As the semester progresses students feel many emotions such as anxiety and stress, especially right now with midterms in full swing.

Students tend to suffer through these severe emotions making it difficult for them to study or get good grades in their classes because of other priorities they may have.

Skyline student Amante Jones, a Biology major, has attended Skyline for six semesters and who struggles with these types of emotions and shared his experience on the subject.

“Being a student you also have other obligations like work, and work takes a lot of your time…you can’t study while you’re at work because some jobs don’t allow you to do that,” Jones said. “And then you have family obligations you have to attend to, so it makes it hard to fully study for a test.”

This is a common obstacle that many students face along with over-achievement being a downfall of some. Unfortunately, things don’t always come like they would’ve wanted them to.

A Psychology student that goes to San Francisco State University, Abby De Los Reyes explains her reasoning on why she tends to have anxiety and becomes stress out around midterms.

“I try to be a perfectionist and when I don’t get a certain grade that I really want, it scares me…even though I don’t really get a low grade,” said De Los Reyes. “ Another big part is when I receive my tests back and I get a B after trying so hard and that’s when my anxiety and stress comes from because I felt I did everything I could.”

A lot of students tend to suffer through these severe emotions making it difficult for them to study or get good grades in their classes because they have other priorities.

According to a study from Penn’s Center for Collegiate Mental Health’s annual report, more than half of the students visiting campus health clinics have listed anxiety as a concern.

It clearly states that anxiety is a concern for students and it shows that anxiety, unfortunately, affects students academically.

Research was conducted and it found that 21.9 percent of students, whom anxiety had affected their academic performance said that within the last 12 months, they received a lower grade on an exam or important project thus resulting in the student receiving an incomplete or dropping the course.

A Psychology Professor at Skyline, Lisa Cresson, shared some tips on how students can work on their anxiety when it comes to midterms and testing in general.

“Two things that can greatly enhance a student’s performance during midterms are: to get adequate sleep and practice a little mindfulness before entering into your exam. Sleep, particularly REM sleep, is when we lay down the day’s experiences and turn them into long-term memories,” said Cresson.

Cresson also stated that if they days is spent studying, the best thing you can do for yourself is to go to bed early and get a good night’s sleep.

“Let your brain soak in all that information you worked so hard to encode,” said Cresson. “Finally, practicing: even just a few minutes of mindfulness, quiet, calm breathing while paying attention to the breath can help to trigger your parasympathetic nervous system, the parts that help us calm down.”