When I get overly stressed out, I usually do creative activities to help calm me down. If you find yourself getting stressed over finals and assignments all being due at the same time, as well as not enough sleep, drama, work, and other thing, give some of them a try. Here’s a bunch of creative things I do to relax.
1. Color/paint
You can purchase a coloring book, and just relax and color it in however you want; here are some good ones. If you’re not the best at staying in the lines, try painting. Purchase a poster or canvas, and water colors are the easiest to do, but you can buy whatever type of paint you want. It’s just something to do so you’re not laying in bed all day or freaking out over work. The Mosaic House on campus has art supplies, and most likely you can stop by and relax and make some art.
2. CLEAN <3
I might sound crazy, but hear me out. Cleaning has always been good to help me relax, because decluttering a room is like decluttering life. Throw out useless things, dust off the things you don’t touch, and just get organized. Do the dishes, laundry, vacuum, and go through all your things. It’ll keep your mind busy for a bit too, so you won’t have time to stress.
3. Organize Your Life
Something that always helps make me feel less stressful about my life is making to-do lists for everything that I have to accomplish. Mine are usually done with marker on a notepad, but I know people who put a lot of creative effort into semester planners, and use highlighters, washi tape, stickers, and color coordination. Branching off from this, journaling is also a creative way to relax a bit. Write down what happened at the end of a day, how it made you feel, and your goals for the next day. It’s a nice way self-reflect and feel better about your day.
4. Use Social Media Pinterest and Instagram
Social media always makes me feel better, but maybe when you’re stressing out a whole lot, watching people party on their Snapchat stories might not be all that helpful to your mental health. Specifically, I spend a lot of my down time on Instagram and Pinterest. Satisfying and artistic accounts on Instagram, like artswonderful, satisfy, and jessicakobeissi; and funny accounts like once_upon_a_lime, and overheardetown are worth a follow. On Pinterest, I keep boards for college, organization, my major, cooking, halloween, Christmas, poetry and photography. Remember you can organize Pinterest for yourself to fit your interest.
5. Listen to Music
When I can’t find the time to stop my work for relaxation time, I usually just put music on while I’m working, and I’m able to focus better, which makes me less stressed. I recommend not putting on music videos, so you’re not tempted to get distracted, but pick apart music that isn’t rapid or angry, and see if it helps.
6. Read a Good Book
I know a lot of people who would love nothing more than to sit down with a good book and spend hours reading it, but I just don’t have the time to do so. If you haven’t tried it, and are able to fit it into your schedule, then by all means give it a go. Check out the NYTimes Bestsellers List, posted monthly, for suggestions. For me, the only things I have time to read are poems. I use Poetryfoundation.org, which helps you find poets and poems based on period of time, genre, and location. I can find comedic poems if I’m sad, inspirational poems if I’m procrastinating, and feminist poems for any time of the day.
7. Get Inspired
Like I said before, I turn to the internet to bring me de-stressers. Specifically, it’s always helpful to find inspirational quotes online, mostly on Pinterest, that really get me in the mood to get up and do what I need to do. So here a bunch for you right now.
- “When it rains, look for rainbows. When it’s dark, look for stars” -Oscar Wilde
- “The one who falls and gets up is so much stronger than the one who never fell” -Roy T. Bennett
- “Teach your daughters to worry less about fitting into glass slippers and more about shattering glass ceilings” Melissa Marchonna
- “They asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I wrote ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, I told them they didn’t understand life” -John Lennon
- “Butterflies aren’t meant to be put in jars” -anonymous
- “Here’s to strong women. We may know them. We may be them. We may raise them.” -anonymous
- “When life gives you lemons, stick them in your bra and work it” -Tyler Oakley
- “Never say dreaming is useless, because life is useless if you can’t dream” -anonymous
- “We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that death will tremble to take us” -Charles Bukowski
- “What do I have to bring to the table? Boy, I bought this table” -anonymous
- “Keep smiling, because life’s a beautiful thing, and there’s so much to smile about” -Marilyn Monroe
- “Imperfect actually means ‘I’m perfect’” -anonymous
- “He asked me, ‘what’s your favorite position?’ I said ‘CEO’” -anonymous
- “Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that” -Martin Luther King Jr.
- “You are special and unique, but everyone else in the room also is” -Dr. Webster
- “Without the dark, we cannot see the light. Without the silence, we cannot hear the music. Without the possibility of its absence, we cannot feel the love” – Lauren Fins
- “Life is tough, my darling, but so are you” -Stephanie Bennett Henry
- “Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder” -Rumi
- “‘What if I fall?” Oh, but my darling what if you fly?” -Erin Hanson
- “Be as fearless as the women whose stories you have applauded” -Hillary Clinton
- “Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take but by the moments that take your breath away” -Maya Angelou
- “A diamond is a chunk of coal that did well under pressure” -Henry Kissinger