I always have moments when I feel like nothing is working out and I don’t have enough time to finish things, and whenever I feel this, my situation only gets worse. Stress is a very real problem, and even though I haven’t been in college for very long, it’s already crept up on me. There was a culture of procrastination back in high school which contributed to large amounts of stress for four years, and while I’ve tried not to continue procrastinating here, it’s a hard habit to break. My school even had a stress management program which all the freshmen had to go through. It was pretty fun, but I don’t remember much about it except for the cute but not really useful destressing rock we got at the end of the class. Still, over the four years I developed my own way to deal with stress, and here are my tips!
1. Get organized. In the heat of the moment, when I’m panicking about everything I have to do, I like to make a plan. I tend to write down all that I have to do, estimate how much time each task takes, and make a plan of action on what I’m going to do. Even though I often underestimate the time required for tasks, I feel less stressed after I have some sense of what I’m going to do.
2. Take a walk. Sometimes this is hard for me to do, especially when I feel like I am crunched on time, but it always makes me feel a little better. Usually my walk is more like pacing around until I figure things out, but it makes me feel productive and confident.
3. Drink water. This forces me to slow down and just take a moment to relax, because usually I feel like everything is rushing around me when I’m stressed out.
4. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Again, this makes me slow down.
5. Talk to someone. Usually I talk out my situation to a friend, whether its face to face or I’m messaging them. Even if they don’t respond immediately, this makes me chill out and oftentimes, I realize that I’m stressed for no good reason.
A little stress can be good sometimes, but oftentimes a little stress turns to a lot of stress, and that is something nobody wants to deal with.