Living Stress-Free.
People stress. It’s a natural phenomenon felt by everyday, as a result of some weird brain functions and social expectations and things of that nature. Sure, stress is natural, but by no means does it have to dominate your life. There are a lot of ways to live your life, day-to-day, without stress. People think it’s something you just have to ‘get through’ as a student. Well it’s not, you don’t have to be stressed, you don’t HAVE to do anything you don’t want to do, but you have to be open to change a few things if you want to do that. You have to change your thinking, and the way you view different aspects of your life. By opening yourselves to new ideas, new paradigms, you can completely eliminate stress from your life. Yup, you read that right. Completely. Let’s begin.
So, I don’t get stressed. It’s as simple as that, over the last few years, I’ve just changed a few things around, and that’s that. Sure you feel stress, but I believe that there’s a profound difference between ‘feeling’ stressed, and ‘getting stressed out,’ as students would say. I feel that the fundamental difference lies within the word ‘getting.’ By getting stressed, you’ve become a victim to stress. By feeling stress, it’s just an emotion, something that will come and pass now and then but will essentially leave you alone. If you succumb to stress, you become consumed by it. Then you, and your acne-free face, are screwed. But that’s the first step in becoming stress free, understanding that you’ve become a victim of stress. You have to first submit to stress in order for you to become stressed, so the first step is just keeping it at bay, as an emotional passing and nothing more.
Maybe it is easier said than done, but it’s not that hard to do actually. What I do primarily is something I creatively called the ‘long term’ view. How does this work? You first look at whatever is causing you stress, and compare it to the rest of your life. Simple as that. Will this 3% assignment affect me in the future? If so, how much? Answer that, and make your next steps from then. Now obviously, a 40% term paper is a big deal, and failing that, and then failing out of university, WILL have a big impact on your life. Make effort proportional. Put your efforts into the things that will affect you the most, and in the greatest ways.
Stress isn’t a BAD thing to have, it is a good motivator, keeps you on task and focused, and shows that you care about your future and your current success. Embrace it. This is step number two. So far, we’ve weighed out our assignments, and figured out what actually needs our effort in order to succeed in the future. Now for these bigger assignments, embrace the stress you feel. It’s natural; just don’t let it dominate you. The stress will keep you working and focused. For this step, I have a few recommendations on how to deal with the stress you’re ‘embracing.’ Firstly, in regards to your stressor, write down your progress on it, and what you have to do. You’ll have two lists, at first, the ‘to do’ will be much bigger than the ‘done’ but over time, they’ll even out, and eventually the done list will get bigger. Use this to relax you. Seeing your progress and your ‘to do’ list shrinking will settle your nerves, and motivate you to get through the final steps of your task.
For some other ways to deal with stress. Breathe. Breathe properly and slowly. If you’re frantically writing an essay, or working through a final exam, stop, and take 30 seconds to close your eyes and just breathe. That small pause is small enough to still give you ample time to finish within the time constraints, but also long enough to let your body physically calm down, organize itself, and get back on task. Your mind will be clear, your thoughts will be organized, and you’ll be able to go back and tackle that assignment. Breathing and physical control are a huge aspect of stress reduction.
Secondly, write everything down. When you go over your agenda in your head, it will seem much more daunting then it may actually be in real life. This is because of your memory. Because you have to remember all your tasks from memory, a 6-item list seems a lot bigger than it actually is. Take a blank piece of paper and write everything down. By writing it all down, you’ll quickly realize that everything you have to do is quite easily accomplishable. Is that even a word? But the point still stands. By writing it all down you’ll be able to visualize, and PLAN, how to tackle the projects. Once you can create a rough outline for your life, everything will fall into place.
And finally, to deal with stress, find something personal. These things can include: smoking, driving, exercise, meditation, or anything. Exercise is actually proven, taking a run at the end of the day will release endorphins and help reduce stress. Meditation focuses you and will help manage your stress. Cigarettes and tobacco also help manage your stress. But in the end, this is all still very personal; find the thing that makes you calm. Maybe that’s trolling around on Tumblr looking at photos, maybe it’s drawing pictures, maybe it’s writing poems. Find that calming activity and take advantage of it.
Hopefully by doing a few of those, you can live stress free like me. Just remember the things I’ve been talking about. Realize that stress is an emotion, don’t let it control you. Breathe. Plan. Write. And remember that in the grand scheme of your life, most of these things will pass and be rendered completely irrelevant. Stress doesn’t have to consume your life, or even be a part of it. Give it a go. Best of luck.
