We're not stressed!

Stress.

Something universally experienced by all Uni students, heck, all high school students. Amidst the standardized testing, Ray’s infamous worksheets, and bio tests with no break in between, we’ve all had our moments of stress. It’s different for people. A lot of us like to think other people don’t have it as rough as us, as though their stress is no different than ours, but it remains a constant in people’s lives. 

I like to look back at my middle school years or even my earlier Uni years and look at how stressed I was. I can remember specific moments vividly, how I felt at the moment. I remember feeling like there was no end, no matter how hard I tried. But people respond to stress differently. Stress in school back then was a reason for me to work harder, for me to motivate myself to get rid of it by being productive. But things have changed. I started stressing for different reasons. It wasn’t just school work, it became friends, sports, running out of time that started stressing me out. There are a lot of factors that I could control to reduce my stress and I have. I think we’ve all made some changes to our lives in hopes of a better outlook, or a mental “glow up.” But there are still things that continue to stress me out that I cannot seem to control, and in those instances, I turn to a few things.

I tend to randomly get extremely stressed at different times throughout the day because I’ll remember things that I forgot to do or have some kind of epiphanic moment that I did something worth stressing about. My solution? To create some sort of physical manifestation of my stress. This can mean a variety of things. If I’m in a time bind, I scribble a list of things. It’s usually just a list of everything that’s stressing me out, compared to a to-do list of sorts. If I have some more time? I like to draw. Creativity comes from places you least expect it. I used to draw a lot as a kid and even up to freshman year at Uni but lost the energy and time to keep it up. I still turn to it in my most vulnerable moments as a creative way to channel my energy.

What do drawing and making lists have to do with stress? Honestly, they don’t. I just like to be able to look at all my stress in front of me. Looking at my stress makes me feel like I am capable of handling it all, like it isn’t as bad as it seems. Everyone has their ways of managing their stress and it's interesting how people handle it all.

Picture from https://www.health.qld.gov.au/news-events/news/how-to-reduce-stress-right-now