There have been a lot of articles about anxiety. This is undoubtedly a good thing, as we collectively fight to end the stigma that surrounds mental health problems. I myself have joined the movement of mental health sufferers turned activists who have shared their experiences in the name of chipping away at the pervasive notion that our mental health is not something we talk about, and that anxiety, anorexia and depression are at best personality quirks and at worst weak character traits. This process of sharing is important because it educates people as to the reality of mental heath problems and opens the door for those suffering in silence to seek the help that they need. However, on hearing that I am writing a weekly column about anxiety, I would forgive you for wondering how on earth I am going to get seven weeks of readable material from simply the topic of ‘exam term anxiety.’

The answer to this begins with a comment from a friend that has stuck with me. She attends another university in the UK that, unlike Cambridge, offers Mental Health First Aid classes to the welfare representatives from its departments and societies. She described how the leader of the class had suggested that the term mental health should be conceptualised differently, in the recognition that we all have a mental health, as we have a physical health, and that some of us have good mental health, other of us struggle with mental health illnesses, and that in our lifetimes we will experience periods of good and bad mental heath at different times. This is not to suggest that mental illness is not real illness, or that it is simply one end on a sliding scale of mental health. It simply suggests that thinking about our mental health in the way we think about our physical health is productive and conducive to good treatment. But what does this have to do with my column on anxiety?

As someone who has experienced periods of very bad mental health, at the hands of a condition called OCD, a particularly vicious and virulent beast that has nothing to do with liking your highlighter pens to be in colour order, and everything to do with feeling intense and irrational dread, anxiety is something of my area of expertise.

I have been anxious about getting into a car, I have been anxious about my relationships with other people, I have been anxious about whether I have touched a light switch with water on my hands that will cause my sister to die of electrocution. During a particularly aggressive bout of OCD during my A levels I had anxious OCD thoughts that included being worried that I had taken an accidental overdose of  paracetamol and forgotten about it, and that a flesh eating bug might have contaminated the skin on my back without me realising.

First of all, if you are currently in the midst of an exam term panic the above revelation will hopefully make made you feel better about yourself for the following reasons: firstly, that your worries are completely normal compared to my absolutely bonkers list, and secondly that you have not just admitted to such an odd list of thoughts to the readership of Varsity. However, despite the fact that OCD has taken me to a place that is darker and more terrifying than I could have imagined before its onset in my teens, despite the fact that it nearly inhibited me from taking my A Levels and coming to Cambridge, battling with the bizarre thoughts and the persistent nag of severe anxiety that accompanies an episode of OCD has taught me more than any other single life experience, or hung-over Cambridge supervision.  Having a mental heath problem is coming to face the humbling, liberating reality, that contrary to our belief that our human mind is a rational purveyor of truth it is in fact a subjective narrative clouded by all manner of false assumptions and unhelpful expectations, influenced by our brain chemistry and our life experiences.

And whether you battle with a chronic mental health problem like I do, or you have always been envied for your easygoing attitude, this fact remains true for you. My erratic brain chemistry has forced me to face this fact, and has meant that my mind distorts reality at a particularly rakish angle, but Cognitive Behavioral Therapy which taught me to battle with the bully that is OCD has also increasingly made me think that everyone, ill or well, can benefit from challenging those unhelpful thoughts, those false assumptions and those crippling expectations that anxiety can trigger at stressful times such as a Cambridge exam term.

I am proud of the way that I have learnt to think about anxiety, and eternally grateful that I have been so lucky to access CBT, a form of counselling that has transformed my life. As most of the population of Cambridge this exam term descends into anxiety, this column will try to give some insight into some of the ways that you can be kind to yourself, and gain some control over the negative effects of the heightened stress that comes with exams. Each week I will examine some of those thoughts, assumptions and expectations that we all carry around that can inhibit productivity and damage self esteem. No prize for guessing that, yes, I’m anxious about writing this column, but as step one of dealing with anxiety is challenging it, I am going to write it anyway!