- Hey everybody, happy Thursday.
Now today we're gonna talk about school anxiety
and how to deal with it.
But before I jump into that, are you new to my channel?
Welcome, I put out videos on Mondays and on Thursdays.
So make sure you're subscribed
and have those notifications turned on
so that you don't miss out.
Now today's question is,
hey Kati, school is starting and I am freaking out.
Can you do a video about school anxiety
and how we can better deal?
And yes, I can definitely talk about this.
I know a lot of you are starting school right now.
Whether you're just going through your school process
or maybe you're returning to school
to better improve your skills for work
or get a higher education.
There are a lot of things that we can do to better manage.
And my first tip is halt.
Yes, it's DVT acronym and halt stands
for hungry, angry, lonely, tired.
And I say this because we can't do anything
if we're not taking care of our basic needs.
Have you been eating properly?
Are you only eating junk food?
Or not eating enough?
Pay attention.
Have you been really angry and aggressive lately?
Just feeling full of emotion like you haven't had any place
to helpfully get it out.
Are you lonely?
Have you not been returning friend's phone calls?
Are you kinda isolating?
Are you tired?
How's your sleep schedule?
I want you to take note of these things.
Maybe it's time to go to the doctor and get your physical.
Get checked out, make sure everything is okay with you.
Maybe that's seeing a dietician.
If eating's always been an issue for you,
now might be a good time to see someone
and make sure that you're following a meal plan.
Having a well rounded diet and getting enough energy
for your body to do all you're asking it to do.
And that also means that we might need to make some time
in our schedule for some self-care.
The A, the anger, that feeling of angry or being lonely,
means that we're not taking enough time
to vent all we're feeling.
That might mean we need to see a therapist.
That might mean that we need to take some time to journal
or go for walks or pet an animal.
Do anything that kinda is that breath in
for all the breath out that school asks of us.
If you don't know what I'm talking about,
I'm referring to Brene Brown talks about creatively
and energetically we need to breath in
for every breath out.
And studying, doing work, being there for others
are all breaths out.
So we need to breath in.
We need to increase our self-care,
so that we can keep doing all we're doing.
And if sleep has always been an issue for you
and you just don't know how to improve it,
I'll link my video on better sleep tools
and tips and techniques in the description
so you can check that out.
And hopefully that will get you back
in a more healthy sleep cycle.
And number two, prepare for success.
Organize and plan, all of these things
can help just put our mind as ease.
I find a lot of my patients who get anxious
about school starting and quizzes happening
and tests are coming up and oh my gosh,
we just feel overwhelmed,
but I find if we take our syllabi,
we break down the semesters or quarters
into what's gonna be due this time,
how many pages do I need to read.
We get our planner out and we plan out each and every day,
really, really helps us see what's gonna be asked of us
and help us calm down.
The first week of school when we get all of our syllabi
and they're telling us all the tests and all the reading,
we're getting all our books.
It can be overwhelming from the get.
We're like, oh my God, I'm gonna have to do all this.
It's only like four months.
Sweet mother, oh.
And we just shut down.
We can just have panic attacks, we can feel overwhelmed.
But if we take the time to really break it down
into those small chunks,
it can really help us better visualize
and prepare for success.
And also just planning in general will help us keep
on top of things, so that we don't get behind.
That's always my patient's biggest worry
is like, oh, school started.
Okay, I'm caught up at the beginning.
So how do we stay caught up?
And planning and organizing will help us better do that.
And if you know yourself and every couple of weeks
you tend to have a really bad mental health day,
we need to prepare and plan for that, too.
And we can black out a day where, like,
this is just a Netflix and sleep day.
And that's totally fine.
But by setting ourselves up and organizing it,
we can make sure that we don't fall behind
and we're able to keep up and feel good about ourselves.
And number three, gather your resources.
Are there certain things that help put your mind at ease?
Things that you an do to help better calm your system down?
Is that a fidget toy that maybe you have
in your pocket at all times?
Maybe that means that if you could listen
to music during tests, you'd do better.
What are the things that help you soothe yourself?
Do you need a break to go to the bathroom,
do a breathing exercise?
What helps you?
Start gathering your resources.
This is a good friend that you can talk to and vent to
about all that you're feeling and the overwhelm
that you're experiencing after your first week of school.
Make sure that you have these resources available
and you make time for them
and you find a way to utilize them during your day.
And I usually if my patients struggle with school anxiety
and they start to feel really overwhelmed,
I have them make a list of their resources at the beginning
and we just kinda put together a plan.
And if you're in therapy, I would encourage you
to ask your therapist to do this with you.
Where you list your resources, you list
when they're available, making sure
that someone's available 24 seven.
Like one of those people off of those lists
or one of the things.
Like 7 Cups of Tea is a great resource.
It's like a peer support online.
You can pay, I believe, for a therapist
to be your connection, but at the very least,
it's just peer support.
So make sure you have online resources, in person resources,
and just things that you can do on your own.
Make sure your resources cover all 24 hours of the day
because we never know when the anxiety might hit.
Number four, talk to your school.
If your anxiety is preventing you from succeeding,
it's making testing just impossible,
we struggle to be in class for the full amount of time
or even maybe get to school.
If you find that happening, speak up and reach out.
Talk to your school counselor or a teacher that you trust.
Because IEPs and 504s exist for a reason.
If you don't know, IEPs are just like an educational plan
that they put together for you
and 504s is another version of that.
It just depends on your need and what your school offers,
but legally, they have to offer something.
So reach out and speak up
because if that means that you do better, like I said,
listening to music when you take a test
or testing on your own in a separate room
or given more time on the test or a quiz
or anything like that.
We're gonna need to talk to them
because they'll work with you.
Maybe it's really hard for you get up and out in the morning
because you struggle to sleep.
Maybe you don't have a first period.
Trust me, I worked at a lot of schools
and got a lot of different IEPs approved.
So make sure you talk to them
because they legally have to offer things.
And we wanna make sure we get you the resources you need
so that you can succeed.
And number five, talk to a therapist like myself.
Often when we're getting IEPs or 504 plans,
we have to have a therapist
or other mental health professional
or at least doctor's note of some sort.
I usually go to the meetings myself
with, like, the plan that I want for my patient
and I fight for you.
And so having a therapist,
having someone who's on your side fighting
for you can be really helpful.
Because I find my patients often shut down
in those meetings.
It can be really overwhelming.
Often they're talking about things
that just, like, we don't even know
and it's just above our head kind of
'cause they're talking about what the school rules are
and what the state regulations are and what they can offer.
It just can be overwhelming.
So having an advocate, having someone there to fight for you
can be really helpful.
Not to mention, on its own, seeing a therapist
if we're struggling with anxiety
can help offer tips, tools, and techniques
and things that we can use to better manage the symptoms.
And then help us figure where the anxiety came from
or what actually stirs it the most
and help us process through that so we can heal it,
so that the anxiety happens with less and less frequency
and maybe goes away completely.
So having a therapist on our team can be really beneficial.
And my sixth and final tip is roleplay if you need to.
I know you didn't see this coming,
but often when I'm telling you to speak up,
talk to teachers, get an IEP, talk to therapist,
a lot of you are like, I'm frozen with anxiety.
I don't even know what to say.
So, like I've always talked about,
writing things down, bullet pointing them,
keeping them as short and simple as possible
and then practicing.
Just practice saying it.
Even practice right now to this video.
What would you say?
How would you verbalize it?
I want you to say it over and over
so it becomes like second nature.
And you don't even have much time to stress or worry.
It's like memorized what you're gonna say
and you can just keep saying it.
And taking the time to practice saying it out loud
will lessen the chance that we'll get there
and like black out.
You know how we, I've done that too,
where I get overwhelmed and I'm like.
My brain just forgets all that it has learned.
If you've said it enough that it's almost just like,
it doesn't even have emotional charge anymore.
We can just say it.
That will give us the best chance of getting out
what we need to get out to them
so that we can get the help that we need.
If you're in high school or lower,
that means you can talk to a school counselor or a teacher.
If you're in college, that could be going
to the wellness center or health center,
whatever they have, whatever they call it.
And setting up that therapy appointment.
Whatever it may be.
There's also student resources is another great place
to go if you're on a college campus
because that's where they offer, like, IEP slash 504s,
even though they don't call them that at collegic level,
but they still have plans and programs in place.
Even one of my best friends in college
use to take notes for the student resource center.
She got paid to do that because those who struggle
to focus in class needed those notes to reference.
And so she would give them in and they'd get them.
So, know that there are resources available.
Just practicing saying it out loud will take away,
hopefully, some of the anxiety or worry
about speaking about it
and help ensure that when we do speak up and reach out,
we get the help we need and deserve.
This video has been brought to you by Kinions on Patreon.
If you would like to support the creation
of these mental health videos,
click the link in the description and check it out.
I hope you found that helpful.
I know school is in full swing
and a lot of you are feeling maxed out,
but know that there are resources available.
There are people who want to help.
So hopefully these tips, going through these steps
will help better prepare you
and better set you up for success.
But as always, let me know in the comments down below,
what some things that you did?
Did I misspeak about something?
Or there other tools and resources
that you should know about?
Let us know in those comments down below
and I will see you next time.
Bye.