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How to cope with anxiety when starting school or university

Magdalena García — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 12:32:58 +0000

September is an interesting month: new classrooms and buildings, new people, new routines and for some, a new level of independence. For some, this can bring excitement about a fresh start, but also a tight feeling in the chest, homesickness, and even loneliness.

But homesickness and anxiety are not a character flaw. They’re a completely normal and expected response to a big change, and it doesn’t mean that they’re not ready.

Sometimes, life changes simply take time to adjust.

Why transitions feel hard

It’s easy to assume that homesickness means something is wrong, especially if you think everyone has settled in fine, and you’re the exception. But homesickness is so much more than missing home. It’s also about missing family, your friends, your home, a favourite meal, or knowing how each day will look like.

It can also be about the comfort of being somewhere where you don’t have to think about where to go, who to sit with, or what you’re supposed to do next. You don’t get decision fatigue.

Homesickness also doesn’t mean that you’re not excited to become more independent. You can be excited about university and still miss home terribly. You can love your new school and still have moments when you want to go back to your old school you’re familiar with.

These feelings can coexist. Homesickness is a natural response to change and doesn’t need to be eliminated immediately.

But let’s look at other things that can impact transitions:

Decision fatigue: as mentioned before, starting somewhere new requires an enormous amount of mental energy. Think about how many decisions you make during your day without really thinking about them: what to eat, where to go, who to sit with, when to study, etc. When everything is new, those decisions require conscious thought and can cause mental exhaustion from making lots of choices: Where is the lecture room? What time should I leave? Where should I sit? Should I go to this event?
Friendship pressure: starting somewhere new comes with an unspoken belief: everyone is immediately making friends. Should I be making friends already? Shouldn’t I have a friend group by now? The urgency can make normal social awkwardness, or struggling to connect with new people, feel like a personal failure, when in reality most people feel the same way (some hide it better!). What we see from other people is rarely the whole picture.
Comparison: social media can make things more intense. It can make you feel that everyone else is having the time of their life. But nobody posts the quiet Tuesday night where they missed their favourite meal or called an old friend since they felt lonely.

There is no universal timeline for settling in.

How can we work through it?

Build one small anchor routine. It doesn’t have to be big – same coffee order each morning, a phone call home once a week, a short walk before a lecture. Predictability, even on a small scale, can help steady the rest of your day. Small routines can provide a sense of stability when everything else is changing.
Let friendships happen slowly. The closest friendships rarely form in week one. They build through time and repetition. Attend your lectures and familiarise yourself with the people there.
Name the feeling instead of fighting it. Talk to someone you trust about your anxieties, loneliness, or homesickness. Message someone when you need connection. If that doesn’t feel doable, write it in a journal or speak to someone at university or school when you’re struggling. Pretending it’s not there can make things bigger.
Limit comparison. If scrolling through social media makes you feel worse, it’s completely fine to take a break or not engage with it. Remember: their feed isn’t the full story.
Go outside and move your body. It’s simple: a short walk, a couple of minutes outside, and moving can help regulate your mood, especially during life changes and stressful adjustments.

And most importantly, you don’t have to figure everything out at once. Reduce the pressure to solve everything immediately. Ask yourself, “What would make today feel a little easier?”, instead of, “How am I going to cope with the whole year?”

What can you do as a parent?

Transitions can be difficult for parents, too.

You might worry and feel anxious about whether your child is really okay. It’s even harder to watch your kid struggle from a distance. Our first instinct could be to call frequently, ask lots of questions and try to fix it.

Try checking in rather than hovering. What helps most is being a steady presence more so than taking control. A message like, “How’s it going?” Or “Thinking of you. No need to reply, just wanted you to know I’m here if you need it”. Let them lead with what they want to share and give them space to develop their independence while making it clear support is always available.
Resist the urge to solve it immediately. If they’re venting about a bad week at school or the first week of uni, it’s tempting to jump straight to advice. Sometimes (and more often than not) we want to be heard and validated first.
Resist the urge to interpret every difficult day as evidence that they’ve made the wrong decision. You can say things like, “It’s okay that this feels hard right now. You don’t have to decide anything today. Let’s give it some time.”
Don’t take distance personally. Their not answering every time you call or shorter replies to messages (even no replies) is very often about them building independence, not about you.

Remember that your child might not always tell you when they’re struggling. If you keep communication open, without demanding constant updates, it can be easier for them to come to you when they do need support.

When is it more than homesickness?

Adjustment difficulties and homesickness are common and expected, especially during the first weeks of a major transition. Most people start feeling more settled within a few weeks to a couple of months.

However, it’s worth paying closer attention if you notice:

Withdrawing almost completely from other people and social contact, not just feeling shy.
A low mood that isn’t lifting or is getting worse over time, rather than gradually easing.
Real trouble sleeping, eating or getting out of bed.
Loss of interest in things that used to matter to them or would normally enjoy.
Being unable to attend school, lectures or other essential activities.
Talk of hopelessness or worthlessness, or wanting to leave entirely with no plan to adjust first.

If any of these sounds familiar for yourself or someone you know, it’s better to seek support sooner than waiting for it to become more intense. You can reach out to student wellbeing teams at university or schools, a GP or other appropriate professional to help assess what’s going on and identify the right support needed.

Where a coach can help

A coach can be a useful source of support during a period of transition.

For students who want extra support, a coach can help them build routines, set realistic social goals, manage the workload and homesickness. Coaching tends to be more practical and forward-looking, where you can build skills and structure to handle a specific adjustment.

Having someone outside your family to talk things through makes it easier to separate normal discomfort from change from things that genuinely need addressing.

You are allowed to take your time

Starting somewhere new is meant to feel strange for a while, and it’s a significant transition.

The discomfort isn’t a sign you’re doing it wrong.

You don’t have to feel confident on the first day.
You don’t have to love every aspect of your new life immediately.
You don’t have to make your best friends in the first week.
Feeling homesick is not a sign you’re not coping.

Give yourself, and your child, permission to transition slowly, one step at a time.

Author: Magdalena García

Clinical Psychologist and Psychotherapist

The post How to cope with anxiety when starting school or university appeared first on TRC | London | Midlands | Edinburgh | Riyadh.

Rebuilding Self-Accountability

Michelle Scott — Wed, 24 Jun 2020 10:59:50 +0000

Michelle Scott, TRC Edinburgh and London, shares a guide to building, or re-building, self-accountability through difficult circumstances. These have been difficult times for all. Take some time to take stock and re-orientate using these helpful tools.

The emotional landscape of the last few months has been ever-changing. One irksome constant for many is frustration at our inability to achieve as much as we would like.

On how many days are to do lists abandoned, running shoes unworn and the mess of our homes a weary reminder of more to do?

Previous posts have explored the ideas that we are experiencing a paralysis of anxiety or a form of retreat as part of a grieving process.

It may also be that we struggle to be accountable to ourselves.

Without the watchful eye of our teachers, bosses or peers have we fallen into a “What’s the point?” frame of mind?

There is, of course, a great value in deciding when we have reached our limit and taking a duvet day. That would be an act of self-care.

An inability to be take up accountability for ourself is the opposite. We are not able to set healthy internal boundaries. We slump into a fog of inaction and self-recrimination.

Setting Healthy Internal Boundaries

Healthy internal boundaries allow us to meet our physical, mental and emotional needs. They can include setting meaningful goals and following through with actions.

So why might it be so hard to stay on track when we don’t have another to be accountable to?

If we have early role models for healthy boundaries we will internalise and value them. We will understand the importance of taking responsibility for our own well being. We will enjoy the ability to exert a positive influence on our self esteem by taking care of our self.

For some this does not happen.

We may have a codependent role with others where our means of feeling safe is to keep them happy. As children we may have had to do this to survive in an uncertain or unsafe environment. Our sense of self and our sense of worth become based on meeting the needs and wants of those we depend upon. We do not learn to understand what we need beyond the need to feel safe. We do not believe that we deserve to have needs.

If we do not have a secure attachment as our foundation we will struggle to individuate. Separation and being alone will create anxiety rather than an opportunity to gain confidence. We may develop patterns of avoidance to manage this anxiety so that we deny the loss or need of the other.

Navigating Avoidance

Avoidance of feelings is a crude tool and can soon lead to us feeling unable to manage any feeling. We begin to feel as helpless as we feared we may be. We shy away from every situation or trigger that we sense will create an emotional response.

If we add a harsh inner critic in the mix, being accountable to ourselves becomes overwhelming and can feel impossible.

Self-accountability and working on internal boundaries may sound like a military school. It is, in fact, an opportunity to show ourselves love and to grow more fully into our sense of self.

Many of us may remember the feeling of being a small child learning how to ride a bike or do algebra for the first time. Our first reaction may well have been it’s too hard I can’t do it. A more accurate statement would be “we don’t know how to do it yet”. We can learn if we are patient and practice and if we have a supportive adult to help us. For now, we must be that supportive adult to ourself.

How to begin?

Become more aware of your feelings and needs. Take time to check in with yourself and expand your vocabulary of feelings to describe what you observe. Rather than “good” or “hungry”, can you describe the good feeling more accurately? What would you especially like to eat?
Establish which internal boundaries you most need. Make an honest appraisal of the ways in which you are not caring towards yourself. Are you sleep-deprived? Engaging in unhealthy habits? Have no time to enjoy hobbies?
Reevaluate your to-do lists – be they mental or literal. Take the opportunity to question who you are doing things for and why. Pay attention to those which are because you “Should” or “Have to” rather than “Want to”.
Notice if there are particular themes to where you get stuck. Stop and ask what is really going on here. Ask what am I avoiding? Do I struggle to get on with small task because I am struggling to get on with something deeper my life? Do I want to avoid feeling? When I say ” It’s not that important” do I mean “I’m not worth it”.
Create an ‘I want and need’ list. Reinforce your commitment to the things you include by writing it down along with your motivations for each item. I want to have more energy so that I can have fun with my friends. I need better sleep so that I can focus better. I want to have more time to enjoy reading.
Use visualisation to see yourself with the rewards of meeting your wants and needs. Connect to how that feels
Write a new ToDo list with your wants as a starting place. Connect to the reward as motivation for each task. Begin my work as soon as I get it – so that I can have more time to enjoy reading. Stop screen time before bed so that I can have better sleep and focus.
Make it possible – Be realistic about what needs to get done and when. Be flexible and responsive to what you can actually manage. Allow yourself to aim for something rather than nothing as opposed to all or nothing.
Change the inner dialogue to one of more self-respect and understanding. Instead of ” I am so pathetic I can’t get anything done” try ” I notice I am procrastinating, I must be feeling something I am not aware of”

Author: Michelle Scott

Psychotherapist & Eating Disorder Specialist MSc BSc RMHN (Reg MBACP) London & Edinburgh

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