Mental health
Even though a lot of students are struggling with mental health, there is still a taboo on it. Many people feel ashamed of having mental health issues and feel like they are failures because of it. A part of this shame may come from feeling like you are 'broken' and the uncertainty of how to feel better again. Therefore this page contains some tips and info about the help present at the university.
A lot of students are unaware of the amount of people struggling with mental health disorders. A recent survey from the university showed that 80 per cent of students struggle with anxiety or depression. So you are definitely not alone. A note for this survey though: the percentages might be influenced by the kind of people who filled them in. To quote Saskia Kelders: ‘To be honest, I hope that the situation isn’t that bad for the entire UT student population. There is a risk of bias here. After all, if you receive an email about this research and you feel that this topic is not relevant to you, you would in principle be less inclined to complete the survey.’ You can find the full report on the right side of this page.
Stress
Studying can be stressful at times, and even though a little bit of stress won't harm you, it can negatively influence your life if the stress becomes too much. It can lead you to being overworked or even getting a burnout. It can also lead to other problems including feeling tired, feeling out of control of your life, feeling down, being irritated getting random physical aches and much more.
When you are stressed, there are different options to try and reduce the stress. You can try to solve it yourself by following some steps and hints. They can be found here by enrolling on the wellbeing canvas page.
You can also follow stress reduction trainings at the university, click here for more info. The workshops often take around 3 hours and give you advice on how to deal with stress and get back control of your life.
If you feel like your stress is more serious and you want to talk to someone personally, we advice you to go to the SACC, the Students Affairs Counseling. There you can make an appointment to talk to a student psychologist.
Depression
Sadly, depression is not an uncommon issue anymore. There are many students struggling to feel excitement, feel down a lot and have problems staying motivated. If you have any of these feelings it can definitely help to see a psychologist at the SACC. They can help you finding out the underlying problems for your depression and can try to help you with getting your life on track again.
If you feel like your depression is getting really bad, you can always contact the suicide prevention line: 0800 - 0113, or go to suicide prevention. Here trained volunteers will talk with you and listen to you.
Other issues
Besides studying, there are a lot of personal issues that can develop. Insecurities, anxiety and loneliness can all negatively affect your mental health and can prevent happiness. Next to that, there are many conditions that can cause trouble in life, like ADHD, autism bipolar disorder. Therefore it is important that you take your feelings seriously and ask for help when you feel like you need it.
Again, the canvas wellbeing page can help you with some general information about different subjects. There are 25 group trainings at the university that may be of help for you. You can find more information here.
Once again, the SACC is also open for other personal issues. Please contact them if you want to talk to someone about your issues.
If you do feel like you have mental health issues, but you don't know where to go with your issues, please send our commissioner of well-being an email at education@isaacnewton.nl and we can figure something out together.
Enrol in the canvas course on well-being to find information on how to deal with all kinds of problems (mental or educational) you might have. Also visit the SACC website;
Veerle Schenkelaars
Commisioner of educational Affairs and Commissioner of Well-Being
053- 489 2531
