Supporting Student Stress with Coaching

What is Stress?

Stress is a natural physiological and psychological response to challenges or demands placed on an individual. While mild stress can motivate performance, chronic or overwhelming stress can adversely impact mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing. It’s important to recognise that stress manifests differently in everyone and can lead to symptoms like anxiety, irritability, sleep disruption, or changes in academic performance.

Understanding student stress and spotting it early can help us support students and provide targeted early intervention to prevent stress from turning into more long-term mental health problems such as anxiety or depression.

What is Student Stress?

Student stress refers to the pressures and demands faced by young people in academic settings such as schools, college, university or vocational study (Beiter et.al., 2015). This could arise from exams, academic achievements, social relationships, managing workload, extracurricular activities, or even personal issues at home.

Recent studies show that one in six children aged 5-16 (NHS, 2020) in the UK suffers from probable mental health challenges, with academic stress being a significant contributing factor.  It’s vital to recognise that academic success shouldn’t come at the expense of young people's mental health, and finding ways to support student stress is crucial for their overall wellbeing and academic outcomes.

One in six children aged 5-16 in the UK suffers from probable mental health challenges, with academic stress being a contributing factor (NHS, 2020).

What are the Symptoms of Student Stress?

Stress symptoms in students can manifest in both physical and psychological ways, often impacting their overall wellbeing and daily functioning. Physically, students may experience headaches, fatigue, sleep disturbances, or digestive issues, all of which can hinder their ability to focus and perform well. Psychologically, stress can lead to anxiety, irritability, mood swings, or feelings of being overwhelmed. Recognising these symptoms is crucial in addressing and managing student stress effectively.

Can you spot any of these psychological or physical symptoms in students

• Difficulty concentrating or focusing on tasks  
• Irritability or increased emotional sensitivity  
• Physical symptoms such as headaches or stomach aches  
• Fatigue or lack of energy  
• Sleep disturbances, including insomnia or oversleeping  
• Loss of interest in hobbies or activities they usually enjoy  
• Feelings of overwhelming worry or anxiety  
• Procrastination or avoidance of academic work
• Decline in academic performance
• Changes to appetite, either increasing or decreasing
• Skin conditions such as rashes, eczema or breakouts

The Job Demands-Resources Model and Student Stress

The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007), commonly applied to workplace stress, offers insights for understanding student stress. According to the model:

• Demands like huge academic workloads, social pressures, and tight deadlines can lead to burnout if they exceed a student’s capacity to manage them.
• Resources such as emotional support, structured guidance, and coping strategies act as buffers, helping students manage these pressures.

By reducing demands and increasing available resources—through supportive relationships, emotional validation, and professional interventions like coaching—we can equip students to handle stress more effectively.

Demands: What’s Causing an Increase in Stress in Students?

The demands on students have been on the rise due to various reasons:

• Academic Expectations: Whether from teachers, parents, or themselves, the push to perform academically can create immense pressure.
• Exam Stress: High-stakes exams and the pressure to achieve top grades can be a significant source of stress for students.
• Social Media: Students often compare themselves to peers on social platforms, leading to feelings of inadequacy.
• Pandemic Effects: The disruptions caused by COVID-19 led to isolation, changes in learning environments, and increased uncertainty about the future.
• Overloaded Schedules: Balancing academics, extracurricular activities, home responsibilities and social lives can leave students overwhelmed.
• Unrecognised Neurodivergence or Disabilities: Many students experience additional stress due to educational systems that aren’t always designed to accommodate diverse needs.
• Fear of Failure: Fear of failure is a common cause of stress in students, with many feeling immense pressure to achieve.
• Fear of the Future: With the job market becoming increasingly competitive and,  worries about student debt, students may feel anxious about their prospects post-graduation.
• Outside Pressure and Other People's Agendas: Students can experience stress due to external pressures from family, peers,  school or societal expectations.

One way to support students with stress is to reduce these demands or support students to change the way they perceive these demands. The other is to increase resources.

Resources for Managing Student Stress

Helping students requires addressing both their emotional and academic needs to increase the resources that help them manage stress.

Coaching provides an opportunity for reflection, building resilience by utilising positive coping strategies and planning that not only reduce academic demands but also increase resources.

Here are a few practical areas for developing resources that support student stress management.

Encouraging Open Communication

• Creating safe spaces for students to express their concerns without judgment.
• Normalising conversations about stress and mental health to reduce feelings of isolation.
• Discussing goals and actions to help improve perseverance and motivation

Time Management Planning

• Coaching students to develop their own approach to planning and setting achievable study schedules.
• Breaking larger tasks into smaller, manageable steps, celebrating achievement and success no matter how small.

Promoting Physical and Mental Wellbeing

• Planning time for regular exercise, balanced diets, and sufficient sleep.
• Using relaxation techniques like mindfulness or breathing exercises to help students calm their minds.

Setting Realistic Expectations:

• Focusing on effort rather than outcomes—praising improvement and persistence.
• Re-focusing achievement on personalised goals and aims so students understand that success isn’t defined solely by grades.

Creating Balance:

• Planning and setting actions for regular breaks during study sessions and fun extracurricular activities that offer a release from academic pressure.
• Focusing on positive emotions such as joy, inspiration, pride and interest to help boost wellbeing and prime the brain for learning (Frederickson, 2003).

Coaching Manages Student Stress

Coaching plays a pivotal role in helping students identify and implement effective resources for managing stress. Through the coaching relationship, coaches support students in recognising their unique stress triggers and, through goal setting, support them by developing tailored approaches to address these stressors.  The coaching conversation can support students to take accountability of their stress management strategies in both areas of reducing demands and increasing recourses.

Additionally, the supportive structure of coaching fosters self-reflection and accountability, ensuring that students actively apply these strategies in their daily lives to achieve sustainable stress management.

How Does Coaching Help Students Manage Stress?

Coaching is an evidence-based intervention that supports students by offering personalised guidance and equipping them with actionable strategies to tackle challenges. Here’s how coaching specifically addresses student stress:

• Building Awareness of Stressors: Coaches help students identify the demands that cause stress to be triggered and explore coping mechanisms suited to their individual, unique needs.
• Encouraging Goal-Setting: By defining clear objectives and breaking them into smaller, attainable action steps, coaching enables students to work systematically without feeling overwhelmed.
• Promoting Accountability: Coaches encourage accountability by providing ongoing support and monitoring progress, helping students stay on track and feel accomplished.
• Creating a Support Network: Coaching fosters self-confidence, enabling students to seek help and feel a stronger sense of community with those around them.
• Prioritise Resource Activation: Coaches can help students identify the resources available to them and plan to use them more.

Take the Next Step—Connect with Us

Stress is a natural part of the student experience, but it doesn't have to be overwhelming or detrimental. By integrating coaching into student support systems, educators, parents, and head teachers can create an environment where students thrive.

Want to learn how to support young people better? Join our Free Introduction to Coaching Young People Course today! Discover how you can help students reduce stress, build resilience, and unlock their potential for success.

If you want to learn how to coach the students you work with, Join Our Accredited Coach Training Course.

Reference

Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The Job Demands-Resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309–328. https://doi.org/10.1108/02683940710733115

Beiter, R., Nash, R., McCrady, M., Rhoades, D., Linscomb, M., Clarahan, M., & Sammut, S. (2015). The prevalence and correlates of depression, anxiety, and stress in a sample of college students. Journal of Affective Disorders, 173, 90–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2014.10.054

Fredrickson, B.L. (2003) The value of positive emotions: the emerging science of positive psychology is coming to understand why it's good to feel good. American Scientist 91(4):330-335.

NHS Digital. (2020). Mental Health of Children and Young People in England, 2020. NHS Digital. Retrieved from https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/mental-health-of-children-and-young-people-in-england/2020  

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