Your health and wellness are important to your academic success. As a student, you may experience a range of challenges that can interfere with learning, such as strained relationships, increased anxiety, substance use, feeling down, difficulty concentrating and/or lack of motivation. These mental health concerns or stressful events may impact your decision making, academic performance and/or reduce your ability to participate in daily activities.
The Mental Health Continuum provides a way of checking in with yourself to see how you are doing. We all have mental and it fluctuates over time based on a variety of factors. Whether we are sitting in the green, healthy functioning zone, or moving into the yellow, orange or red zones indicating greater struggle or even illness, it is helpful to have a frame of reference for how we are doing. The earlier we attend to mental health challenges, the easier it is to increase our wellness.
Mental Health Commission of Canada. (n.d.) Mental Health Continuum Model: Signs and indicators. Author.
This graphic outlines a detailed continuum which allows us to see how we are doing across many spheres including mood, thinking and attitude, behaviour and performance, physical changes and substance use. It can be helpful to check in with how we're doing before we think about which strategies might best help us build resilience and momentum towards healthy functioning.
Anxiety relating specifically to performance is extremely common. Whether it’s a presentation to your class or an upcoming test, stress can actually be a motivating factor that helps improve performance, or it can be entirely overwhelming, causing you to feel panicky, and forget everything you know. The good news is that taming test anxiety is possible, and the strategies that help can be applied in many spheres of your life.
You can view the Transcript for the video Test Anxiety: What can I do?
NSCC. (2020, September 15). Test anxiety: What can I do [Video]? YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trt-kcmeGjw&t=2s
To talk to a counsellor and/or explore other Student Mental Wellness Resources
For online supports and our 24/7 student helpline: HealthymindsNS
​NSCC has personal and career counsellors available in person, online or via telephone to support you. Find out more about counselling or find a counsellor.
We offer financial aid programs, financial coaching as well as resources to help grow your financial literacy skills and reduce your financial stress.
NSCC offers a variety of mental wellness resources including information on national, provincial and local help lines. Access mental wellness resources.
NSCC offers programs to ensure you maintain a basic level of health while you study with us. Find out more about available student health and dental benefits, our myvirtualdoctor virtual health care service and our Emergency Health insurance (EHI) plan for international students. You can also access online virtual counselling through our mywellness program.