Anxious all the Time? Overwhelmed, On Edge, and Never Fully Able to Relax?

For a lot of students, anxiety doesn’t show up as one clear thing, it’s just always there. School pressure is part of it, but so is the constant low hum of social anxiety, the exhaustion of feeling like you have to perform in every interaction, or the sense that you never quite learned how to be around people the way you were supposed to, especially if your earlier years were shaped by lockdowns and screens instead of practice. You’re not imagining any of it. But a lot of the energy you’re spending isn’t making a positive difference.

This isn’t about eliminating stress, some of it is just part of the deal. It’s about telling the difference between productive concern and the spiral that burns you out before you’ve even started.