Student stress

In contrast to an earlier time, children of this century experience educational enrichment from much earlier on in their lives. Academic preschools and playgroups venture to intellectually develop these young minds in order to set them up for educational and professional success as their lives progress. Some believe that a rich early start is beneficial for young students as it encourages healthy study habits. However, some believe early childhood enrichment is an additional source of stress. Older students begin to experience educational and occupational related stress as they are responsible for more extensive course work as they age or once they are required to work in order to make their own money. Some find balancing school and work to be incredibly difficult, whereas others may find just one or the other to be difficult to manage on its own. It is from this point that stress becomes chronic and begins to affect the mental wellbeing of students. Irregular and elevated levels of cortisol may trigger depressive thoughts that influence a lack of motivation and happiness in their lives that ultimately contributes to the prevalence of mental illness we see among students in the world today.

Since medical students are among the most stressed students, a mindfulness study was conducted on them to see whether it would help them cope with their stressful work environments and the overall pressure of their careers. Chronic psychological distress from their work would impair their functionality in the workplace and thereby poses a threat to sick patients that are in need of genuine help in order to survive their maladies. The students were enrolled in a mind–body program that focused on introducing, practicing, and processing mind–body skills such as biofeedback, guided imagery, relaxation, several forms of meditation, and breathing exercises. By implementing practice of mindfulness through meditation and deep breathing, the students showed improvement in the quality of patient care they provided as well as a decreased rate of medical errors. Thus, incorporating mind–body skills training into education may help to reduce stress and improve the mental well-being of students.

We are committed to a Stress Free Community Program primarily comprised of mentoring outreach based upon the core practice of deep diaphragmatic breathing. Depending upon the availability of resources, we at present intend to serve the following groups in our local community of Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario in Canada:

1. Women who are pregnant or considering pregnancy: The goal of this outreach program is to relate with the health and wellness mentoring of this part of our community in the interest of the women and their future offspring. The rationale for this program comes from a technical report of the American Association of Pediatrics entitled The Lifelong Effects of Early Childhood Adversity and Toxic Stress. This report draws attention to the dire consequences of toxic stress experienced prenatally and in early childhood. This need is urgent and is not limited to our community only.
2. University and High School Students: There are a number of recent publications (Time, Maclean's ) pointing to stress and mental health problems in the student communities. We can help students in setting up peer group stress resilience programs at the universities, college and schools in our respective communities.
3. Community-at-large: Under this program, we plan to organize to help members of our community in creating stress resilience for health and wellness. Statistics Canada in the 2013-14 two year period estimates that 24.5% of Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo population above the age of 15 perceived quite a lot of life stress. Other communities are not faring much better.