The Real Way To Deal With Stress

We all know what it feels like to be stressed. Uni, plus work, plus socialising, plus family, plus internships, plus attempting to be creative on the side…the list goes on. I’ve never really worried too much about stress having passed it off as a normal part of life. But stress can have serious effects on your health and wellbeing.

At the end of last semester I got myself into such a spin. I was so stressed out that I couldn’t sleep, I was pale and I was depressed. It got worse as the last few weeks of uni came to an end and I just couldn’t pull myself out of it. Consequently, I found it hard to wind down, even after all of my assessment was handed in. This resulted in a very unrestful mid-year break indeed.

Over the last few weeks I have taken it upon myself to investigate some realistic ways to combat stress as I’ve come to realise how important this is. It’s all very well and good to read health magazines that offer you many wonderful stress busting remedies, but often these are unrealistic (and so are the picture perfect humans photographed alongside them). Instead, it’s wiser to start with the simple changes you can make to manage stress.

One simple change that I’d like to share with you is learning how to say “no”.

For all the people out there who suffer from FOMO (and yes, it is actually a thing), it’s okay to miss out on things from time to time. You need to give yourself time to rest, re-group, and sometimes just to do your washing. At times when I’ve fallen behind in readings and homework it’s usually because I’ve felt too obliged to be social.

However, it’s not just socialising you need to cut back on at times. Sometimes it’s equally important to cut back on homework, but not in the way that you think. You still need to get it done, but sometimes when you’ve got a heap of work to do it’s important to have a break and allow your mind to relax so you don’t slip into an awful tunnel of stress. Exercise is one of the best ways to de-stress, but there are other options. Bake a cake, watch an episode of the Kardashians, have a bath, whatever you do just remember you need to chill out as much as you need to do homework.

On top of all this, you need to remember that you’re not perfect and there are going to be times in your life that you will experience stress. What’s most important is that you recognise stress and learn how to manage it in a way that works for you.