There are so many reasons on why we should be happy, but it cannot overweigh the fact that we have way more reasons to feel awful and depressed. As a college student, the pandemic has made more negatively significant impact to me than the fact that I am loaded with schoolwork's. I cannot go out whenever I want, to at least ease my heavy feeling in a coffee shop because of the fear of getting infected. I cannot also visit my friends because aside from they have their own responsibilities and schedules, I am afraid that I might infect them with a virus I could get on the way to their home. It feels so inappropriate and irresponsible. Additionally, as a responsible citizen of this free country, the results of the recently-concluded elections add to my anxiety. Because why not? Marcos Jr. just won because he is a Marcos and with the help of fake news and historical negationist about the dark times on the leadership of his late father.  Just like what netizens say in Facebook – ‘What a good election to die’ – I mean this is also how disappointed I am with the results. But enough of me, let’s talk about the numbers and the sciences behind this kind of predicament or mental health crisis.

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An effective discussion starts with of course defining the terms that will be used. Let’s start first with the term anxiety that I already mentioned awhile ago.  Basically, anxiety is the fear you feel towards things and is your brain’s way of reacting to potential dangers. By dangers, we mean even exams, job interviews, confessions, or even socializing. It is normal that we feel anxious to certain things, but what is not normal is if our anxiety turns into disorders that can negatively impact our lives. These includes phobias, drug-related disorders, panic disorders, and many other disorders inducing extreme anxiety (Brennan, 2002). In a nutshell, feeling anxious is definitely fine, but unproportionate anxiety towards things is alarming. Given the fact that anxiety is normal, people are always on the brink of developing anxiety disorders. In fact, 40 million adults in the U.S. are suffering anxiety disorders every year: that’s 18.1% of their total population. The good news is that anxiety disorders can be treated (Anxiety and Depression Association of America, 2022). The bad news is, it needs to be done by a professional which means you need to go to a medical institution; and going to a medical institution means bills. Why would you go to a place that will just give you bills if you still have family to feed? UHHH???? With that, I think I should not be shocked that there is numerous news in mainstream and social media about people taking their own lives because of their mental health suffering.

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Another bad news is that anxiety/anxiety disorders are not the only things we need to monitor in ourselves and in our loved ones. Another thing is stress, this one is kind of self-explanatory; besides you can feel this as long as you’re alive. Stress is the uneasy feeling you feel to certain things. For example, you have plenty of schoolwork's, plenty of workloads, plenty of distractions from the environment, and anything that will make you take a deep breath and wish that all of this is just a dream. It’s not hard to find things that will cause you stress; just look at your study table, and voila! You’re magically stressed. However, stress does not stop on being a stress, it can make you do crazy stuffs from simply not being able to stand after waking up, to making you jump off a 21-storey building. I know that we don’t want to do that, but stress is controlling our body; all we wanna do is to ease the uneasy feeling. Wait, maybe while you’re reading this, you’re imagining the feeling of not being able to stand in the morning because it feels so heavy, don’t you? Well, that’s what we call overthinking. Just like stress, it is also kind of self-explanatory because maybe now you’re doing it. You know, thinking about things beyond our reach and control but we still find the effort to feel uncomfortable about that/those. I don’t know if it’s addicting or what, but we cannot stop, right? It is because…it’s hard to stop. Your mind will be saying ‘oh what if I do this, what if I do that’, ‘what if it makes sense? Am I ready for that?’ Yes, I understand you, but we need to stop. Step by step. Little by little, let’s stop overthinking. Like, instead of thinking about what the future holds for you, why not think of cute unicorns? They’re cute and they cannot hurt you…unless you pinch them. I mean if we continue these unhealthy things, we might end up in closed caskets. I don’t want that for me, and I don’t want that for you either, so let’s start helping ourselves now. Instead of overthinking that can cause stress and anxiety, why not just ignite our metacognition, and think beyond the surface information. It can help us pass the exams that has been haunting us. Come on, it’s just kind of a cycle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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