Record Numbers of College Students Are Seeking Treatment for Depression and Anxiety — But Schools Can’t Keep Up

 

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Not long after Nelly Spigner arrived at the University of Richmond in 2014 as a Division I soccer player and aspiring surgeon, college began to feel like a pressure cooker. Overwhelmed by her busy soccer schedule and heavy course load, she found herself fixating on how each grade would bring her closer to medical school. “I was running myself so thin trying to be the best college student,” she says. “It almost seems like they’re setting you up to fail because of the sheer amount of work and amount of classes you have to take at the same time, and how you’re also expected to do so much.”

 

At first, Spigner hesitated to seek help at the university’s counseling center, which was conspicuously located in the psychology building, separate from the health center. “No one wanted to be seen going up to that office,” she says. But she began to experience intense mood swings. At times, she found herself crying uncontrollably, unable to leave her room, only to feel normal again in 30 minutes. She started skipping classes and meals, avoiding friends and professors, and holing up in her dorm. In the spring of her freshman year, she saw a psychiatrist on campus, who diagnosed her with bipolar disorder, and her symptoms worsened. The soccer team wouldn’t allow her to play after she missed too many practices, so she left the team. In October of her sophomore year, she withdrew from school on medical leave, feeling defeated. “When you’re going through that and you’re looking around on campus, it doesn’t seem like anyone else is going through what you’re going through,” she says. “It was probably the loneliest experience.”

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Researchers discover marijuana’s anxiety relief effects

coannabinoid receptors

The discovery of cannabinoid receptors may help explain why marijuana users say they take the drug mainly to reduce anxiety.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University have found cannabinoid receptors, through which marijuana exerts its effects, in a key emotional hub in the brain involved in regulating anxiety and the flight-or-fight response.

 

 

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There is more depression among clergy than the general population: Study

Clergy members are at a higher risk of depression.

Using phone surveys and written questionnaires, researchers from the Clergy Health Initiative at Duke Divinity School decided to look into the mental health of members of the clergy.  They interviewed over 1,700 United Methodist pastors, and found that depression is about 1.6 times higher in that group compared to the general population (8.7% versus 5.5%).

 

 

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Brains of children from violent homes function same as combat soldiers

violent home

Witnessing violence can have a traumatic effect on the brain.

Scientists at the University College of London (UCL) and the Anna Freud Center liken the impact of family violence on the brains of children to the brains of soldiers exposed to combat. Both kinds of combat result in hypersensitivity to danger and put subjects at risk for developing anxiety disorders.

 

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Feeling anxious? 5 Scientifically proven relaxation techniques

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Is it time to destress and relax?

Everyone gets anxious from time to time: there’s public speaking, job interviews, the dentist and all the rest. For about one in six of us this will cross over into what psychologists term a disorder at some point in our lives. This is when people are almost continuously anxious and find it difficult to concentrate, have trouble sleeping and become irritable and restless…

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