iQ Feel Good Roundtable

The stress of moving, studying and exams can take a toll on your mental health. We’ve seen it. Anticipating these big – and even small – events can create a lot of anxiety. When it goes unnoticed, it can lead to more stress that can become hard to deal with and puts pressures on everyday life. Uni is a time for adventures. For figuring things out. For having fun. Feelings of anxiety shouldn’t stop you from living the full experience.

This Mental Health Awareness Week, we wanted to shine a light on all things anxiety and share some tips on what you can do to be your best self.

On Tuesday 16th May, we gathered students and our Wellbeing Ambassadors at iQ Century Square for our Feel Good Roundtable, where a panel of experts were able to share their experiences and talk about ways that we can overcome feelings of anxiety.

Our iQ Feel Good Roundtable was built up of an inspiring line up; record-breaking adventurer and mental health charity founder, Alex Staniforth; law student and Student Minds advisor, Leon Gichana; Head of Residence Life at University of Sheffield, Revd De Ela Nutu; Shout Clinical Advisor, Dr Fiona Pienaar; and Resident Wellbeing Ambassador at iQ, Shamera Jokhoo.

Our panellists shared personal stories of how anxiety has played a role in their lives, spoke of how they overcame these struggles, and gave personal tips to our students on ways to manage these feelings.

The insights from our panel were pretty eye opening. Dr Fiona Pienaar pointed out that finding ways to cope doesn't have to be a challenge. "What we hear from people who are contacting Shout is that they have a wide variety of coping strategies and they don't always realise that they are there already. Music is a very common one, connecting with friends is another. Everyone needs one person, a team even better, but one person you feel you can confide it (professional or somebody who is a good listener), so what we try to do is get people to identify those outlets in their lives." 

We’ll be sharing these stories with you over the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for some inspiration on how to conquer everyday challenges and reach your full potential.