This semester I’ve had most of my friends call me out on not being around too much. Whenever my friend group would hang out, oftentimes, I would back out of the plans or I would say that I wasn’t feeling too well. Normally, it’s okay to cancel plans for an appropriate reason. However, I wasn’t able to bring myself to socialize because I was burdened by the stress of my academic and personal life. I’ve been trying to identify how stress has been affecting my life, and I realized that my social life has been most impacted. Here are 4 ways that my stress has changed the way I handle my social life:
- Saying “no” to many plans
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I have always been one to prioritize alone time as much as social time. Yet, something felt different this semester. I felt like I had barely ever seen my friends, and that I’d spend most of my time alone. Recently, I realized that I had been saying “no” to plans more than usual. Every time I was invited to hang out, I’d almost automatically say “no” because I’d assume that I’d have work to deal with. No matter the night or day, I’d primed myself to say “no” to any form of social activity. This imbalance continues to be difficult to control.
- Having more anxiety than usual
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As I mentioned earlier, not agreeing to many plans created an imbalance in my life that triggered a lot of anxiety in my everyday life. I found myself struggling to uphold even a simple conversation, and casual social events felt challenging rather than relaxing. I realized that it was imperative to maintain a balance with friends, family, and work, or else the stress began to churn into anxiety.
- Struggling to be present in the moment
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During dinner, I’d catch myself mindlessly nodding when someone else was talking to me. I felt guilty for zoning out so often, and I was confused as to why that was happening. As someone who values active listening, I didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t able to focus on the other person. I would be so caught up in my thoughts that I wasn’t able to retain anything in a meaningful conversation. Stress consumed me and made it challenging for me to embrace the present.
- Stressing about stress
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With all these thoughts about stress, I started to stress about being so stressed. I became obsessed with figuring out how to cope with my stress so I could once again have a healthy social life. However, this constant overthinking about how stress only added to my stress. It became a vicious cycle of trying to get rid of stress to have a social life, but my pursuit of reducing stress only stressed me out further.
That’s why I decided to use this list to isolate a couple of reasons for how stress has already affected my social life. So now, besides trying to fix everything all at once, I think the best thing for me to do is to relax and take a chill pill.