What can I do to help manage anxious feelings?

We all have mental health and wellbeing, which are connected and can change often. This continuum demonstrates how all of us, no matter our background or difficulties, can have optimal wellbeing with good self-help and support in place.

There is a ‘continuum’ along which we can have better or worse wellbeing, whether or not we are already facing mental health difficulties.

We can all be at a different point on the continuum, at different times:

• Optimal mental wellbeing with mental health difficulties
  • A person experiencing significant mental health difficulties can manage these well and have good support in place, allowing optimal mental wellbeing.
• Optimal mental wellbeing with minimal mental health difficulties
  • People who are not experiencing mental health difficulties still benefit from looking after their mental wellbeing.
• Minimal mental wellbeing with minimal mental health difficulties
  • The challenges of university life can lead us to have minimal mental wellbeing, in the absence of mental health difficulties.
• Minimal mental wellbeing with mental health difficulties
  • Challenging mental health difficulties and a lack of support can lead to minimal mental wellbeing.

Feelings:

• On edge
• Nervous
• Panicky
• Stressed
• Irritable/low patience threshold
• Uptight

Thinking styles:

• You often worry ‘what if’ something bad happens
• Your mind jumps from worry to worry
• You often imagine the worst-case scenarios
• You are always on the lookout for danger

Physical symptoms:

• Tense body/muscular pain
• Dizzy/faint
• Chest tight or painful
• Stomach churning
• Trembling or tingling sensations
• Heart racing/ palpitations
• Breathing faster or slower than usual
• Concentration difficulties

Behavior patterns:

• Avoid doing things you would like to
• Pace around/find it hard to relax
• Snap at people too easily
• Get easily flustered
• Talk very quickly

Evidence shows that creating a plan for when and where we will take time to do an activity means that we are far more likely to follow through with it. Choose one exercise from the tools and strategies in this article that you will do this week and decide when and where you are going to do so.

Complete the following sentence to set your intention:

• “The exercise I am going to try from this guide is:
  • I will do so on [insert day]
  • at [insert time]
  • in [insert place]
  • I will tell this person for added accountability and support [insert person]”

• Your anxious feelings are present all or most of the time, even when you cannot identify an immediate reason for you to feel anxious.
• Your anxious feelings persist for extended periods of time, even when the situation that initiated them has already passed.
• You experience secondary symptoms that are impairing your quality of life such as: fatigue, weakness, sleeping problems, inability to concentrate, headaches and nausea.
• You start avoiding important activities you would regularly engage in because they make you anxious; for example going to class, socialising with friends, getting on public transport or being in any other busy spaces.
• You experience panic attacks, which can be extremely frightening. You may feel an intense dread that onsets suddenly followed by symptoms like sweating, palpitations (being able to feel your heartbeat), trembling and difficulty breathing.
  • Panic attacks usually last no more than 5-20 minutes. Although it may feel like something is seriously wrong, they aren’t dangerous and shouldn’t harm you.

Personal tutor: If your mental health is impacting your studies, you should speak to your personal tutor. They can check in with you while you access help, and work with you to determine if there is further support you can access at King’s. This could be for your studies as well as your mental health and wellbeing.

Find out more in What do I talk about with my personal tutor?

Mitigating circumstances: Mental health difficulties are a valid reason to apply for mitigating circumstances for assessments if you are particularly struggling.

Find out more in What are mitigating circumstances?

• For details of specialist services, please refer to What specialist mental health services can I access?
• If you’re experiencing suicidal thoughts, please refer to Concerned about suicidal thoughts for yourself or someone else?

Emergency support
If you feel like you cannot keep yourself safe and you are in immediate danger of harming yourself or attempting to take your life:

• Go to the closest Accident and Emergency (A&E Department).
• Call 999 to request an ambulance if you cannot go to the hospital yourself.

King’s Residences provide an in-house welfare team at every residence, with a member of staff who is on call out of hours.

If you are in a hall of residence, you can access emotional support and discuss how you’re feeling with a Residence Welfare Lead. They will listen without judgment and connect you to our support services. They’re on duty every day from 20.00–08.00 and all day on Saturday and Sunday.

You can contact them by asking reception for their details or finding the notice board with this information in your residence. Find out more at King’s Accommodation: Welfare.