New semester means new opportunities, responsibilities, classes, and challenges. Not to mention, stress. Us college students are too familiar with anxiety, stress and feeling overwhelmed. Cooping with it while still managing all of the amazing things you are doing can be extremely difficult. Here are 5 quick and easy tips that can help you out:
1. Try meditating:
When we experience mental and physical stressors our body produces a hormone called cortisol. Long and continuous exposure to this may have effects on sleeping patterns, promote anxiety, inflammation, increase blood pressure and cause fatigue. Studies have shown that practicing meditation helps decrease stress, consequently decreasing cortisol levels in our bodies, as well as those stress-related symptoms.
2. Breathing exercises
During a stressful situation our bodies instinctively react by increasing blood pressure, often we develop headaches, feel fatigue and have upset stomachs. A quick way to find relief to an instant stressor is taking deep, slow breaths. By doing so, you increase oxygen delivery to your whole body, decreasing the heart rate and blood pressure as we as detoxifying your lymphatic system and releasing tension from your muscles.
3. Exercise
Your body releases endorphins when you exercise! If you don’t know what those are, they are the neurotransmitters that make you feel good. It is a guarantee that you will feel more energized, focused and happy.
4. Write it out
Working with a cluttered mind is nearly impossible. To get your thoughts in order and set your day out to be a productive one, write things down. Whether it’s a journal entry, random thoughts, a poem, story and simply a list of things you want to accomplish that day, writing things out can often make you see things more clearly.