The classroom is quiet except for the hum of fluorescent lights and the soft tapping of keyboards, but for many students, the silence is misleading. Beneath focused expressions and organized notes, students describe an entirely different experience, one filled with racing thoughts, pressure and a constant sense of unease that follows them from class to class.
As academic expectations grow and schedules become more demanding, students say anxiety has become an increasingly common part of their daily lives. What may appear to be ordinary stress on the surface often develops into something deeper, affecting students’ ability to focus, sleep, and stay motivated. Students describe that anxiety is not just occasional nervousness, it is a persistent and at times, overwhelming presence.
“To me, anxiety feels like a constant, looming, rib-crushing weight on top of my chest,” junior Karis Hoffman said. “It feels like it squeezes my lungs.”
Students consistently describe anxiety in physical terms, about how it goes beyond thoughts and affects the body as well. For some, anxiety is tied to fear and anticipation.
“To me, the anxiety feels like the fear that something is chasing me,” junior Aryia Thompson said. “Weird way to put it, but it feels like something bad is going to happen in a way.”
Others struggle to capture the feeling in a single description and instead compare it to confusing or overwhelming situations.
“If I had to describe student anxiety to someone who has never felt it, I would say it’s comparable to traveling through different countries that all communicate in different languages,” junior Kristen Burke said. “Each town you visit gives you a quest to complete without you understanding what it is or how to do it.”
Burke added that anxiety can also feel like being unprepared in situations where expectations are high and time is limited.
“It’s comparable to a long road trip and each mile you get away from home you realize you forgot to grab something, you’re running low on gas, but you don’t have enough money for a full tank,” Burke said. “Your GPS is not updated so the roads look differently than you thought and there’s a lot of wrong turns involved. A good art piece that looks like how anxiety can feel is Picasso’s ‘Weeping Woman’.”
Students describe that anxiety is not easily controlled and often builds over time. Many students say that once anxiety begins to intensify, it affects nearly every aspect of their daily functioning.
“I am almost never able to function properly when I feel stressed or anxious, especially when it comes to school,” Hoffman said. “This makes it incredibly hard to catch up, as well.”
For students trying to manage heavy workloads, this creates a cycle that can be difficult to break. Falling behind leads to more stress, which then makes it harder to complete assignments or stay organized. This affects students’ sleep as well.
“I don’t think I’ve gotten an uninterrupted sleep session since November,” Burke said. “It takes a long time for me to stop thinking about my to-do list and for my heartbeat to calm when I think about the deadlines and how little time I have to do anything if I want to do everything.”
The inability to fully rest can make the next day even more challenging, contributing to fatigue, lack of focus, and increased frustration. For students balancing academics with extracurricular activities, the effects can extend even further.
“My anxiety definitely affects my sport heavily,” Thompson said. “If I am stressed about a test the next day, me and my coaches found that I performed worse in soccer.”
Burke shared a similar experience as a competitive swimmer, where anxiety interfered with both focus and physical performance.
“There’s been multiple instances where I couldn’t focus on the set to the best of my ability because I was so wound up with thinking about the next three hours after practice,” Burke said. “Being unfocused in the water, especially during intense sets, has led me to become overwhelmed and not trust that my body can handle the physical pressure.”
She added that these moments can become intense, sometimes requiring her to stop and reset before continuing.
“The water feels like it’s invading every pore in your body and suffocating you,” Burke said. “That leads me to either stop at the wall to make myself take slow, deep breaths to reset or to get out of the water.”
Academic pressure remains one of the most commonly cited sources of anxiety among students. Many say the desire to succeed, combined with the workload required to do so, creates a constant sense of pressure.
“Mostly I feel pressure from teachers and grades themselves, because I want to get into college and pursue what I want to,” Hoffman said. “But school and GPA stress and an unmanageable amount of homework completely sucks the motivation and energy out of me. Learning isn’t fun anymore.”
For students enrolled in advanced or college-level courses, that pressure often peaks at certain times of the year.
“I feel most anxious during the school year around time for AP exams,” Thompson said. “Because my [AP exams] are all back to back, which adds onto my workload.”
These overlapping responsibilities can make it difficult for students to find time to rest or recover, increasing the likelihood of burnout.
Despite how widespread these experiences are, students say anxiety is not always openly discussed in a meaningful way.
“I don’t think students openly talk about anxiety, or at least not in the way they should,” Burke said. “I think the most common way students talk about something making them anxious is in a lighthearted or comical way. I don’t think the deep stuff is ever talked about, even if everyone feels it.”
This tendency to downplay anxiety can make it harder for students to seek help or feel understood. However, many still rely on trusted individuals when their anxiety becomes overwhelming.
“I talk to both of my high school coaches and my mother,” Burke said. “There’s been multiple instances this year I would leave my class to go to a coach’s room as a safe space to breathe and calm down before being able to focus on my work.”
Recognizing the early signs of anxiety is another way students attempt to manage it before it becomes overwhelming.
“I know I am starting to feel overwhelmed when I start constantly checking my calendar,” Thompson said.
Even with coping strategies and support systems, students say one of the most important factors is whether others truly understand what they are experiencing.
“I wish teachers understood that it doesn’t just make you feel nervous or stressed,” Hoffman said. “It plays into the decreasing stability of your overall being.”
As students continue to balance academic expectations, extracurricular commitments, and personal pressures, many say that recognizing anxiety as a serious and complex issue is an important step toward addressing it.
“It makes you feel unable to get up, or open your Chromebook to do an assignment, even if you know it’s easy,” Hoffman said. “It shuts down your being.”
