Causes of Stress and Anxiety

In this post we summarise causes of stress and anxiety, as expounded in various texts. But before doing so, some definition of terms may be helpful.

Stress is a universal human experience which is defined by WHO as “a state of worry or mental tension caused by a difficult situation” and is a natural reaction to a threat or challenge (World Health Organisation 2023). A degree of stress can keep us motivated, and even safe from harm. Not everyone has the same level of ‘stress tolerance’ (this is partly genetic, but can be improved by adopting certain attitudes and strategies, but this is not our present focus), and those with lower levels are more likely to develop conditions such as anxiety, depression, or reliance upon drugs or alcohol (Delgado 2023).

Addressing university international students, Wang et al. (2023) define stress as “a transaction between an individual and the environment, and is generated by subjective cognitive judgement of the potential impact of a stressor” which results in “the individual [evaluating] his or her resources to cope with the stressor”, then, if the “perceived demands outweigh the perceived resources”, a stress response is the likely result (p. 2). They use the term ‘self-efficacy’, which is a comparable term to Delgado’s ‘stress tolerance’, and their view is that those possessing a “higher level of self-efficacy believe they are capable of dealing with their demands,” and this can result in adoption of “positive approaches and perceiving less stress in life” (p. 3).

Stress is a response to some kind of stimulus, a ‘trigger’, whereas anxiety, whilst inducing similar symptoms, is persistent, remaining after the stimulus has ceased (American Psychological Association 2022). Again, like stress, anxiety is normal human experience and when mild is unlikely to require treatment (Boardman 2023), although can be temporarily disruptive, debilitating and unpleasant. If someone develops an ‘anxiety disorder’, their condition is deemed to be prolonged, difficult to control, not attributable to a physical cause, and has a considerably greater impact on their life (Boardman 2023).

So, turning to the environmental factors that can lead to stress and anxiety, Wang et al. (2023) state that amongst university students in general, academic difficulties were the primary sources, but focusing on international students financial pressure (affecting 72.07% of the 512 students surveyed) and language barriers (affecting 69.34%) were the most prominent stressors (p. 7). However, I feel this would be less applicable to my PSE students as being on a short course and studying online from, most likely, their family home, reduces significantly the immediate financial concerns (although they could still have worries for financing their main course that should follow). Also, because they are essentially in a language classroom, they are not engaging and socialising with native(-level) speakers – tutors aside! – and Wang et al. do cite ‘sociocultural adjustment’ as a key aspect of any language barrier, so again the language barriers, whilst real, should not be so prominent.

Others factors mentioned include the academic difficulties common to all students, interpersonal relations, and general difficulties of daily life (Wang et al. 2023, p. 4). Focusing on the language classroom, Inada (2021) lists potential causes of anxiety as having to present to a whole class (and in PSE this will include Crits), having mistakes corrected, pre-conceived beliefs around language learning, teaching methodologies (which may be culturally unfamiliar) and a mismatch in level of teaching materials utilised (p. 33).

The UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence mention, as potential factors, moving away from home, which necessitates the need to learn to live more independently and leave behind established social and emotional support networks, workload pressures, both academic and potentially a job, and perfectionism (which leads me to recall my time as a first-year undergraduate and being prescribed Diazepam) (NICE 2020).

The data reported by Tan et al. (2023) reveals that the female students reviewed were more likely to have experienced anxiety when compared to male students, with a median of 34.60% against 28.40% (p. 9). They go on to add that this difference is accredited, amongst others, to hormonal factors and lack of confidence. They also urge consideration that the gender disparity may be due to under-reporting by male students, perhaps because of societal pressures for males to not reveal weaknesses. Highly pertinent for my role is where they also state that anxiety issues are more prevalent in students living in Asia compared to those in Europe (p. 4), and more directly applicable is the revelation that students of ‘Asian heritage’ experienced higher levels of social anxiety (p. 11). It may be a generalisation, which makes me tentative to include this, but they state that “Asians were found to be less forgiving towards underachievement as compared to Europeans, which leaves them more vulnerable to anxiety and self-doubt as a result of their persistent need for high levels of academic performance”.

The implications for students are perhaps obvious: Inada (2021, p. 1) points out that high anxiety levels will lead to a deterioration of performance in students within a foreign-language classroom, whilst Tan et al. (2023, p. 1) also mention poor academic performance and add the ramifications for overall mental health. It is important to mention the possible outcome of students choosing to drop out of their courses, although surprisingly this was not discussed in any of the reading I undertook. Lewis and Stiebahl (2024, pp. 10-11) give us the starkest warning when they look at suicide rates among HE students. One interesting, and alarming, statistic they point to from the Office for National Statistics article on suicide among HE students in England and Wales, 2017 to 2020, is that of 202 suicides, 63.3% were male students (ONS 2022 p. 4): so comments above that suspect mental health issues are under-reported by male students may well be credible.

What now needs to be explored is what action can be taken to reduce the probability of students developing high anxiety levels, and the next post will examine some of what has been written on this topic.