Why is college a major depression hotspot?

It is said that "young people do not know the taste of sorrow", but in fact, the mental exhaustion and psychological problems of college students have become increasingly prominent. Data show that more than one-fifth of college students feel depressed and nearly half of them are anxious.

In the mental health blue book "China National Mental Health Report 2022" released by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the mental health status of nearly 80,000 college students was surveyed, and it was found that the detection rates of depression and anxiety risks were approximately 21.48% and 45.28% respectively.

Another study published in Frontiers in Psychology surveyed the mental health of approximately 100,000 college students in 43 cities and 23 universities across the country, finding the average prevalence of mental disorders to be 22.8%.

College students should be carefree on campus, so why is depression so serious? What are they worried about? Why are they worried? This deserves the attention and concern of the whole society.

More than 70% of college students suffer from psychological stress

A domestic study shows that 73.2% of college students have varying degrees of psychological pressure, among which academic pressure and uncertainty pressure have the greatest impact on mental health.

College students who perceive higher academic pressure are 1.43 times more likely to suffer from mental disorders. For example, the higher the grade, the higher the academic pressure, resulting in a higher incidence rate among senior college students. Medical students generally suffer from greater academic pressure and are more likely to develop psychological problems.

Uncertainty stress refers to the stress caused by the uncertainty of present and future development. As young people, college students lack social experience and psychological maturity, which will cause uncertainty about their current status, the meaning of life, life goals and graduation destination. This is often accompanied by insecurity, self-denial and self-doubt, which ultimately causes anxiety and depression problems.

Copyright images in the gallery, reprinting and quoting may cause copyright disputes

About 54% of college students reported feeling stressed by uncertainty, and these college students had a 2.55 times higher risk of developing the disease, which was more serious than any other stress.

Mental exhaustion is draining the hearts of college students

In psychology, mental exhaustion is usually considered to be the consumption of self-control resources. The self-regulation resource model believes that self-control resources are limited. When our regulatory resources or abilities are insufficient, we will experience difficulties in self-control and produce the so-called mental exhaustion.

Mental exhaustion often represents a lack of emotional regulation ability, which can lead to mental disorders such as depression and anxiety. Studies have found that about 30% to 40% of college students have bad emotion regulation strategies, such as rumination, avoidance and inhibition.

Avoidance and repression will not make negative emotions disappear, but will continue to accumulate and spread in your heart.

Copyright images in the gallery, reprinting and quoting may cause copyright disputes

Rumination refers to the tendency for people to spontaneously repeat themselves when they experience negative events such as failure and stress.
People who ruminate will keep thinking about something over and over in their minds, trying to find a solution, or passively comparing the gap between the current situation and the goal. In this process, people can easily focus on their negative emotions, such as constantly thinking "why does this happen to me?" This in turn strengthens their negative emotions and causes them to fall into anxiety and depression.

In our education from childhood to adulthood, there are very few courses that involve emotion regulation. At the same time, because college students lack social practice experience and their interpersonal relationships are relatively simple, many college students have not developed good emotion regulation abilities to help themselves adjust their mentality when encountering difficulties and setbacks, and then calmly deal with problems.

1 in 4 college students lack social support

Studies have shown that lack of social support has become one of the important factors in college students' mental health problems. A study of Chinese college students found that more than a quarter of them lack social support.

According to social support theory, social support can provide people with resources and information to help them cope with various challenges. Therefore, social support is a protective factor that can prevent psychological disorders, alleviate stress reactions, enhance psychological resilience, and improve self-worth.

Copyright images in the gallery, reprinting and quoting may cause copyright disputes

For college students, social support mainly includes three types of roles: family, school and friends. When they encounter difficulties, if they do not get enough social support, they are likely to feel stressed, lonely and helpless, thus developing a series of psychological problems.

4 psychological self-help methods

Helping college students improve their mental health

1

Self-inquiry

Self-exploration is a common method in cognitive behavioral therapy, which refers to finding the root cause of problems and solving them by thinking deeply about yourself. When you find yourself having problems with self-denial and self-doubt, you can try thinking about the following questions:

Why do I think this? What causes this thought?

Is my idea credible? Is there evidence to support my idea?

Can I look at the problem differently? Are there other possible explanations?

By thinking deeply and exploring your thoughts, you can better understand your thoughts and emotions and find ways to resolve them.

2

Self-affirmation

Self-affirmation is a positive psychology therapy, which is a method to improve self-esteem and self-confidence through positive self-evaluation and affirmation. This method is actually very simple, that is, constantly praise yourself or give yourself a sense of achievement, for example:

Write down your own strengths and advantages, which can be in terms of appearance, personality, ability, etc.

Think more about positive things, which can be things you have done well, praise from others, achievements you have made, etc.

Set a small goal for yourself and achieve it. When you successfully achieve this small goal, you can feel more accomplished and confident.

3

Mindful Writing

Mindfulness writing is a very popular and effective therapy in recent years. It can help people relieve stress, reduce negative emotions, and improve mental health. We can follow the steps below:

Create a quiet environment: Finding a quiet, comfortable environment to write can make it easier for you to enter a mindful state.

Find a topic: Find a topic that interests you or is meaningful to you. This could be a past experience, a current problem, or a future expectation.

Start writing: Use free writing to keep writing down everything that comes to your mind without worrying about grammar or spelling errors. During the writing process, you can pay attention to your body feelings, emotional changes, and the flow of thoughts.

Listen to your inner voice: During the writing process, always listen to your inner voice and constantly remind yourself to pay attention to your current feelings and emotions, and don't judge or suppress them.

Deep reflection: After you finish writing, you can take some time to deeply reflect on what you have written. You can review your writing, understand your own thinking and emotional state, and evaluate and process your feelings.

Continuous practice: Mindful writing requires continuous practice. Only by practicing frequently can you get more benefits. You can write a little every day, or you can arrange it according to your own time and needs.

Copyright images in the gallery, reprinting and quoting may cause copyright disputes

4

Maintain a healthy lifestyle

Physiological state can also significantly affect psychological state, so lifestyle habits such as diet, exercise, and sleep also have an important impact on mental health.
For example, maintaining a healthy diet, moderate exercise and good sleeping habits can help us maintain physical health, improve psychological quality, and reduce self-denial and mental exhaustion.

References

[1]Aldao,A.,Nolen-Hoeksema,S.,&Schweizer,S.(2010).Emotion-regulationstrategiescrosspsychopathology:Ameta-analyticreview.Clinicalpsychologyreview,30(2),217-237.

[2] Wu, D., Yu, L., Yang, T., Cottrell, R., Peng, S., Guo, W., & Jiang, S. (2020).

[3]Ramón-Arbués,E.,Gea-Caballero,V.,Granada-López,JM,Juárez-Vela,R.,Pellicer-García,B.,&Antón-Solanas,I.(2020).Theprevalenceofdepress ion,anxietyandstressandtheirassociatedfactorsincollegestudents.InternationalJournalofEnvironmentalResearchandPublicHealth,17(19),7001.

[4] Han Jiaqi. Research on the relationship between social support, self-concept and mental health of college students[D]. Heilongjiang University, 2021.

[5] Li Shutao, Chen Siyuan, Liu Yan. (2019). Research on the relationship between academic stress and mental health of college students. Chinese Journal of Health Psychology, 27(1), 55-59.

Author: ACC Psychology Popular Science Creator

Review丨Tang Yicheng, Deputy Director of Beijing Zhongke Popular Psychological Health Promotion Center