Interview Answers from my Grandpa Richard Cole (A Former Family Doctor)

Here are his answers to my questions regarding anxiety and academia (Answers in bold):

1. Did you ever come across students in college who had anxiety? Yes. All the time.
2. Did you see an increase in patients who had anxiety, potentially indicating school has become more stressful, as you went through your career? Yes. As I progressed through my career I noticed an increase in students that came in with anxiety related to school.
3. What are some ways anxiety can have an impact on a student’s performance? No really positive signs, many times you’ll see students who start skipping classes, kids that don’t want to go home because home is a source of anxiety, drug usage increases, all this can lead to financial problems and results in decreased performance in school.
4. How can anxiety affect sleep schedules? Sleep is dependent on so many things. If a student is anxious about grades, they can and will stay up too late studying due to anxiety. Many bad hormones can be a result of a bad sleep schedule.
5. How can anxiety affect eating schedules? Anxiety can cause major appetite loss on one end, and on the other it can cause one to eat too much which will have an affect on the normal processes of the body.
6. Can anxiety affect how someone thinks logically? Anxiety can affect any way you deal with the brain. It forces one to make decisions they might not have otherwise made if it hadn’t been for anxiety. 
7. How can anxiety have an impact on the relationships one has with another person? Yes. This is a major implication of anxiety, as it can be detrimental to how a person interacts with others on a daily basis.
8. Can anxiety ever be potentially beneficial to someone academically? Yes indeed it can, it can cause a person to be ultra worried about their school, and to be worried about eating exactly right, and staying on a schedule. 
9. Would you say anxiety traditionally has a more detrimental or beneficial impact on a student? Much more detrimentally. 
10. What are some of the best ways for a student to deal with anxiety? A critical way is for students to seek out counselling. Colleges and schools nowadays are seeing the importance of this.