With midterms this week, it is vital to come up with a few ways to help lower stress in your life to a manageable level. A few layers of stress can be motivating, too many layers is inhibiting.
The pressure of having a lot of work in three classes alone is stressful. Now add trying to maintain multiple friendships and the occasional side job can cause an overload. Stress is defined as; a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances. If you’re thinking, ‘that just about sums up college / day to day life’ well you are not alone. Stress affects everyone.
Symptoms of stress can show up as difficulty falling asleep, being overemotional, or feeling numb to emotion, avoiding others (or homework), low energy, or racing thoughts. Stress can affect all aspects of your life, including your physical health. Everyone handles stress differently, and everyone has different limits on the amount of stress they can handle.
Some ways to help deal with, overcome, or simply de-stress for a brief moment are to completely drop what you are doing and go for a 20 minute walk. If you live near the park, go there and walk around. Enjoying the fresh air and new scenery can help your mind relax. Another way is to eat a snack! Not one of the snacks from the vending machine, but a snack that will fill you up. Also, eat your snack in a different area than where you were working – new scenery, remember? Try playing classical music. Classical music is said to slow your heart rate and lower your blood pressure. Turning your phone off can not only help you de-stress, but it can also help you focus. All the distractions from social media and texts from friends that seem so urgent invoke stress. Try a fun craft! Maybe even a craft that is quite different from your work. The motion of creating something fun and ungraded helps take your mind off the stress and allows you to be creative using a different outlet. Our last de-stress tip; spontaneous kisses! Kissing relieves stress by helping your brain to release endorphins (thanks WebMD).
Remember, you are not alone. Everyone feels stress and is dealing with stress on a day to day basis – but your stress points may not be the same as theirs.