Between assignment due dates, trouble with friends, or trying out for the team, the stress from school can feel overwhelming at times. Understand that it is normal to feel stressed at times. In fact, feeling a little bit of anxiety means that you care about something, which is a good thing! However, anxiety should not rule your life or negatively affect your enjoyment of living. Sometimes dealing with anxiety effectively requires a strategy. There are several tools for coping with anxiety, so try out a few to see what works best for you!
Breathe.
Focus on one thing at a time.
What You Can Do Now
- Make a plan: Write down all the things that are making you feel stressed. Next, write down things that you can do next to each item that will decrease the stress. Prioritize tasks and begin working on smaller tasks or most urgent stressors first to gain momentum for those more challenging tasks.
- Try bullet journaling! It’s a mindfulness practice that helps you stay on top of assignments and inspires productivity.
- Identify the positive: when we’re feeling overwhelmed, it can be hard to see that there are some things going right. When you start to feel stressed, identify two things that are going well in this moment. Know that the challenge you are facing may soon be one of the things you can identify that you’ve overcome!
- Make time for fun: when you need a break, take ten minutes to call a friend or 5 minutes to watch a funny video. Whatever takes your mind off the stress, spend a few minutes rejuvenating your spirits with something fun so you can tackle your next project.
- Learn to Relax: learning to relax can be a challenge in itself, but taking even 10 minutes to meditate or do yoga really does help you stay calm and focused to complete your task.
- Try this guided meditation: Leaves on a Stream
- Be Healthy: Healthy lifestyle habits such as eating healthy, getting enough sleep, and exercise to support us conquering those challenging stressors we face. Do what you can to increase healthy lifestyle habits and decrease those less healthy habits to boost your energy in the direction of your goals
- Ask for Help: Everyone deals with stress at various points in their life. Sometimes it helps just to talk about what you’re feeling with a supportive friend or adult. It’s possible they will be able to share some tips that helped them through a stressful time.
Resources
- Any.do App
- Reflectly App
- Sanity & Self App
- Anxiety Mental Health Screening Quiz
- Studying Playlists
- Spotify: LazyJazzCat, Calm Morning (Guitar and Piano), Instrumental Study, Productive Morning, Chill Lofi Study Beats, Instrumental Folk
