My entire life I've been in a busy environment. From a young age, I always found myself running from place to place, and not having a ton of "unplanned" down time. My mom was always busy and so was my dad, therefore I was busy too. Then when I got older, I became busy for myself. In my junior year of high school, I was juggling school in general, 2 Pre-AP classes (aka a crap ton of homework), and rehearsing 3 different musicals, all at the same time. Talk about busy. Teachers asked each other if I was having problems at home (Which is completely ridiculous. If you've met my family, you know.) because I was falling asleep in class and crying all the time. Which are huge red flags of exhaustion and stress. From then I went on to be exactly the same in college: taking a full course load and working 2 jobs. After graduation, I had that awkward 6 months or so of trying to find a job and feeling like a complete failure because I really didn't have anything to do. Or at least that's what it felt like for me. Now that I'm working, I'm back in my super busy mode, which I seem to thrive in. So I guess that's enough reference to my ability to talk about managing stress!
First, there are three key words to handling your stress: Prevent, Reduce, and Manage. These words all come into play when it comes to controlling your stress. I'll go through each one and provide you with some helpful tips to keep your head about you during busy season!
Prevent
Preventing stress is the first step, as preventing is in any disease-like issue. (haha). After all, if you are working to prevent it, then the latter steps are deemed obsolete. In order to prevent getting stressed out, keep yourself as organized as possible.
Planning is your friend. Seriously, plan everything. If you are aware that you are going into major stress territory, save yourself the worry and make your life that much easier. It's harder to forget things and be late to important meetings if your daily life is scheduled down to the last detail. I know it sounds a little outrageous, but speaking as someone who suffers from anxiety and stress related anger management issues (I'm basically the hulk) I couldn't be more serious. Sit yourself down, whip out a handy dandy piece of loose leaf, or a notebook if you prefer, and plan it out. Allot yourself certain amounts of time for different activities and what not. Doing this will help you manage your time and keep yourself accountable for your time.
Adding onto the planning bit, allow yourself down time. If you book yourself solid from the time you wake up until the time you go to bed, it will defeat the purpose of planning your time at all. The hope is that by planning out everything you have to do, you will give yourself some guaranteed relaxation time to detox and keep yourself sane. Taking breaks is super important to prevent stress and to reduce it.
Reduce
Sooo you're stressed out anyway. It happens, believe me. Preventing getting stressed is hard and some of our bodies are tuned just perfectly to stress out at a pin drop. But even if you start to get stressed, there are ways to keep it to a minimum so you don't become a complete basket case.
Try some relaxing activities during downtime. These can be pretty much anything that calms you down. Singing in the shower, meditating, knitting, or even taking a cat nap. Whatever tickles your fancy. I do all of those things. I also find coloring and reading to be helpful as well. I usually keep around a stack of mandalas or you know a Hello Kitty coloring book and some crayons handy for those super stressful days when I just need to stop thinking and focus on something brainless. The key to these is to still keep within your allotted downtime. If you start reading a book, only read for 20 minutes, or a certain amount of chapters so you have a designated stop time. I know if I just start reading without timing myself, hours would pass and I'd have no idea. That is a definite DON'T in stressful times. Exceeding the amount of time you have to do something means that you now have that much less time to complete the other tasks. Now you are rushing and start freaking out and then your blood pressure is sky rocketing and that's no bueno. Since stress isn't just bad for you mentally, but also physically.
That's why another way to reduce your stress is to eat healthy! I really do understand how tempting it is to lean toward super sugary energy drinks and potato chips because that's all you have time for. But it's really bad for you and should only be your very last resort. Make sure you eat your three meals a day, plus healthy snacks and lots of water. I promise, this will help, since eating the right foods and eating enough food gives you extra energy! You won't even need those energy drinks! Well, maybe just one...
Manage
Managing your stress is basically Preventing and Reducing combined. After all, one without the other doesn't really work. Also, managing can refer to doing everything you can to prevent and reduce, even when you're at your wits end. So if you need that energy drink to pull that all nighter that you really tried to prevent, that's ok. Things happen. Life gets in the way of plans sometimes. Ok a lot of the time. But if and when this does happen, just do as much as you can to keep that stress under your control so you don't go completely off the rails. I've been at the rock bottom of stress and let me tell you, it's not fun. Think like, uncontrollable sobbing, a feeling of complete failure, and being ready to just completely give up. You don't want to get there. But if you do, just remember that you are capable of getting through even the worst stress of your life. Just pick yourself up, take a few deep breaths and start at the beginning. Prevent yourself from hitting that bottom again, and reduce what you've already retained. Managing is all about understanding your body and what it's needs are. If you only need that hour of downtime before going to sleep, great! If you need a couple breaks throughout the day, great! Everyone is different, so managing is relative to what works for you!
To summarize, manage your stress level by taking preventative measures. Plan your time according to your needs, and follow it as well as you can. Take part in activities to keep you relaxed and level headed, and if all else fails, a chip on your shoulder will make you better prepared for next time! (Because there will be a next time. Don't kid yourself.) Lastly, remember, everyone is different and everyone manages their stress differently! Don't be discouraged by friends who seem to keep their cool much easier or who give of the "I don't care" vibe. Everyone stresses sometimes, so ask them for their anti-stress tips, and go from there!
So good luck to everyone managing a stressful time, whether it's exams or just the woes of daily life! What are your anti-stress tactics? What have you done to keep yourself sane in times of extreme stress? We want to know! Comment below and start the conversation!
XO, Briana
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