With homework starting to pile up and the semester's first exams looming in the distance, many students accept the extreme pressure they face - and its effects on their mental and physical health - as a fact of life at an academically demanding university.
But Margot Abels, the Director of the Tufts Alcohol and Drug Prevention Program, hopes to change all that.
Beginning at the end of February, Abels will spearhead a campaign through the Alcohol and Drug Prevention Program aimed at relaxing students, improving their sleep patterns and lowering their stress levels, which she said are particularly high at this time of year. A school-sponsored meditation and relaxation day at the end of the month will kick off two months of relaxation-related events, activities and informational campaigning.
According to Abels, most students have excessive levels of stress, which can be bad for their health.
"You guys are in an institution that is particularly rigorous; high-demanding not only academically but around community service and being involved in so many things," she said. "You are dealing with an institution where, looking at your schedule, I don't know where relaxation and sleep factor in."
As part of the campaign, Abels is working on a poster series called "On-Campus Napping," which will feature pictures of faculty members and students taking naps between meetings and classes. The idea, she said, is to encourage students to take charge of their own schedules and fit in some time to relax and get a full night's sleep.
"There's so much emphasis on [students] overachieving, not unique to Tufts students, but just sort of what's happening in the world," Abels said. "It's always, 'do better, do more, make more money.'"
Senior Faith Hester, a student employee who has been working closely with Abels on the campaign, said she's felt this pressure first-hand.
"College is notorious for pulling all-nighters to study for things, and for having crazy stress levels from all the classes you're taking and the extra-curriculars you're involved in," Hester said. "Four years is a long time for that."
Sophomore Tahnee Sidhu said she's "definitely" stressed at college.
"It's hard to stop thinking about [pending work] sometimes, especially when there's a big test coming up," Sidhu said. "Usually [the result is] just not being able to fall asleep, so I try to relax by reading a book before going to bed."
According to a November study by mtvU, a college-targeted television station owned by MTV Networks, Sidhu and Hester are not alone.
The study found that 65 percent of seniors have had a friend or friends who were "stressed to a point where they've withdrawn from others." It also found that 33 percent of students use alcohol as a method for coping with stress. Overall, 39 percent of freshman, 58 percent of sophomores and 63 percent of juniors agreed that they were "feeling the pressure to handle more and more stress."
"You could probably map the different stressors based on what year you're in," Abels said. "Coming to college can be unbelievably stressful ... but then your sophomore year, people's schedules just get so ramped up and so crazy."
"You go abroad your junior year, and that is a great experience, but you're living in a whole new culture, you're away from your family," Abels continued. "And then you come back and it's your senior year and you're trying to figure out, 'Oh my God ... what am I going to do after school?'"
According to freshman Paula Kaufman, coping with stress is a matter of willpower.
"I try not to let thoughts about what work I have to do fill my mind. I just try to get done what I have to do," she said.
Senior Miles Mattson said that over the past four years, he's learned how to handle his stress.
"I feel like, in college, you do have enough time to get your work done, but it's a matter of organizing your time to get it done," he said. "I definitely worry a lot less if I sit down and say 'I'm going to work for five hours every day.'"
Mattson said that knowing when to take a break is key.
"There comes a point every day, no matter how much I still have to work, where I hit a wall and I have to step back and do something fun with friends," he said.
To help students find strategies like those Mattson now employs, Abels plans to bring speakers to campus, hand out stress balls and offer students cheap egg crates mattress pads and sleep pillows through the school. In addition, she has a number of ideas, most of them still in planning stages, to make sure that students have information and opportunities to help them avoid constant stress and erratic scheduling.
"[I] want to do things like make meditation and relaxation programs available for people to download off of our Web site onto their iPods, so if you want to take a five minute break in the library, you can ignore all the distractions," she said. "Instead of using, you know, Adderall or Ritalin, you can relax."
"We're even talking to the vet school about maybe bringing in animals for people to de-stress with," she added with a laugh. "I don't know that that would fly, but we're trying."
In addition, the Alcohol and Drug Prevention Program, which offers grant money to students and student groups that plan alcohol- and drug-free social events, will further increase funding for events that include a component focused on relaxation or sleep.
"Our program offers many grants to student groups and through the Office of Residential Life for people to sponsor purely social events that are alcohol- and drug-free," Abels said. "We're going to up the ante and add money to them if you have a sleep component to it, like if you make it a pajama party, or have some information out about sleep."
Abels said she wants to work on developing an atmosphere at Tufts where stress does not overwhelm students - even those with incredibly high workloads.
"We don't have a lot of really relaxing, quiet spaces to go on campus," Abels said. "We've been talking to Reslife about some of the lounges - I mean, how could [we make] the lounges be a place where you'd actually like to go and put your feet up?"
And when finals hit - the height of stress season in Abels' eyes - Tufts will go out of its way to help Jumbos cope.
"In April, during reading week, the Student Health Advisory Board is planning to do some kind of de-stress activity, and we're going to work with them on that," Abels said. "I'm hoping to have it in the library or the campus center, and it would be a space where you could come and get some herbal tea, take a break from studying, close your eyes."
"I don't think college students corner the market on stress," she added. "But I do think you're a group of people who have unique stressors. If the community can learn to value more positive health behavior, then you can support each other."
