How to Help Students Manage Anxiety & Depression with Connection Skills
by Karin Yarnell
Anxiety and depression continue to be a difficult reality for many college students. Among college students in Missouri in 2024, 61% experienced anxiety in the last 12 months, 47% experienced depression in the last year, and 33% reported currently experiencing overwhelming or unbearable stress. One in four contemplated suicide not just in their lifetime, but in the previous 12 months.
We as campus ministry leaders might not be adequately trained to comprehensively treat mental illness, but we do have a role to play in helping them overcome the obstacles they face on a daily basis. Access to professional help can be difficult to attain, so it is important for us to to be equipped to assist where we can.
The primary way we can shepherd college students who struggle with anxiety and depression is by helping them connect with God, with others, and with their surroundings. We can do this for students both when they are experiencing a crisis—emergency spiritual medicine, so to speak—and in the everyday habits of life—preventative and maintenance spiritual medicine, as the analogy goes.
These connection skills are not meant to take the place of professional mental health care or medications when those things are necessary. Rather, these skills are a supportive tool that aid them in their healing journeys. Anxiety and depression do not need to sideline students, and these disciplines can help them thrive.
Preventative Connection Skills for Anxiety and Depression
Connecting Anxious & Depressed College Students with God
Helping struggling students connect with God is as simple as discipling them to develop healthy rhythms of daily prayer, Bible reading, Scripture memory, and worship of God. Teach them the skill, model the skill, and check up with them on it.
You might need to meet with them one-on-one until they are at a point where they can do these spiritual disciplines on their own. Even after you’ve “released” them to practice the discipline solo, ask periodically how it is coming along. Make a habit of asking them what they are learning in Scripture or how God is working in their lives.
You’ll also want to help students set realistic expectations for these disciplines so that disappointment doesn’t fuel their anxiety and depression. Explain that not every time they spend in prayer or reading their Bible will result in an emotional experience, but the daily rhythm of spending time with God can draw them closer to the heart of God. This is how we get to know God, through His Word, and it’s the regular practice of connection with God that slowly but surely builds up spiritual resilience and strengthens their armor against anxiety and depression.
Connecting Anxious & Depressed Students with Others
Not only do students need to have a solid, consistent connection with the Lord, but they also need to connect with people. You can help them develop healthy relationships that fuel their connection with God and surround them with support.
For many students with anxiety and depression, this is difficult. Whether they struggle with social anxiety or not, they likely deal with intrusive thoughts that make deep friendships difficult. Many students who struggle with mental illness wrestle with plaguing thoughts such as “no one wants me around” or “I’m a burden”.
Self-isolation is a natural response to such thoughts—and it’s exactly what the enemy wants. Challenge them to push through those thoughts and connect with people when they least want to. College students struggling with anxiety and depression need peers to hang out with and develop close friendships with, and they need a spiritual mentor. They might need help navigating relationships with their parents, siblings, professors, pastors, bosses and so on.
You can be there for them to help them navigate these relationships and challenge the negative thoughts that are sure to pop up.
Connecting Anxious & Depressed Students with Nature
Finally, help these students connect with their surroundings by encouraging them to get outside often. One of the best things for anyone who is struggling with anxiety or depression is to develop a habit of daily exercise. Students with mental health struggles often avoid physical activity because it feels overwhelming, but they must push through this. The vigor of exercise and the release of endorphins has a proven positive effect on a variety of mental health issues, including anxiety and depression.
Walking outside is one of the best options because it has the added benefit of enjoying nature’s beauty, which is an important component in healing. It can calm the anxious person as well as lift the spirits of one who is depressed. Challenge them to be physically active, and provide both accountability and companionship. Go for a walk with them or find another student to accompany them.
Crisis Connection Skills for Anxiety and Depression
This idea of connection is really helpful when the student is in a crisis as well. During a panic attack or depressive crisis, the steps will look a little different, but the concept is the same. During a depressive episode or a panic attack, help the student develop a habit of connection.
Connecting with God might simply be a cry for help. “Help me, God” is an appropriate heart cry. Let them know it’s okay if, in the midst of a crisis, they have minimal capacity for their normal spiritual disciplines. What’s important is that they turn to God.
After they have cried out to God for help, the next thing they can do is to connect with another person. I encourage students to have a list of seven people in their phone that they can call or text when in a crisis. When students call me during a crisis, I consider it an honor to help them calm down and navigate the problem.
Whether you are physically present with the student or not during their crisis, helping them connect with their environment is a crucial next step. Some will call this grounding. I often encourage students to get outside if possible. Walking in the grass barefoot can be very calming to an anxious heart; it helps a person stay in the present. If they are in class and cannot leave, I encourage them to touch something cold, like the metal on their chair or desk. There are many ways to ground oneself in the present, so encourage them to have two or three grounding mechanisms that work for them.
Building Connection Skills for Life
If a student sticks with this plan, pretty soon it will become a habit when crisis strikes, and they will find themselves able to come out of the crisis mode more quickly. When the crisis is over, it is critical that they resume their everyday disciplines of connection with God, others, and their surroundings.
These tips are not a cure-all for mental illness. They are just a way that I have personally found helpful for myself as well as others who wrestle with anxiety or depression. These steps can be a crucial part of their healing process and can give them the strength and courage to not despair but to find the ray of hope that will sustain them.
He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
and made me cower in ashes;
my soul is bereft of peace;
I have forgotten what happines is;
so I say, “My endurance has perished;
so has my hope from the Lord.”
Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;[b]
his mercies never come to an end.
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.
Lamentations 3:16-24
