Birmingham students have been rated as the third least-stressed in the country.
Roughly one in three Birmingham students deals with stress while working on their course, against the national average of two in five.
The NatWest Student Living Index performed the key study, asking students to rate their level of stress.
One in five Birmingham students said they found managing their finances ‘extremely stressful’ while just under one in three were largely satisfied with their university’s mental health resources.
The worst performer was Plymouth’s student community, with just over half of students reporting high stress levels on their course. The best was Southampton, with under three in ten claiming such concerns.
Doctor Audrey Tang, psychologist and author of various books on psychology and self-help, expanded on why levels of stress are so high in students and why there was such a difference between universities.
“When it comes to the university system itself, one of the most common complaints I’ve experienced from students is that they feel there’s no guidance at all,” said Doctor Tang. “They’ve gone from a spoon-fed nurturing environment into an environment of ‘now you’ve got to go and sort yourself out.’
“What the university will do is that they will send so much information that the student will feel overloaded. They’re stuck thinking, “I don’t even know where to start.” It takes grit and fortitude to get your way through it.
“It’s us, we overthink, we get anxious, we start catastrophising, and as those thoughts keep going round and round in our heads, if we have no healthy escape from them, they just get worse.”
All five of Birmingham’s universities offer health and wellbeing departments. BCU’s student support can be found here.
