Worry doesn’t empty tomorrow of its problems. It empties today of its strength. Here are five practical strategies to help students stop worrying and start living with more calm and clarity.
Have you ever woken in the middle of the night, unable to go back to sleep because your mind was spinning with worries? Maybe it was a test, a friendship drama, or something you said that you couldn’t stop replaying. So many students toss and turn over situations they cannot control, and sometimes even those they can.
But the trouble with worry is that it causes a lot of commotion while leaving us in exactly the same place. Like a roller coaster, you are strapped in, buckled up and trapped. It’s fast-paced and intense, but ultimately you don’t go anywhere. You end up back in the same spot you started, only to begin the ride again.
There is no advance, no forward momentum from worry. You are on a treadmill, burning enormous emotional energy for no real gain. All you do when you worry constantly is tire your cognitive muscles, until you no longer have enough energy to solve the actual problem. And here’s the thing: the situations you worry about usually turn out okay.
In truth, worry and concern are two different things. Concern for the people we love is a different emotion entirely. A worried person’s mind spins with catastrophic thoughts. A concerned person’s thoughts are focused on solutions. Learning to tell the difference is an important part of good mental health and wellbeing.
In this article, I want to share five strategies that have helped me, and countless students I’ve worked with, to escape the mental tension treadmill.
1. Keep calm and carry on
Calmness is the antidote to worry. But how do we find it when our mind is racing?
During the Second World War, the British government created a series of posters to steady the nerves of the nation. One of them featured just five words and a Tudor crown: Keep Calm and Carry On. Those words have echoed across generations ever since. Yes, the phrase has been mocked and meme-ified. But in its original form, it still carries genuine power.
Calmness is an active choice
Josiah Gilbert Holland once said, “Calmness is the cradle of power.” Finding that place of calm enables us to draw on the inner strength we need to deal with what’s within our control, and to release what isn’t.
Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.
Corrie Ten-Boom
So take a deep breath. Remind yourself that staying calm is not passive. It is one of the most powerful things a student can do in the middle of pressure or uncertainty. Calmness is a skill that can be built with practice.
2. Practise mindfulness
For so many students, worry has become a mental habit. Every time a problem arises, the default setting is rumination and imagining the worst-case scenario.
Worry is the bad movie that plays on repeat
Dwelling on a problem over and over in your mind is the very definition of worry. It’s the bad movie that plays on repeat in your head, and one person is writing everyone’s lines. That person is your anxious mind, not the reality unfolding in front of you.
Problems should actually help you clarify your priorities. They should make you present. They should cause you to zero in on the now, find effective solutions, and focus on the most actionable next step.
Interrogate your thoughts
To improve your mental health and wellbeing as a student, don’t allow your everyday moments to be stolen by worries about tomorrow. The ordinary everyday moments are what life is actually made of.
Practise interrogating your thoughts. Ask yourself: “Where did this thought come from?” and “Why is it here?” You can be aware of your worries without allowing them to hijack your emotions and take over the house of your mind.
3. Go back and find your peace
Often I ask students this question: if you left your phone at a friend’s house, would you drive back to get it? Most people say yes, even if the drive was an hour each way.
But here is the more important question: if you lost your sense of peace, would you make the same effort to get it back? Many people have misplaced their peace so long ago they’ve forgotten where they left it.
Find what genuinely restores you
What are the things that genuinely bring you peace? Is it simplicity? Quiet? The smell of the ocean, or food cooking in the oven? Reignite peace in your life by finding its source again.
One reason so many of us struggle with worry is that our lives have become fragmented. We are playing different characters for different audiences. The word integrity literally means the state of being whole and undivided. When you try to be all things to all people, your life gets carved into pieces. And when your life is in pieces, your mind never settles.
Sometimes we worry because we are pulled in too many directions at once. Decide what brings you peace and make it a priority.
4. Get your head in the game
Worry mostly comes from fear and from allowing our hearts and minds to be troubled by things outside our control. Maybe your whole student life feels built on worry right now: exams, friendships, the future, what others think of you.
Take hold of your thoughts before they take hold of you
In fact, this is the moment to seize your thoughts. If you don’t take hold of them, they will take hold of you and pull you into dark places. After all, you will have negative thoughts. Everyone does. But you don’t have to let them move in permanently.
There is an old saying I love: you cannot stop the birds from soaring in the sky, but you can stop them from making a nest on your head. You cannot stop worrying thoughts from circling above, but you do not have to let them land and stay.
If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying? If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying?
Shantideva
That question cuts straight to the heart of anxiety. It’s not dismissing the problem. It’s asking whether worry is actually serving you. Almost always, the honest answer is no.
5. Surround yourself with positive voices
One of the most underrated strategies for student wellbeing is managing what you let into your mind. Social media and the 24-hour news cycle give us access to every distressing moment happening anywhere in the world, all the time.
Limit your exposure to distressing content
Troubling events that were once local are now global. Instead of hearing about one concerning thing in your neighbourhood, you can now hear about five hundred alarming things before breakfast. This constant flood of information keeps us in a state of heightened worry.
Moreover, how do we even decide which of these tragedies deserves our attention? Unplugging is often the only answer. Limiting your exposure to distressing content is not ignorance. It’s a healthy boundary for your mental health.
Guard what you let into your mind
There is a lesson I often share from my own life. Once, after sitting down and eating an entire tub of ice cream, the sick feeling didn’t arrive while I was eating. It crept in afterwards. Social media can work the same way. You scroll for a while and feel fine, then the anxiety settles in later.
In an age of constant information, it becomes difficult to trace where the worry comes from. Guard what you let into your mind, because it quietly shapes who you become. Finally, be careful about who you spend your time with. You catch what you are close to. Before you catch a feeling, you catch a thought.
Of course, stopping worry is easier said than done. Like all good mental health habits, it takes practice. Keep showing up every day, knowing that living free from pointless worry is a skill that builds over time.
Want to bring this message to your school? I deliver powerful, values-driven presentations to students across Australia. Book a school presentation or visit The HopeFULL Institute to learn more.