S T A T E M E N T
6— Wednesday, March 29, 2023
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
“Breaks always come right
when you need them”– a wise
person once told me this. Over
the course of my college career,
I’ve heard this phrase time and
time again, whether it be courtesy
of similarly stressed university
students
counting
down
the
days until winter break, or a
chanting placation in my own
head. Regardless, it seems as
though the difficulties in my life
get egregiously worse right before
the inevitable release of break.
And given that this “wise person”
was, to my knowledge, non-
possessing of psychic abilities,
this final-stretch phenomenon
is applicable to many, if not all,
college students.
It always seems, by some odd
coincidence, that the grueling
weeks leading up to a break are not
the typical breed of grueling that
college students are begrudgingly
accustomed to: assignments that
seem to stretch on longer than
hours in a day, loud roommates,
critical parents saying your major
is “obsolete” and “why can’t you
just be a doctor or something
useful?”. Perhaps that last part
is just a me-problem. Regardless,
hidden in the fine print of our
commitment to university is the
typical gruel and drag that is
college life. But the days or weeks
leading up to a break? That’s a
special kind of torture.
Right
before
the
typical
school break comes to relieve
the anxieties and pressures I feel
as a college student, I experience
a very unique, particular type
of angst. I call it the “pre-break
angst.” When I know that in five,
four, three days I’m going to be
released from the swarm of social
and academic stressors, somehow
all my problems seem to hit me
with the force of a Mack truck.
All of a sudden, my workload is
suffocating my already barren
social life, or I make a super snippy
retort back to that friend who’s
been making subtle digs at me all
February long or, more likely, a
very creative combination of the
two that somehow still includes
the original dilemma of the loud
roommate.
This
loop
of
heightened
emotion and accumulation of
stress only seems to be on such a
highly concentrated repeat right
before the anticipated end that
comes with break. But why does
the week right before break seem
to be such a tumultuous time for
college students?
It’s easy to chalk it up to
course load. There is definitely
a correlation; during the week
before
break,
more
popularly
dubbed “midterms” or “finals
week,”
assignments
are
more
strenuous and demand more time
and energy. We pound information
into our heads as we study, then
flesh it all out with a fine-toothed
comb on our exams. Naturally
we wouldn’t be of the most sound
mind when undergoing the brain-
numbing study routine that comes
with midterms or finals week.
Moreover, the effects of this high-
pressure period bleed into other
aspects of our lives such as, say,
our relationships with friends,
our families or significant others,
causing seemingly new problems
that plague our minds until the
metaphorical school bell rings. But
really, I think these problems were
always there.
My roommate will always be
loud. That’s a fact I’ve had to accept
from the beginning. But these
seemingly
newfound
problems
that rub me the wrong way —
innocent jokes at my expense,
being crushed by the weight of my
academic commitments or feeling
excluded from a group of friends
— aren’t as newfound as they seem.
They are often very indicative of
more visceral problems which
have simply been laying under
the radar until this catalytic point
of exposure. And during that
hallowed week before break, I feel
like I’m going to explode from all of
the pressure.
The knowledge, or rather the
notion, that all of our problems
will come to an end in a few days’
time allows us to express and feel
our emotions with less inhibitions
or perceived “realness” attached
to them. Especially since the
week before break is already a
time
of
undeniable
academic
stress, it’s very easy to assume
a sense of direct relation with
other elements of stress during
this time and disregard these
so-called heightened emotions,
chalking them up to the damning
circumstance
of
pre-break.
Pennsylvania
State
University
Biobehavioral Health Professor
Jennifer
Graham-Engeland
is
currently researching the effects
of academic stress, such as a period
of exams, on college students’
mental health and has found that
the prolonged period of exam week
can severely exacerbate mental
health as students experience a
drastic shift in academic pressure.
This
almost
ubiquitous
level
of academic stress is certainly
making way for other stressors
and negative reactions to manifest,
but it is merely a component rather
than the source of most turmoil.
During the week before a break,
I’ve gotten into little spats with
friends, both said and received
some unkind things with my
roommate or bawled in the UgLi
at ungodly hours of the night. But
the minute break begins, these
problems dissipate and the slate is
wiped clean. I feel rejuvenated —
fresh as a daisy — and ready to get
back into the swing of things now
that my alleged irrational phase
of emotions has passed. Thank
goodness that whole situation is
over, right? Wrong.
Break will come and go, and
in one-to-two months’ time, it’s
the week before break all over
again and, surprise, my conflict
resolution has not gotten any
better. The same problems will
resurface again and my eyes will
feel sore from an underwhelming
lack of sleep, crying or rolling
them at my friends who, for some
odd reason, just seem to be pissing
me off extra. At the time, these
problems seem to derive from an
accumulation of stress, but really
the roots of the problems are
innate, propelling this seemingly
inescapable loop.
Though such issues seem to
arise at full capacity during this
pre-break phase, my inarguably
taxing workload (despite not being
a doctor) and sense of insecurity
within friendships was always
present. These problems were just
buried under my stronger, heavier
fear of confronting them. The
answer was clear: This period of
pre-break was my way of finally
acknowledging the problems and
painful feelings that felt too big for
me to unpack regularly. And the
magical clean slate that occurred
after I rendered these emotions
as invalid and circumstantial was
just my excuse for not confronting
these very real, very rational
issues. I allowed myself to be
afraid of these emotions and let
them build up until they inevitably
exploded. The explosion and all of
its debris would stay on campus
and, by the time I came back, it
would all be forgotten. And then
of course, I always chided myself
for letting the common stress of
midterms and finals plague me and
my personal life yet again. After
all, breaks always come right when
you need them, right?
IRENA TUTUNARI
Statement Columnist
School’s out! Your stress isn’t
Design by Emma Sortor
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