Spring break agenda: Spend time with family, hang out with my boyfriend, roam around Manhattan with friends and … schedule a doctor’s appointment? Although the plan to see my doctor was not the most exciting event I had on my spring break to-do list, it was the most important.

I decided to make an appointment because of the daily headaches I’ve had this semester. I’ve had a much larger workload this semester than I did last, and I assumed that the incessant headaches were just the natural result of dealing with all the work. However, I was bothered by how many headaches I got during the day and how long they lasted. They were the first thing to greet me in the morning.

I took action and spoke to my parents about my daily buggers and requested to see my doctor.

Before I informed my parents of my situation, I was silently suffering, ignoring the problem as if it was something that would fix itself once the semester drew to a close. I learned two very important lessons: 1. You shouldn’t nonchalantly handle severe mental stress; 2. Despite what you may think and see, other people are suffering the same as you are.

After feeling comfortable enough to talk about my headaches with a few close friends, I’d learned that they too had been dealing with similar mental health issues because of overwhelming stress. According to an article on www.usnews.com, polls taken in 2007 indicated that more than 30 percent of college freshmen reported feeling overwhelmed the majority of the time and 45 percent of all students have felt so depressed that it became too difficult to function.

Depression developed in college can be caused by a variety of factors: homesickness, financial troubles, constant school work or social problems. It can lead to other mental problems including substance abuse, eating disorders and panic attacks, all of which have risen significantly on college campuses across the nation in the past decade.

Most of us expect to leave college with our degrees and promising futures ahead. However, it now seems the majority of us will graduate with more than we originally bargained for.

Who wants to leave college with their bachelor’s degree and a mental disorder? No one! Unfortunately, in the pursuit of a 4.0 GPA, some of us may suffer such a fate. Certainly, anything worth having — such as a great career after college — is, by nature, worth sacrifice. On the other hand, is your mental health too important to sacrifice?

Sure, the college experience can be a struggle. It is inevitable that stress would be a prominent aspect of our lives as we strive to pass midterms and pull all-nighters for essays due for morning classes. It should be normal to feel occasional anxiety as we face the pressures to succeed. However, such stress should not cripple our ability to function, nor should it interfere with our social lives.

We should not treat overwhelming stress as a casual matter, as if it’s a paper cut we didn’t realize we had. Many cases of mental disorders that develop in college are diagnosed when the damage has already begun, mainly because students choose to ignore the issue. Acknowledging your problem and seeking help immediately could mean the difference between temporarily suffering from tension headaches and taking anti-depressants long after you graduate.

So if you’re getting more than just the occasional headache, or feeling the blues more than usual, TAKE ACTION! Don’t let your pride or fear discourage you from getting the help you need. It is clich√É.√© to say “better to be safe than sorry,” but in the case of your mental health, which would you rather be?