What To Do When You Have An Anxious Student In Your Class?

14th June 2022

Anxiety has become an extremely common issue among today’s students as it usually starts showing up around the age of three or four. Although anxiety among students most often goes undiagnosed, one in 10 will experience the kind of distressing, life-interfering worry, also known as an anxiety syndrome.

Anxiety in adults is a different thing altogether; we may be able to identify, express and calm our anxiety, but our students may not be able to do that. To identify anxiety in your students, notice if they look worried that interfere with their daily activities.

A student afraid of large vehicles on the road might just be experiencing fear; he/she won’t leave the house because of his/her fear of the vehicles might be experiencing this problem.

So, how can you help your students when they are feeling anxious?

First, identify the tell-tale signs as your student experiences feelings of anxiety. Skilled special Education teachers will be well-aware of the common signs of anxiety in students.

Tell-tale Signs of Anxiety in a Student

Here are some of the major signs that you can look out for. The student does most of these mentioned as below:

• Starts to be clingy

• Prone to getting irritable

• Wakes up to bad dreams 

• Is often fidgety and tense

• Avoids daily activities, such as attending school or socialising with friends

The other physical symptoms include sweating, fainting, a feeling of choking, etc.

Ways To Help An Anxious Student

Here are we have discussed someeasy ways that you may try out to calm down your anxious students.

1. Talk About The Worry

Initiate a free conversation and discuss with your student on his/her worries. Help your student to face the fear and look at the problem with a new or different perspective. This allows the student to release a lot of built-up tension; this also lets gives you a sneak-peak into the factors that are causing your student’s feeling of anxiety. By being aware of the causes that disturb your student, you will be able to provide help in the future help to your student by anticipating the feeling of anxiety and managing it.  

2. Focusing On Breathing  

One of the easiest and proven ways to calm anxiety is by practicing deep breathing. It is a proven method that slow-deep breathing can help to calm feelings of anxiety. “When you get anxious, your heart rate tends to increase and your breathing will become shallower,” an expert explains. Shallow breathing leads to less oxygen flow to the muscles and brain, thereby increasing panic. “By slowing everything down with the deep breathing, we’ll also slow down the heart rate and feel more physically calm.”

3. Art Therapy

Art therapy is another method to encourage relaxation among students. This involves students making art for their relaxation and sometimes for the rapists to interpret.

“Children who are unable or unwilling to communicate their feelings verbally can still express themselves through art. . . The sensory experience of making art can be soothing in and of itself and encourage children to remain in the moment,” claims an expert in student psychology.

4. Hug It Out

Skin contact or physical touch such as hugging is yet another most personal and effective way to calm an anxious student. Hugging helps your student to release the feel-good hormone called ‘oxytocin’ in them that helps to lower their stress hormone level and feelings of anxiety in your student.

5. Music Therapy

“Music soothes the soul”. By playing your student’s favourite music, you can encourage a tremendous relaxing effect on his mind and body and an immediate positive change. Slow classical music soothes and calms the mind as it helps to considerably bring down the stress hormones in the body and lower the pulse and heart rate thereby helping your student improve his mental stress symptoms.

6. Pet Therapy

If you have a pet at home, say a cat or a dog or even a bird, they can prove to be quite helpful to help your student relieve their feelings of anxiety. Studies have proven that pet-therapy helps to reduce anxiety, depression and fatigue in people including studentren seeking their company. Apart from playing a pivotal role in reducing anxiety stress and depression, your student will also get unconditional love and friendship from their furry friends. For parents with no pets at home, you can always bring your student to a dog or cat café to interact with the animals in a safe and calm environment.

Conclusion

We have mentioned above some handy tips that most teachers can consider calming their student’s feelings of stress and anxiety. However, teachers who have pursued in-class international teaching diploma program in Kolkata are aware that these tips are not targeted to eliminate anxiety, but to help the students manage anxiety. In case, these methods are unable to contain a student’s anxiety, seek professional medical help.

Written By : Neha Sharma