Students note that smoking cigarettes reduces anxiety, and smoking often occurs after stressful events or in stressful situations. Studies find that depressed college students are more likely to smoke and have a more difficult time quitting than non-depressed college students. 31.9% of college smokers attribute their smoking behavior as a means to alleviate their depression.[3] Depression is related to lower self-efficacy, and depressed individuals are considered less able to resist smoking during times of low self esteem, which leads to higher reports of smoking among depressed individuals. Smoking cigarettes actually increases the amount of depression in young adults. With this, we see a much higher number of depression and stress in college aged students because they are faced with problems they are not equipped to handle. Stress levels have been continually effected by smoking because now many campuses are switching to "smoke-free campuses" which make it harder for students to relieve the stress and causes depression to rise