IS THIS NATURAL OR HEALTH ANXIETY?

Dear Diary,

I am not sure what I am facing. Is this natural anxiety or health anxiety I should be worried about?  I feel all this emotion is a manifestation of these college changes, and maybe even my own unhealthy lifestyle. It’s college, right? So, I am probably not eating right, drinking a little too much along with other things I shouldn’t be doing and now my heart feels like it’s going into rapid beats when I feel stress. I struggle to focus and I am really worried my roommate is unhappy with me. I feel like my heart is going to jump out anytime. These changes are tough and I feel sometimes like I have chest tightness, and I might hyperventilate with all these changes, papers, reports due. It makes me very stressed and very irritable. I really want to make my family proud, so this pressure is probably on me, but I just don’t want to fail. This isn’t high school anymore, for sure. I wish somehow the colleges would talk about the impact huge impact on the day-to-day health and well-being of students. Sometimes it’s scary. Sometimes I feel alone, even with lots of friends and lots of activities.

Anyway, for anyone out there who has stress, panic attacks and scared, most everyone else is feeling it, too. It may manifest in other ways, but the stress is real. We gotta hang in there. We gotta be strong. Just know you’re not alone.