Are you stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed being a college student?

Did you know that 87% of students have experienced stress during their college years? Another startling statistics is that 45% of college students feel like they experience “more than average” stress.

My academic journey started in 2010 when I began earning my associate's degree. Flash forward to 2020 and I now have my master's degree.

​Right after high school I was accepted into several universities and I remember being SO excited when I got the acceptance letters – I couldn’t stop imagining what it would be like when I moved away from home and could experience total freedom!!!

When I started calculating the cost for the undergraduate programs, I added another 3 years of loans on top of that because I always knew I wanted a graduate degree. So, in my head, I was planning for at least 7 years of taking out loans. I had to pay for school myself, so I knew I had to be strategic for how much I spent. I decided to go to community college and earn my Liberal Arts degree because I knew the program would be mostly general ed courses and I could easily transfer them into my bachelor’s degree program – which is exactly what I did.

At the time, my community college was a few hundred dollars per credit, and all the 4-year programs were over $1,000 per credit – the price difference was worth not “experiencing total freedom” for another 2 years.

While earning my associate’s degree I would spend most of my time feeling mentally exhausted from having to work and be a student at the same time. I had a hard time juggling my responsibilities. I was always dreading doing my school assignments - I spent more time worrying about them than I spent working on them. I felt overwhelmed, stressed and anxious from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed. Unfortunately, I continued to feel these emotions in my bachelor’s program too.

When I looked around at my classmates, I found they were struggling just as much as I was. I wanted to know what I could do to stop feeling like this, and how I could help other students do the same. I decided to eat, sleep and breathe the topic of self development. I didn’t want to just survive, I wanted to thrive.

I studied every single day. I started listening to people who taught subjects like goal setting, planning, motivation, resilience, stress management and mental health. I read every book I could get my hands on and read every blog I could find on the topics. I started following coaches and then coaching myself. I made small, and then big lifestyle changes so that I could earn my degrees AND live my best life.

I was so interested in the topic of stress and anxiety that I even wrote my master’s capstone project on it: Health Coaching as an Effective Tool for Managing Stress & Anxiety. As you may have already figured out, my research proved that health coaching IS an effective tool for managing stress and anxiety.

Fortunately for me (and now for you), I learned many techniques along the way to allow me to survive and then thrive in college. Learning these techniques helped me work up to 4 jobs at a time while earning my undergrad degree, and then working full-time while earning my masters and running my business. I can’t say it’s been a pretty journey - but I definitely prevailed in the end.

Now that I have the experience, education and skills to teach the topic, I am here to share that knowledge, coach you along the way, and help you have a stress-free semester.

Would you like support managing your stress while being a student?

Reach out to me on the form at the end of the page, I'd love to connect!