Student Loans Stress? 5 Ways to Cope

There’s no sugarcoating the staggering facts: student loan debt has reached record levels, totaling over $1 trillion.

Student debt in our country is now more than car loans or credit card debt. Under current law, student loans are one of the very few types of debt that can’t be discharged, even in bankruptcy court.

On the other side of these cold, hard facts is the psychological toll debt can take. The greater the financial strain, the more likely you are to experience symptoms of depression, anxiety and overall ill-health that can leave you feeling distracted at work.

If you’re one of the millions saddled with student loans or any other type of debt, you’ve probably experienced feelings of hopelessness. You might feel as though you can’t leave a high-paying yet toxic job that pays well. Maybe you’ve feared making life decisions like starting a family or buying a house, all because you need to make payments. You might be running yourself into the ground working multiple gigs and side hustles just to make ends meet.

Some studies have even found the mental stress of debt closely mirrors the stages of grief.

• In the denial stage, you want nothing more than to bury your head in the sand and pretend your student loans don’t exist.
• Next might come anger, however irrational. You might feel angry at your school, your lender, society and even yourself for taking out these loans in the first place.
• You might experience feelings of bargaining, promising yourself you’ll never take out a loan ever again. If only you could win the lottery so you could just quit working, period.
• Then comes depression, that feeling of pure defeat. I’ll never get out of debt anyway, you tell yourself, so what’s the point? Why even keep working hard at my job if the money I make just goes straight to paying back my debt?

What can you do realistically do to feel better? How can you be happy without putting your life and career goals on hold?

Here are five constructive ways to deal with the effects of student loan stress.

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