to personality disorders mood swings, depression, suicidal thoughts, and lack of socialization are common in adolescents having this disorder(Tyrer, 2015). The theory of stress response syndrome is divided into two stages, which depends on the response of the signs and symptoms of stressful life or event. The first stage is the intrusive stage which can be explained by unwanted feelings, ideas, and compulsive actions. The second stage is the denial stage, which can be classified by the signs of emotional numbing and constriction of imagination (American Psychiatric Association, 1980).
Operant conditioning theory is explained as learning based on consequences. The theory says that organisms learn to regulate their behavior if it has a positive outcome and avoid or escape the negative results. Achievement motivation theory states the desire to excel; the desire for achievement of an individual may vary from person to person. For some people, reaching high standards of excellence accomplishing difficult task is extremely important. But for others just doing the normal tasks is enough (BF Skinner, 1938).
The pressure from family and society students are facing problems during the exam is most common now a day. The transformation and the freedom that occurs during adolescence makes them feel like a grownup. The expectation from students is increasing year by year which is affecting their mental health. As explained above, are the reasons for exam stress and how students are affected. The research can be use to reduce the pressure building situation during exams. To understand and enhance students’ mental well-being throughout the academic year. It can be used as a model of self-regulation for students during exam days. To regulate positive timeout with calming and relaxing techniques during a stressful situation.
A student with confidence during the exam can do way better as compared to a student with a lack of confidence, this can is also linked with the self-esteem of the student. If they have high self-esteem they are more likely to be positive and motivated, some may struggle with the confidence as they cannot set a goal. They often keep complaining about others and also about their problems and mostly act out or get defensive.
Family plays a very important role in the life of an adolescent. The way families support them during exams can result in their performance and future decisions as well. If the parents are more positive, calm, and supporting students are likely to be more positive and can accept any kind of results but if the family is too controlling, not understanding and pressurize the student they start panicking resulting on performing poorly in the exam this may lead to depression or suicide.
But some students behave in a different way, they develop difficult behavior as they become more violent and aggressive by nature. Preparing for the exam can be a hard task for them and they will not be able to concentrate. Students with difficult behavior have anger issues they always have problems in organizing or managing thoughts, they hurt others or themselves, also too much of anger can affect a person’s immune system. A bad immune system can affect a student physically and mentally. It will result in having fever cold and other diseases, at this point, they need to be loved and taken care of. As this will result in good self-esteem and if they don’t feel loved or have no one to support them, they may choose alternative things like gateway drugs which can more addictive and dangerous for the students to cope up with studies and exams.
Preparation for an exam can be a big task, there are different situations and different kinds of students. Some may need help in building self-esteem or fixing issues with family or loved ones, some need help in breaking addictions or managing anger. Students go through a shift of situations affecting their mental health during the exam, everything plays a very important role for a student during the exam like self-esteem, feeling loved, confidence, physical ill health, difficult behavior, and substance usage all affect the preparation during the exam for a student.
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