The Stressful Life of College Students

College is one of the most stressful things an individual can experience in their lifetime. Studies have proven in today’s day and age, college is a leading factor in several psychological disorders including anxiety, insomnia, depression, and many others. We recently discussed the topic of sleep and sleep disorders. This topic was highly captivating to me and I became interested in researching the relation between anxiety and insomnia, as well as other psychological disorders that anxiety and insomnia can affect. In the last year, college has become more stressful due to the pandemic and its impact on classes. With the uprising stress that both COVID-19 and college bring, I was also interested in learning more about the relationship between the two and their connections to psychological disorders. 

When I was five years old, I was diagnosed with chronic insomnia and generalized anxiety disorder. These two disorders did not have much of an effect on my life until I began college. I was finding it harder to rest at night, due to the higher amounts of work and classes per day. With higher amounts of classes and schoolwork comes higher levels of anxiety and insomnia. As these two progressed, I noticed myself losing motivation to do anything and slowly became depressed as well. An article by Eric O. Johnson, Thomas Roth, and Naomi Breslau, discusses, in depth, the correlation between insomnia and other psychological disorders. The article states, “Insomnia was associated with twice the risk of moderate or higher depression compared to normal sleep…”