Personal Care July 30, 2019
I asked my friends for their go to stress management activities while at school, and here's what they said:
Every college student should utilize at least one or two stress management activities simply to maintain a clear, healthy mindset. If you are a college student, like me, you surely know how much pressure we’re under. It’s so easy to feel overwhelmed or stressed out. And if you’re not in college, you know that life is stressful enough in itself. Whether you’re in college or not, here are 5 stress management activities that can hopefully help YOU to overcome whatever is weighing you down:
Meditation is a great stress management activity for a variety of reasons. It’s the best way to calm down when you’re feeling anxious or overwhelmed. Meditation allows you to take a step back from reality. In the moment when you’re meditating, you can allow yourself to focus on something other than schoolwork or responsibilities. Practicing meditation and mindfulness can also improve your focus, academic performance, and creativity. This is because you’re essentially training your brain to go beyond basic thought processes and enter into the deeper parts of the mind. There are loads of great short guided meditations on YouTube, so if you’re new to the world of meditation/mindfulness, a guided meditation can really help you get started.
Exercise is one of the most common stress management activities for college students. It helps you blow off steam, makes you feel good and more productive, and gives you energy. It can also boost your mood and better your mindset, according to Mayo Clinic. They say that exercise releases “feel-good endorphins” called endogenous cannabinoids, which are partly responsible for your mood/overall happiness. Exercise is also just a great outlet for letting out built up tension, stress, and negative emotion by taking your mind off things.
Listening to music is MY personal go-to out of the many stress management activities out there. I find it to be a major stress reducer and a basic form of therapy when I’m feeling overwhelmed or stressed out. Now, it can depend on what kind of music you’re listening to to de-stress, but that’s just something you’ll have to figure out. Music can also serve as background noise for when you’re studying and can even help you stay on task.
Journaling is great, because it allows you to get your anxious thoughts and worries out of your head and onto the page. With journaling, you can relieve your busy mind and unload stress and built up emotion. It can also improve your self reflection and creativity. After you’ve let out everything you needed to let out, you can go back and observe previous patterns in your thinking and day to day feelings. You can even do different kinds of journals, like a motivational journal or a gratitude journal where you jot down all the different things you’re thankful for in your life.
Napping is another personal favorite of mine out of these stress management activities. It helps you feel much more refreshed and alert, and much less irritable and groggy. Napping has also been known to greatly improve your short term memory, according to experts at the International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health. Not only that, but it also gets you the hours of sleep that you need. College students are NOTORIOUS for getting absolutely no sleep, so a daytime nap is a great way to get in a couple more Z’s.
Every college student has their own personal way of blowing off steam, but hopefully one of these stress management activities does you some good. Remember, the less stressed you are, the more you can get done. And productivity could NOT be more important when working towards a degree.
