How Students Can Alleviate Anxiety While at Law School

All law students suffer some level of anxiety during their studies. For many, high levels of stress and anxiety make studying law extremely difficult. Anxiety seeps from multiple sources. Many law students experience impostor syndrome, feeling that they are not as capable as their peers and fearing that they will be “found out” as being inadequate. The heavy work load means many law students struggle to balance their studies with work, family, and personal commitments. This can lead to time management issues and feelings of being overwhelmed. Legal concepts, language, and cases can be complex and difficult to understand. The need to grasp intricate details and apply them accurately under time limits is also anxiety-producing. Law students often place additional pressure on themselves to perform well academically in a highly competitive environment. The demanding nature of law school can lead to social isolation as students have less time to spend with friends and family, which can affect mental well-being. For these and many more reasons, success in law school requires the active and consistent management of anxiety. What follows are some techniques to assist you in identifying when you are anxious and reducing the impact of anxiety on your studies.

Understanding your body’s response to anxiety

In general we all experience anxiety in the same way, and knowing how your body responds can help you identify when you are in need of practicing a technique to manage your stress. When humans experience anxiety a series of biological responses occur within the body, primarily driven by the activation of the autonomic nervous system. The stress associated with law school is perceived by your brain in the same way a person living 50,000 years ago would perceive a panther. A distress signal is sent to an ancient part of your brain called the hypothalamus. Your nervous system then engages a flight or fight response. Your heart rate increases, your breathing quickens, your muscles tense, your mouth feels dry but you start to sweat. Your brain activity concentrates on short time survival. This reduces your cognitive function; effectively eliminating your ability to concentrate, problem-solve and retain information. What this means is when your body is experiencing anxiety and stress your brain cannot function in ways necessary for learning and retaining information. For some, stress and anxiety triggers a flight response in the brain resulting in a person feeling frozen and unable to make a decision. This is often coupled with feelings of uncertainty and inadequacy. A fight response usually manifests in outbursts of frustration and even anger. In either case, the same techniques can be employed to tell your body that there are no physical threats so that it disengages from the flight or flight state to allow your mind to return to its capacity to learn and problem solve.

Stress Reducing Practice 1: Deep Breathing Exercises

It may seem overly simple, but paying attention to your breathing and practicing deep breathing techniques will trick your body into thinking that the source that triggered the flight or fight response is no longer a threat. If someone living 50,000 years ago thought they saw a panther, and then it turns out to only be a child pretending to be a panther, they immediately would start to breathe deeply as their fear subsided. This increased oxygen supply tells your body that the threat has passed and there is no longer any need for the nervous system to be in flight or fight mode. Deep breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which promotes relaxation and reduces the stress response. This helps lower levels of stress hormones like cortisol. Regular practice of deep breathing can help regulate emotions and improve mood by reducing the physiological symptoms of stress and anxiety. By calming the nervous system, deep breathing can even improve sleep quality and help combat insomnia which is common amongst law students. Taking deep breaths increases the amount of oxygen that reaches your brain and other vital organs, enhancing overall physical and mental function.

The process of deep breathing is very simple. Just breathe deeply for at least four seconds, and breath out slowly but deeply until no air remains in your lungs. Six seconds is a good length of time, but experiment to see what feels right for you. The important part is to focus more on the out breath to ensure you breathe out all of the oxygen in your lungs. It might help to place a hand on your abdomen to ensure it is rising and falling as you breath. Some people use a 4-4-6 technique (breathe in for four seconds, hold your breath for four seconds, then breath out for six seconds). Deep breathing is most effective if done for at least one minute, but five minutes will give you the best results.

Deep breathing exercises can be used proactively or reactively to reduce your anxiety. I would recommend proactively deep breathing before you start to study, during your study breaks, before you attend class, and before an exam. It can also be helpful to start and end your day with this practice. Deep breathing exercises can also be utilised when something in law school has triggered anxiety to prevent or reduce a flight or fight response.

Stress Reducing Practice 2: Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness meditation is a practice that cultivates a state of focused awareness on the present moment, without judgment. It is rooted in ancient Buddhist traditions but has gained widespread popularity in secular contexts for its empirically verified benefits to mental and emotional well-being. Mindfulness meditation can be extremely useful to give your mind a chance to rest during the daily grind of law school. It can also cultivate the capacity to simply watch your thoughts and emotions change without reacting to them. As such, mindfulness meditation can result in preventing your body going into flight or fight mode when an event causes stress or anxiety. A daily practice of mindfulness meditation can therefore vastly reduce stress and anxiety while producing a state of mind capable of prolonged concentration and higher cognitive capacity.

Mindfulness meditation involves sitting or lying with your eyes closed for 10 minutes while practicing techniques to focus on the present moment with non-judgemental awareness of your thoughts and emotions. Paying attention to your breath, bodily sensations, sounds, and your visual field even with your eyes closed can keep you in the present moment. When a thought inevitably arises on its own you should try as quickly as possible to simply identify that a thought has appeared in your mind. The process of identifying thoughts tends to make them disappear. It gives you a moment to consider the nature of thought itself, and that you do not need to get swept away by your thoughts or react to them.

For the first few months of practicing mindfulness meditation you will likely notice that your mind is constantly busy with thoughts and feelings. As you continue to practice you will begin to be able to just watch your thoughts float by like clouds across the sky, and longer and longer periods of thoughtlessness will begin to occur. The idea is not to clear your mind of thoughts, or eliminate thoughts, but to be able to spot a thought as it arises and decide whether it is worth giving attention to or just letting it float by. This moment is all that is needed to prevent a flight or fight response to a thought or emotion. As such, mindful meditation can dramatically reduce stress, anxiety, and the associated negative cognitive effects, making law school and life in general far more bearable. Eventually, even when something extremely stressful occurs like reading an exam question that you have not adequately prepared for, you will be able to calmly concentrate on the task at hand.

Stress Reducing Practice 3: Finding Support in Community

Recall again that stress and anxiety from benign sources like a law exam tricks our body into thinking it is under immediate physical threat. If we return to our example of a person living 50,000 years ago confronted by the site of a panther slipping through the undergrowth, consider how the level of stress this person would be under correlates to the number of people they are with. Ten people constitute a decent defence against a panther; whereas a lone individual is easy prey. For these reasons our bodies operate differently when we feel part of a group or community in comparison to how our bodies function when we are alone. Positive social interactions stimulate the brain’s reward system, increasing the release of dopamine, which enhances feelings of pleasure and motivation. Social bonding and trust are facilitated by the release of oxytocin, which reduces stress and promotes feelings of connection and well-being. Collaborative problem-solving and discussion engage the prefrontal cortex, enhancing executive functions such as decision-making, planning, and self-control.

For these reasons it is essential for law students to find support in community if they truly want to reduce their anxiety and stress. Simply having another law student to have a coffee with each week after class to chat about course content, winge about a particularly boring lecturer, or share information about the best car parks on campus makes the world of difference. Finding a study group will not only lighten your study load, but will literally relax your brain in much the same way as many pharmaceutical and recreational drugs.

Following the growth of online law degrees, the availability to stream lecturers and seminars, and the increased use of social media and other apps to communicate, many law students find themselves without sufficient personal contact and support. More and more stressed and anxious students are struggling through law school alone. One of the most rewarding parts of providing online, one-one-one tutoring is our ability to help those students who find themselves without adequate support. It is a deeply satisfying experience to help alleviate a student’s anxiety and see their confidence, happiness, and grades improve over time. If you feel like law school has you in a vice, and that additionally support would help lower your stress and anxiety, we are here to help.

In summary, there is no getting around the constant stream of stress and anxiety that law school produces. Those students with techniques to effectively manage the slings and arrows of law school not only perform better academically, but have a much more enjoyable experience too. Next time you are feeling anxious, try a deep breathing exercise, mindfulness meditation, or reach out for help either from a peer or a law tutor.