When Every Story Feels Like Your Last: Surviving Journalism-School Without Losing Yourself

Your 800-word campus story is due in 45 minutes and your anxiety just hit 10/10.

Take a breath. You’re not alone in this spiral.

Right now, you’re likely hunched over your laptop, three energy drinks deep, wondering if switching to marketing would’ve been easier. Your hands are shaking as you type. The blinking cursor mocks you. Your phone buzzes—another editor’s message asking for an update. Your chest tightens.

This is the reality nobody mentions during orientation week.

The journalism dream promised adventure, truth-telling, and impact. What you got instead: sleep deprivation, imposter syndrome, and a gnawing feeling that you’re constantly disappointing someone—your sources, your editors, your professors, yourself.

According to recent research from the Reynolds Journalism Institute, journalists today face mounting pressures to produce more content across multiple platforms with shrinking resources and diminishing job security. If professional journalists are struggling, imagine being a student still learning the ropes.

The path through journalism school doesn’t have to destroy you. Let’s explore the five daily battles you’re fighting—and more importantly, how to win them without sacrificing your sanity.

1. The Deadline Demon: When Time Becomes Your Enemy

Every journalism student knows this demon intimately. You’re juggling three stories simultaneously while attending four classes and somehow maintaining a social life (spoiler: you’re not). The clock becomes both your taskmaster and your tormentor.

Mindful Solution:

When deadline panic hits, try the 60-Second Havening Touch before submitting your work. Self-havening touch calms the autonomic nervous system by creating a slow brainwave state and releasing soothing neurochemicals including GABA, serotonin, and oxytocin.

Here’s how:

• Cross your arms over your chest
• Place fingertips on your shoulders
• Slowly stroke down your arms to your elbows (like giving yourself a moving hug)
• Repeat 5-7 times while breathing deeply
• Notice your nervous system downshifting

This quick practice creates delta waves in your brain—the same calming brainwaves that occur during sleep—helping you submit with clarity instead of chaos.

2. Source Shame: When Everyone Seems Easier to Reach Than Your Interview Subject

You’ve sent twelve emails, left six voicemails, and even showed up to their office hours. Nothing. Meanwhile, your classmate somehow scored an exclusive with the mayor. The comparison game begins, and suddenly you’re convinced you’re the worst journalist who ever picked up a notebook.

Mindful Solution:

Create a Source Tracking Ritual that removes emotion from the equation. Every morning, before checking emails:

• List five sources you need to contact
• Set a timer for 30 minutes of outreach only
• Track attempts in a spreadsheet (gamify it if that helps)
• Celebrate the outreach, not just the response

Remember: persistence is the skill you’re actually learning here. The story about rejection is also a story.

3. Perfectionism Paralysis: When Good Enough Never Feels Good Enough

You know what makes a great lede. You’ve read a thousand of them. But somehow, when it’s your story, every word feels wrong. You delete and rewrite, delete and rewrite, until you’ve burned an hour on a single sentence.

French journalism research revealed that over a third of journalists surveyed were considering leaving their jobs, with nearly 65% reporting their working life affected their health. Perfectionism isn’t excellence—it’s self-sabotage wearing a professional disguise.

Mindful Solution:

Practice the 3-Minute Fact vs. Story Cognitive Defusion. Cognitive defusion is a detached mindfulness technique where people see their thoughts as just thoughts, or mental events, rather than considering them to have intrinsic meaning.

When perfectionism strikes:

• Set a timer for 3 minutes
• Write down the thought: “This story isn’t good enough”
• Rephrase it: “I’m having the thought that this story isn’t good enough”
• Notice the difference—you’ve separated yourself from the thought
• Ask: “Is this thought helping me take action, or is it stopping me?”
• Visualize the thought as a leaf floating down a stream—acknowledge it, then let it drift away

The cognitive defusion exercise helps you place each thought on a leaf and let it float by, whether the thought is pleasurable, painful, or neutral. Your perfectionism is just a thought pattern, not reality.

4. Comparison Culture: When LinkedIn Becomes Your Personal Torture Chamber

You open social media for “just a quick break” and immediately see: classmate’s byline in a national outlet, another’s award-winning photo essay, someone’s viral TikTok about journalism. Your accomplishments—the solid local story you just finished—suddenly feel microscopic.

Studies have shown that even though research about journalists’ job impacts on mental health is abundant, studies about coping strategies and occupational stressors in journalists remain somewhat scarce. You’re navigating uncharted territory without a map.

Mindful Solution:

Establish Social Media Boundaries:

• Delete LinkedIn from your phone (access only via desktop, intentionally)
• Set a “comparison hour”—one designated time per week to check peers’ accomplishments
• Create a “wins document” tracking only YOUR progress
• Practice gratitude: write three things you learned this week, regardless of publication

Your journey isn’t linear. Some people get lucky breaks; others build slowly. Both paths lead to the same career.

5. Empathy Exhaustion: When Every Story Takes a Piece of You

This is the part of journalism school nobody warns you about. You’re sent to cover tragedy—fires, deaths, injustices—and expected to remain “objective.” But you’re human. The stories seep into your bones. You carry them home. They interrupt your sleep.

Journalists covering conflicts, refugee stories, climate disasters, violence, abuse, and human stories face anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, burnout, trauma, and post-traumatic stress disorder. And you’re experiencing this while simultaneously writing term papers.

Mindful Solution:

Create a Decompression Ritual after difficult interviews:

• Within one hour of the interview, find a quiet space
• Practice 5 minutes of havening touch (the full arm-stroking technique)
• Write three sentences about how you’re feeling (not about the story—about YOU)
• Call someone who makes you laugh
• Move your body—walk, dance, stretch for 10 minutes

Research on novice reporters suggests that exposure to trauma reporting strategies in higher education can foster “trauma-literate” journalists and editors, resulting in healthier workforces. Learn these skills now, before you’re in a professional newsroom without support.

Consider keeping a separate “emotional archive”—a private journal where you process the feelings these stories generate. This isn’t part of your reporting; it’s self-care.

The Bigger Picture: You’re Building Resilience, Not Just a Portfolio

Here’s what they don’t tell you in Introduction to Journalism: the stress you’re experiencing isn’t a bug in the system—it’s become a feature. Given the crisis in the industry, education on burnout is seen as critical, with only six percent of current and three percent of former professionals having been exposed to this topic in their earlier journalism training.

You’re part of the generation that can change this.

Every time you practice havening touch before a deadline, you’re rewiring your stress response. Every time you defuse from perfectionist thoughts, you’re building psychological flexibility. Every time you set boundaries with social media, you’re choosing sustainable success over burnout.

The Daily Practice

Create a simple morning routine before opening your laptop:

1. Three deep breaths (inhale for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 6)
2. One minute of havening touch
3. Set ONE priority for the day (not ten—ONE)
4. Remind yourself: “I’m learning, not performing”

The Weekly Reset

Every Sunday evening:

• Review your “wins document”
• Identify one story that challenged you
• Practice the cognitive defusion exercise for any lingering anxious thoughts
• Plan one non-journalism activity for the week ahead

Remember This

That 800-word campus story that triggered your 10/10 anxiety? You’ll write hundreds more. Some will be brilliant. Some will be serviceable. All of them will teach you something.

Despite intense pressure, journalism professionals remain enthusiastic about the value and purpose of journalism, with 99% agreeing that journalism is essential to a functioning democracy. That passion—the reason you chose this path—doesn’t require you to destroy yourself.

You can be an excellent journalist AND take care of your mental health. These aren’t opposing forces.

The stories you tell matter. But you matter more.

Next time your hands shake as you approach a deadline, remember: your worth isn’t measured in bylines. Your anxiety isn’t a character flaw. Your exhaustion isn’t weakness.

You’re a journalism student navigating an industry in crisis while trying to learn skills that took professionals decades to master. Cut yourself some slack.

Practice the havening touch. Let those perfectionist thoughts float downstream. Set boundaries. Ask for help.

The world needs your stories. But it needs you healthy enough to keep telling them.

Resources for When You Need More Than a Breathing Exercise

• The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma: Offers free resources for journalists covering difficult stories (dartcenter.org)
• The Self Investigation Foundation: Provides support for media professionals’ wellbeing with evidence-based practices
• Campus Counseling Services: You’re paying for them—use them
• American Press Institute’s Mental Health Reset: Free self-reflective sessions for stressed journalists

Research References

1. Reynolds Journalism Institute Burnout Study (2024): Comprehensive research on journalism burnout factors and solutions across newsrooms, including journalism students https://rjionline.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/RJI-Journalism-Burnout-Study-SmithGeiger-White-Paper-Feb-24-v1.33.pdf
   
2. Media Diversity Institute – Journalist Mental Health (2023): Analysis of mental health challenges faced by journalists including anxiety, depression, and PTSD https://www.media-diversity.org/the-unspoken-truth-about-journalists-mental-health/
   
3. Burnout in Journalists: Systematic Literature Review (2016): Academic review identifying risk factors including gender, experience level, and job role https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213058615300103
   
4. The Journalist’s Resource – Journalism Stress Solutions (2021): Evidence-based tips for preventing and addressing trauma and stress in journalism https://journalistsresource.org/home/journalism-stress-solutions/
   
5. WAN-IFRA Newsroom Burnout Solutions Study (2024): Global research offering solutions for newsrooms and educators to combat burnout crisis https://wan-ifra.org/2024/03/what-to-do-about-burnout-a-new-study-offers-ideas/
   
6. PESI – Self-Havening Touch & Breathwork (2025): Scientific explanation of havening techniques for anxiety reduction https://www.pesi.com/blogs/reduce-anxiety-with-self-havening-touch-breathwork/
   
7. University of Kentucky – Cognitive Defusion Research: Evidence on how cognitive defusion reduces emotional impact and believability of distressful thoughts https://hr.uky.edu/news/2025-06-02/cognitive-defusion-helps-disarm-distressful-thoughts
   

ETUI – Burnout Among Journalists (French SNJ Study): Research showing 65% of journalists report working life affecting their health https://www.etui.org/topics/health-safety-working-conditions/hesamag/journalism-an-increasingly-precarious-profession/burnout-among-journalists-a-symptom-of-discontent-in-newsrooms