Do you fear going back to your dorm room? Plagued by anxiety every time you hear the door? This may mean your college roommate and living situation is not all you hoped they would be. Living in healthy environment is important in college for both physical and mental health. Poor dorm arrangements can cause lack of sleep, feeling unsafe in your room, and even cause lower academic performance just to name a few potential problems. Overall, I want to help you to recognize why living in a healthy environment is important, strategies to improve your living situations, and what can happen when you continue to suffer in poor living situations. Additionally, I will discuss how to recognize when a roommate relationship is too far gone and it’s time to leave.

Importance of Healthy Roommate Relationships

Mental Health Struggles

Why is living in a healthy environment so important? Living in a healthy environment is important to preserve physical health and mental health. Many college students have expectations leading into school based on movies, and when it doesn’t live up to those expectations they often blame themselves. This can cause low self-esteem and make those with roommate conflicts develop lower self-esteem. As described in an interview with Psychology professor Dr. Leila Azarbad, students under chronic stress are more likely to develop mood disorders like depression as well as anxiety. Living in a healthy environment allows students to have a place to decompress, feel safe, etc. Without this living in chronic stress creates a higher likely hood of developing mental problems as well as unhealthy coping skills. For example, students dealing with chronic stress are more likely to struggle with alcohol and substance-use addictions. Additionally, roommates’ conflicts can arise from the use of drugs and alcohol, even if you are not struggling with use. It is important to have a pre-existing agreement with your roommates on what is a non-negotiable to be brought into the living situation. Some roommates who may have previously struggled with use may not be comfortable with anything in the room. Yet, without proper resources, and emotional regulation skills roommate conflicts can become so stressful that some will turn to self-medication. 

Psychical Health Struggles

Another issue that can arise from dealing with the chronic stress of an unhealthy living environment is the possibility of psychical manifestations. As described by Dr. Leila Azarbad, chronic stress leads to a build of cortisol in the body which can lead to a multitude of physical issues. This includes but is not limited to, limited resistance to fight infections, additional required to heal injuries, possibility of weight gain, etc. Stress does not just impact mental health and functioning’s it also impacts your body’s ability to function properly. Additionally there is the possibility of stress affecting academic performance, as stress can also lead to the development of headaches and stomach problems. Dr. Leila Azarbad elaborates more on how stress affects our academic performance highlighting the fact that your body cannot tell what kind of stressors you are experiencing. For example, the body cannot tell the difference between a social stressor and that of being physically attacked. When the body is put in the fight or flight mode it can make it difficult to focus on school and studying leading lower academic performance. This poses the important question what role do peers and roommates have in being successful in college?

Personal Mindset

Psychology professor Dr. Leila Azarbad describes how peers’ attitudes have a tendency to rub off on each other. For example, she describes how spending time with a depressed roommate may cause negative effects for you, as you will start to pick up and absorb their behaviors. A strategy she also highlights to manage your mental health as you interact with many different people in college; would be to have a designated spot to decompress and relax outside of your room, especially when you find yourself frustrated with your roommate. The people you choose to live with and spend time with is important, as the flip side is also true, surrounding yourself with positive infectious people will greatly increase your mood. When looking at stress it also important to understand that some are unwilling to enjoy living together. For example, those with pre-existing negative attitudes to sharing a living situation with other are less likely to enjoy the experience. It is important to go into a dorm situation with a positive mindset to be more likely to enjoy the experience.

Harm of Living in Unhealthy Situations

What can happen when you continue living in a poor environment? As previously mentioned, living in a poor unhealthy environment can lead to the development of chronic stress, depression, anxiety, and a multitude of physical health issues. Interpersonal relationships are essential to psychological development in college. Roommates have a unique relationship compared to friends as they negotiate household chores and compromise on activities such as number of guests allowed over, waking hours, noise level, etc. These unique relationships create room for conflict as almost 50% of college men and women experience roommate conflicts.

Peer Experience

These kinds of conflicts can be described by student Jessica Wright. In her dorming experience she experienced an uncomfortable experience. While watching TV in her dorm suite her Caucasian roommate used a racial slur that made the other roommates extremely uncomfortable. In the aftermath of this situation, a report was filed to the school and the roommate eventually left after around a month. This leads to the important question what was that experience like in the meantime? One of the things Jessica described was the idea of avoidance as most college students with bad roommate’s practice. Spending as many hours as possible outside of the dorm to avoid the uncomfortable situation. This shift to later bed times can have a detrimental effect on academics, leading to missed morning classes, decreased alertness and concentration, and lower grades. Additionally, as previously described by psychology professor Dr. Leila Azarbad, experiencing chronic stress can lead to the development of mental struggles. Also, experienced by student in question Jessica Wright she described an overwhelming feeling of anxiety when knowing her roommate would be there. In order to address this situation, the suitemates addressed the situation with her directly expressing their discomfort with what was said. Instead of owning up to the mistake the roommate decided to lie to each suitemate that she had apologized to everyone. In this situation this is where an escalation would be necessary to avoid any additional discomfort to the suitemates. In another student interview with Tyler Kraemer, he describes one of the most common roommate conflicts, a roommates significant other constantly being in the room. His description paints a picture of his roommate’s girlfriend essentially living in their dorm. This was even the case where the roommate was not home, but the significant other would still be in the dorm regardless. In his words this created an uncomfortable situation where he felt unable to be in his own dorm without intruding on their “couple time”. Your dorm room is for you to go and feel safe, yet both of these interviews highlight bad roommates causing anxiety and causing students to feel uncomfortable in their own rooms.

Personal Experience

This is even prevalent in my own experience with bad roommates, I experienced a situation where I lived with what could be described as a bully. A person who made jokes at not only my, but others expense as well. After a while this constant poking “fun” tore down my self-esteem. Eventually, I started dating and making more friends outside of our common circle and roommate relationship. My roommate expressed that she felt I was not valuing our relationship enough. Through this conversation I tried to express that the constant joking made me uncomfortable and made me doubt myself; I expressed I would spend more time in our dorm on the condition the jokes at least slowed down or stopped all together. When this boundary was repeatedly broken, I had no choice but to leave as many of these conflicts end up.