This year’s University Mental Health day #UniMentalHealthDay is all about the power of using your voice. On Thursday 7th of March 2019 Universities all over the UK are promoting this, to help shape the future of how mental health is talked about.
University students face many problems such as:
- Coping with moving from home, often very far away.
- Making new friends.
- Going from being a big fish in a small pond, to being a small fish in a huge pond.
- Worrying about finances.
- Worrying about grades.
- Feeling a fraud, and worrying someone will find out.
- Feeling pressure to be perfect.
- Coping with new environments and situations.
and the list goes on…
Being based in the heart of Oxford, I see students of all ages. I help them resolve their problems, overcome their fears and show them tools which can help them throughout life and generally improve their state of mental health.
Just talking about the problem is a start, but doesn’t always resolve the issue. Which is why I believe the tools I teach and the hypnosis which addresses the subconscious, plus the solution focused aspect of what a student wants to achieve wins.
I work from the centre of Oxford on a Wednesday. At this time of year, I start seeing exam stress building which affects the students’ mental health. Hypnotherapy is fantastic for this, as it helps teach the brain to focus more easily. You can learn how distractions stop you from remembering the work you’re revising.
Case Study in student mental health
Daniel came to me because he was having problems with his memory revising for exams. He found it difficult to focus and was constantly distracted by his mobile, emails and other distractions in his room.
We went through what was happening in his brain, especially his hippocampus every time he was distracted. I helped him work out what would be the best way of getting around this, and he found he had to leave his mobile downstairs or in a bag when he was trying to work on his laptop. He also realised he had to turn off notifications. He talked to his friends and family and told them he would only reply to emails at a set time each day as he needed to really focus.
The result was he was able to complete all the work for his exams and pass them with much less stress as previously. His general memory improved too as he wasn’t fretting about it all the time.
“I thought I would drop you a line to say thank you for your help and that it has worked.
Back in the autumn I re-sat exams and passed.
There still had to be some cramming done with some help from websites.
Despite this, mum remarked on how much calmer I was during my revision period and I felt much better on exam day. I am also enjoying learning again.”
Also see: Exam Stress
And also: https://www.unimentalhealthday.co.uk/