A Space to breathe

As a student, you go through many new experiences, a lot of which can be quite overwhelming. The heavy work load combined with multi-tasking, deadlines and many other factors can often culminate in a really stressed individual, which can become unhealthy. I am interested to discover if there is a common stress factor amongst the majority of students, and how students deal with this on a daily basis throughout their degree.

 

Stress is common among students, but how can we tell if it is at a point where professional help should be considered? What should we do, during a busy schedule, to look after our wellbeing? Do we all know how to recognise that our body and mind need a break, and how do we deal with this? I believe it can be very difficult to 'zone out' from a stressful situation at university, and give yourself time to return to a calm and focused state of mind when there are so many important things to get done. Particularly if you enjoy a change of scenery, as part of taking a break, the environment in which you allow yourself to relax is an important decision.

From a personal experience studying at Nottingham Trent University, I feel that there are not many spaces provided which could be used for relaxing rather than simply socialising... so if I do not have the opportunity to go home between lectures, for example, I find myself settling for one of the many coffee shops on campus as a source of killing time without thinking of studies. There are a few ‘chill out’ spaces in the city campus, but most of which merely comprise of units of furniture dotted here and there with no real consideration for creating sensory spaces. How often are these seats really used? Do students actually sit there comfortably, or simply take the weight off their feet for a few moments whilst waiting for someone?

 

My research throughout this blog is aimed towards understanding how students cope with different levels of stress through university, and where they retreat to when it all becomes too much. Through a series of questionnaires and interviews directed at students, I will be exploring all the activities & places visited at times of stress, then analysing if there are spaces at NTU that cater for all these needs. I will also be speaking to professionals in the well-being sector to obtain information on what students normally seek help about, and to find out what they would recommend to help prevent the students’ stress levels from becoming a problem. 

 

My goal is to be able to design a functional space dedicated for students to de-stress and breathe. Once I have established that there really is a problem with stress at university, and analysed all the existing spaces available, I will evaluate what kind of spaces are needed, where this new space needs to be located, and how it needs to function to enable students to deal with stress more efficiently.