Stress and anxiety run in swift currents during the college years and it's easy to get caught under the weight rushing past our shoulders. Projects. Exams. Midterms. Finals. Not to mention work. Friends. In every college student's head, the next due date looms, lurking there, whether we are eating, sleeping, or attempting to socialize. The haunting of due dates causes us to be restless as we try to live our lives while constantly looking over our shoulder at the class syllabus. Most of the time, we don't eat well enough, we hardly sleep at all, and we don't have an outlet for our stress. Anxiety builds in the darkest pits of our guts. It shackles anvils to our feet. It's something that we constantly carry around because it has become a part of us. It feels like a child that we have to carry around, to nurture, until it grows as big and angry as a forest fire.

It's hard to relax when you know every move that you make in a short 4 year period of our lives, defines everything for the future.

These thoughts are overwhelming and are the reason that anxiety and depression are so high among college students. The workload is a mountain that we all have to climb, and we climb it because we know that reaching the top will be the greatest achievement in our lives thus far. Reaching the top will mean that we made it. There's no greater joy than putting blood, sweat, and tears into something you are determined to get, and you do.

But just because we know all of our hard work will pay off in the eventual future doesn't keep the stress at bay now. Everyone is different, and that means that everyone reacts differently whenever he or she is under stress. Everyone has varying amounts of stress, and everyone also has a different type of stress relief.

One option that I found this year, was having a "comfort pet."

Let me explain a little bit about comfort pets. They're similar to service dogs, and they are allowed on most campuses. Comfort pets can be nearly any pet, usually a cat or a dog. These animals are approved through the Student Disabilities Department based upon levels of anxiety, proof of need, and a doctor's recommendation. The animals have to be trained. Of course, they have to be house trained, leash trained, and also nondestructive to the dorms. The animals also have to be comfortable being alone, and not loud whenever their owner is gone. Dorm mates' allergies are also taken into consideration, and the animal is required to stay in the dorm with the owner, or outside on a leash. The owner is required to clean up after the animal and take proper care of it. If there is any violation, the owner will be asked to remove the animal from the campus. Unlike service dogs, they cannot go into public buildings or classrooms. Lastly, they help enormously with anxiety.

My comfort pet this year was a dog. His name is Shaggy Rogers.

I spent the first semester of my year drowning under the fast paced river of school work, required activities, multiple exams. I could hardly breathe. Often, I was surrounded by my classmates, my friends, but I couldn't help feeling alone. I was away from my best friend, and I felt like I stood on shaky ground with my new acquaintances. Several times, I was cut deeply by some of my new "friends," and they isolated me. I did not yet understand how to cope with people who acted so aggressively against me. Not only that, I went through the consuming and drawn out heartbreak of seeing my first long term relationship crumble, and the violent end left me feeling hollow. I felt like I had nothing, no one.

Then I got Shaggy.

Of course, my family was doubtful at first about the benefits of having a dog on campus, and they told me that I would have to support the animal on my own. They didn't want to pay a dime. I was warned, as I searched for dogs up for adoption, that having an animal would just make my college stay more stressful. They told me I wouldn't have time for homework and other activities if I had a dog.

As soon as I brought him to the dorm the first time, I felt the iron knot in my stomach start to unravel, ever so slightly. As the days passed, I took care of him, I trained him, and I loved him dearly. The responsibility wasn't overbearing, it actually made me take a step away from my mountain and focus on him. I played with him every day. Eventually, I started running in the morning with him, so he would sleep through my morning classes each day. This exercise further helped relieve stress since I was running because I wanted to, not because I felt obligated to do so. Whenever I felt like I had no one, Shaggy was there with me and lift my spirits. As a side effect of me being in a better mood, I felt more motivated to work on my homework, and I got more of it done. After a month, I was caught up in my classes and working ahead.

There were still times when I felt like a fraying wire. There were still times when I felt alone, and like I had no control over what was happening in my life. However, now I had Shaggy, even in my darkest moments, to simply be there.

It's said that animals are sensitive to the emotions of their owners, and they know when you're happy, or sad, or scared. No matter what, whenever I started crying, Shaggy would come and lay his head on my lap. He's a high energy dog, always happy and ready to play, but whenever I get upset, he would calm down instantly because he knew that I needed comforting.

I once overheard a woman's opinion of people with clinical depression and anxiety while I was volunteering. She said that she believed the best thing for a person to do who is depressed or anxious was to feel like they had someone or something depending on them. She believed that feeling as if you were taking care of someone or something gave you a sense of purpose, it gave you of reason to keep moving forward. It gave you a feeling that you were doing good, even if it were just for one person. Or one dog.