We study at one of the world’s top universities, living on a campus that is populated with global leaders in extremely close proximity. Sometimes this becomes too much for students — living in the otherwise uninhabited section of an island can lead to feelings of claustrophobia as one can’t escape the university and the stress associated with it. Therefore, the feeling of stress is something that seems to be common on Saadiyat, an island that is semantically associated with happiness.

We tend to either completely negate that we are stressed, or instead share it with everyone we encounter, but trying to understand Saadiyat stress and how one deals with it often still remains a mystery.

Not only do we have academic stress but social anxiety is very common at NYU Abu Dhabi. As the community is so small and everybody knows everybody, social problems often become larger because there is no way to escape from them on campus.

Emotional and mental stress is also something that can be a huge problem at NYUAD. We are so far from family and home that we can easily be stressed by that and find ourselves lost in Abu Dhabi.

Thus, students have created various coping mechanisms for stress. Some, however, are more effective than others in the long run.

A common phenomenon among NYUAD students is to exaggerate the amount of work they have. This can be unhealthy, however, as it sometimes skews our perception of the amount of work we have, when it might just be a manageable amount.

Sometimes, over-emphasizing the amount of work one has can make others feel as though they aren’t doing enough or that they should be stressed out as well.

We often forget in our stressful thought processes that others maybe don’t want to hear about our stress and the problems we face. We live so much in our own stress-infused world that we tend to forget who else inhabits Saadiyat and that their problems don’t need to overlap with ours.

The university as an institution attempts to help us reduce stress. Initiatives include Well-Being Week, the Nook by REACH or the option of Pass/Fail courses. There are methods and ways in which we should be able to de-stress but we still seem to be highly stressed the majority of the time. NYUAD students deal with stress in vastly different ways and some of these are healthier than others.

Some students, like sophomore Hala Aqel, deal with stress by shutting themselves off from the world, crawling into the crevices of their dorm room, studying and enjoying the company of their own world.

“Whenever I’m struggling, whether it’s due to stress from loads of work or classwork or because I’m going through some brief period of mental or emotional instability – I retreat into my shell … until I get my things done and all of my problems fade away,” shared Aqel.

Often the way to de-stress is right in front of us and we don’t seem to realize. A campus with some of the most high-tech facilities and beautiful scenery must have some opportunities to release some of the stress, whether it’s swimming in the Olympic-sized pool, watching the sunset over the skyscrapers of Abu Dhabi or a game of pool in the Baraha.

“When I’m stressed I tend to plug my headphones in, find a good, chilled out playlist on Spotify and go for a walk out from campus,” shared sophomore Chris Wheeler. He seems to have found his own personal way to get out of the stress that Saadiyat poses for him, allowing him to escape any time he wants.

“Walking along the roads around Saadiyat seems to be enough of a way of escaping the bubble, and just taking time to think things through, as well as physically moving,” said Wheeler.

Not only does this release some of his stress but it gives him time to get off campus and put things into perspective. According to him, getting out of the stress zone is important but getting out from the environment as a whole allows one to realize that things probably weren't quite as bad as they seemed.

Many students at NYUAD have created a stress coping mechanism. However, why do students have so much stress and where does this come from?

Our time here on this campus is, for the most part, constrained by time. We live here for four years, graduate and then leave. This temporality of the university also gives many students a great deal of stress as we don’t want to necessarily make this place home.

Yet, the stress mainly comes from one another. We mainly hang out with other NYUAD students so if one person has a tiny amount of stress, we tend to feed of their stress so we also feel stressed. Therefore, a vicious cycle of stress begins that doesn’t end because we all live together on Saadiyat.

Being stressed is a common occurrence. However, one must make sure that this stress doesn’t impact social relationships and that one has ways to deal with the stress if it exceeds a certain level. As such, Saadiyat stress is a real but complicated phenomenon that isn’t always healthy.