Research Paper on Students are Struggling and Mental Health Days Can Help

Recently, Illinois has implemented a controversial policy in which students are allowed to take up to 5 mental health days. These days are meant to serve students whose mental health is taking a toll on them, by sending them home so they can rest. Some students feel as though their mental health is driving them to failure, and they need mental health days in order to succeed in school. Others feel like these days are only helpful to lazy students who wish to skip school unscathed. The mental health day policy is a real necessity for students, as student mental health has declined over the years, resulting in higher suicide rates. This policy has the potential to improve it.

An overwhelming amount of college students' mental health has worsened recently. According to two studies done by the American College Health Association, from the fall of 2018 to the spring of 2019, the number of college students reporting that anxiety affected their grades has risen 1.9%, stress 2.3%, sleep difficulty 2.2%, and depression 3.3% (5). Student mental health is getting worse and worse as days go by. This causes students to struggle with their grades, as they are more tired when they cannot sleep and cannot focus on schoolwork due to anxiety, stress, and depression. Eventually, this can lead to side effects worse than bad grades. According to a study conducted by the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, “Graduate students experience significant amounts of stress and anxiety, and their suicidal behavior is strongly characterized by depression” (Gracia-Williams 1). The amount of stress and anxiety put on students to succeed in school causes them to develop mental health issues, eventually causing suicidal thoughts. Society needs to find a way to solve the root of this problem: student mental wellbeing. 

Mental health days are one way we could curb the percentage of students affected by anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts. By taking a break from school, like a normal sick day, students have time to recuperate and re-energize. As stated by Gundersen Health, “A mental health day is a day meant to help reduce stress and burnout. It can provide a pause to come back with more energy, less stress and a renewed spirit” (1). With these days being an option for students, anxiety and burnout symptoms can reduce and prevent the side effects of bad mental health, such as suicide, a scarily big issue now in today’s world of education.

Many argue that students can take advantage of mental health days by saying they are sick, when in reality, they just want to skip school. However, The Rangeview Raider Review lists one of the cons of mental health days as “Having to catch up after returning” (Mesfin 12). Even though a student can take advantage of the system and skip school, they are still required to complete all the work they were assigned. Additionally, many policies, including Illinois’, have a limit to the amount of mental health days a student may use. For Illinois, it is 5 days. This means that students with the intention of skipping school have a maximum amount they can skip before days become unexcused, and they also have to finish all the work assigned to them. This makes it more difficult for a student to get away with skipping school by exploiting mental health days, while still keeping many of the advantages for students whose mental wellbeing is affected positively by using them. 

We must not sit idly by, watching students battling with mental health and losing. By informing other students and school districts about the contemporary struggle of student mental wellbeing, we can together implement mental health days for all students. Not only can we reduce stress and anxiety for students, but their lives can be saved.