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Cant Study for College

I am a sophomore in college and am completely unable to study or do homework.

When I try to read my textbooks, my skin starts tingling and I feel the need to "run." My head starts itching, I can't breath, I start thinking of a thousand things at once and become extremely scared, so it becomes impossible to read a textbook or do homework.

I was not able to study for last semester and my GPA really went down, and I don't want to mess up again this semester.

I really don't know what to do, and any help would be appreciated.

Re: Cant Study for College

Is it the workload that is causing anxiety or something else? Perhaps try taking less courses. Another thing that may help is scheduling time to study in increments. Maybe tell yourself you're going to read for 25 minutes, and take a 5 minute break. Set a specific time for this, say at 3:30pm. Then as you become more comfortable with this, increase the length that you study. Also, depending on your courses, it may not be essential to read the book. The book, more or less, reinforces what the lectures teach. If possible you should read them before lecture, not after, then the lecture will pretty much ingrain what you've read. But I've found for most of my Freshman and Sophomore classes, I didn't read much at all.

If you don't think the above is an issue, you may need to go talk to a counselor or advisor. Your college should have them available for free to currently enrolled students.

Good luck.

Re: Cant Study for College

Thank you for your response,

I think it is the workload that is intimidating.

I have a lot of tough classes and I am really scared that I won't have enough time to study for them, and the pressure is so intense that I simply can't concentrate at all - I get distracted by some thought every 5 seconds.

Somehow I always wake up and say, today I am going to study for at least 3 hours, but all I can study for is like 30 minutes.

Re: Cant Study for College

I have/had anxiety problems in university and what helped was taking fewer courses because if I got held up with something or if anxiety related problems slowed me down, it helped me to know it wasn't the end of the world because I wasn't falling behind on what felt like literally everything. Is it possible that you can drop a course? Yes, no maybe? I know many people who couldn't because it would affect their financial assistance, which they needed all of, but if you have a diagnosed anxiety disorder like me, you can sometimes get accommodations to take fewer courses and still be technically considered full time so it won't affect financial assistance.

Since it does sound like your dealing with a lot of stress or anxiety that you don't have a good handle on (I say so because you're describing it interfering with your ability to do your work), you should also consider counselling. Many universities/colleges on site to help students with anything and everything under the sun, and if they can't they'll refer you to someone who can. So that's a great place to start to get help.

Finally, you should access academic support groups; I am not sure what they'd be called at your school, but most campuses have places you can go to develop studying skills, essay-editing skills, etc. and they're super helpful.

If you believe you have an anxiety disorder, you might want to consider getting a formal diagnosis so that you can access disability related learning assistance at your campus and they'll really help - without the help of these people at my school, I seriously wouldn't have a degree.

Re: Cant Study for College

Adderall is a God-send. I was diagnosed as having ADHD. My doctor prescribed me Adderall and it saved my academic career.