Adjustment Disorder: How Stressed is TOO Stressed?

Adjusting to the university lifestyle is no small feat. Suddenly, your life changes completely; you have to live by yourself, make your own schedule and manage your meals all on top of tackling the jump in difficulty from secondary to post-secondary education. Given all this, a certain level of stress is warranted - but how stressed is too stressed?

Stress isn’t something precisely measurable, making the determination of a permissible stress level impossible. Knowing this, it can be difficult to know if the stress you’re feeling is annoying but normal, or if it teeters into a greater, maladaptive behaviour, such as adjustment disorder.

Adjustment Disorder is a “disproportionately” or “excessive” emotional and behavioural stress response to a given stressor (O'Donnell et al.). Though the disorder is more generally applicable to many different stressors, it is excessively common in university students (Cleveland Clinic). Whether due to exams, overwhelming levels of new content or the feeling of competition amongst peers, university is rife with countless little things that amount to a mound of stress weighing on students everywhere. This general university stress is compounded in first-year students, as they often experience additional distress while adjusting to the differences in their changing lives, attempting to integrate themselves into new social and support networks, as well as learning to manage their new independence at the beginning of their adult lives (Rodgers and Tennison). For those with certain preexisting mental or medical disorders (depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, personality disorders), this stress can have greater consequences on mental health. Together, these contributing factors may increase someone’s likelihood of experiencing adjustment disorder. 

So what can be done?

Typically, adjustment disorder is short-term affliction, dissipating over time when the stressor is removed or adapted to. The average bout lasts six months, but it may continue if the stress persists or if the patient finds themselves unable to adapt or cope. 

One of the best ways of treating adjustment disorder is to reach out to old support systems from before the stressor was introduced into your life, as well as creating new ones if your environment has changed. Engaging family, old friends, and new peers is key to adapting to changes in your life, giving yourself people to support you when you’re feeling down and, in the case of the new university peers, reminding you that this new chapter has not only brought stress, but other good things too. Reaching out to others and maintaining clear, open communication, gives those who care about you the opportunity to help. Opening lanes of communication also gives us time and space to process our feelings instead of suppressing them. Avoiding our feelings, even if it may feel better at the time, has been found to be detrimental to mental health in the long term, leading to increased risk in mental health disorders (Juszczyk-Kalina et al.). 

Using Eye2Eye can be a great way to make these new connections. Through our service, it’s simple to find other students going through the same thing. The effect is twofold: you get a support system and someone who feels the way you do all in one. It’s a different kind of support from a therapist or a parent, it’s a mutually beneficial relationship with an innate understanding of what the other is going through.  

Outside of social settings, the general recommended treatment plan for adjustment disorder is practicing self-care and maintaining personal health. From taking the time to read a book for pleasure, enjoying a forgotten hobby, or going for a walk around the neighbourhood, doing things separate from your stressor purely for the purpose of your enjoyment is critical in preventing the stressor from becoming all encompassing. By deliberately carving out time for yourself, you stake your claim on some of your time, denying the stressor from consuming you entirely. Finally, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, as cliche as it sounds, does wonders for both your physical and mental health. The healthy lifestyle is flexible and varies from person to person, so don’t put any pressure on getting this part exactly right - most of the time, even just making a small change can do wonders (Cleveland Clinic).

Works Cited

Cleveland Clinic. “Adjustment Disorders: What They Are, Symptoms & Treatment.” Cleveland Clinic, https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21760-adjustment-disorder.

Juszczyk-Kalina, Aleksandra, et al. “Adjustment disorder in help-seeking college students: prevalence, predictors, associations with academic adjustment.” Journal of American College Health, 2025, pp. 1 - 10. Taylor & Francis, https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2025.2593313.

O'Donnell, Meaghan L., et al. “Adjustment Disorder: Current Developments and Future Directions.” Int J Environ Res Public Health, vol. 16, no. 14, 2019, p. 2537. National Library of Medicine, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16142537.

Rodgers, Laura S., and Linda R. Tennison. “A Preliminary Assessment of Adjustment Disorder Among First-Year College Students.” Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, vol. 23, no. 3, 2009, pp. 220 - 230. ScienceDirect, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0883941708001076?casa_token=1tSHOEomDWIAAAAA:5IdnN0whqxtzzi0qHbNqAaUf9EYnAYEPU1ZtmCiuj-rc8j5kj02zRK_fkLUrpAb-B0P_INmd6k8.