Gone are the days of stress overloads
Stress always comes to an end, however in the meantime here are some tips to deal with it
We’ve all been stressed at one point or another; as a student it’s inevitable. If you’ve never actually had the joy of being stressed and totally bogged down with midterms, let me know what program you’re in so I can switch as soon as possible.
Stress is your body’s way of protecting you when you feel threatened or when your body’s balance is out of whack. As midterm season is underway, it’s crunch time for us students and it affects us all differently.
Looking on the bright side of stress is tough. Stress isn’t as bad as we crack it up to be, in moderation of course. Stress can help you perform under pressure and motivate you to do your best. It can keep you focused, energized and alert to complete the tasks you have going on in a busy life.
Beyond a certain point though, stress can stop being helpful and actually hinder your performance to get work done.
When stress plays too big a role in your life, it can kill your mood, throw off your productivity and make your health, relationships and life too much too handle.
Stress affects your cognitive, emotional, physical and behavioral abilities. Some warning signs when stress is getting to be too much for you may be when you’re feeling anxious, unable to concentrate, moody and short-tempered, overwhelmed, aches and pains or eating and sleeping too much or too little to name a few. A huge part of why you get stressed is having a million things hit you at once and you’re left wondering how the heck did this happen?
The solution to this build up is to change your bad habits.
A few key tips to put you in the right direction are to plan your weeks ahead of time. Invest in an agenda — and actually use it — so things don’t pile up on you unexpectedly. Manage you’re time efficiently, stay organized and start studying earlier.
The worst thing you can do when your super stressed is lock yourself in your room and become a hermit for a week. It may seem like the logical thing to do, but the isolation and confinement may heighten your stress levels.
The important thing here is to stay balanced. It’s vital that you continue doing the things that keep you healthy and alert. Eating healthy foods, exercising, taking a walk outside for some fresh air, getting a good amount of sleep and giving yourself a few minutes to just relax during the day with no phone, computer or TV can help with this.
Have you ever thought that your expectations may just be making the stress that you’re feeling 10 times worse? That might be the case of “I think
I’m more productive than I really am” syndrome.
To combat this one, set realistic goals. Don’t disappoint yourself and cause more stress just because you didn’t meet the unattainable expectations you set out for yourself.
Keeping your goals realistic will allow you to accomplish them, while keeping stress levels down.
Everyone deals with stress differently and it is key to know your limits and how much stress you can take.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that all the work you have going on is going to come to an end eventually.
At some point your midterms will finish up, there will be a lull in your currently jam-packed schedule and you can go back to binge-watching Netflix and having a social life.