Stress is never fun, stress hurts, and stress can kill. It’s never fun to deal with, and it’s even worse when you are standing on the sidelines watching someone deal with stress. However, it doesn’t have to be all that bad. There are ways to counter the demon that is stress. I’d like to take a moment to go over some of the ways I’ve dealt with stress, and maybe you’ll find something that you haven’t tried yet. So, let’s begin.
Take a nap. This is probably the most common form of coping with stress. Napping can relieve stress and refresh the mind. While some may think that taking a quick nap is wasting time, time that you could be using to complete whatever tasks you still need to do, more often than not, the common college student will opt to take a nap if only to relieve whatever stress they may be feeling.
If napping isn’t something you want to do, then go for a walk. Taking a walk can be one of the best stress relievers. With walking, you have nothing to worry about, and it’s just you and your thoughts. I’ve found, in the times where I’ve opted to take a walk instead of a nap, that my mind has been completely cleared, I had time to think and plan out what I wanted to do. Even if you don’t have a scenic route to take, sometimes the hustle and bustle of the city is even more calming than a nice country scene.
Conversely, and quite possibly my most favorite way of relieving stress is to play a game, however, this can go two ways: If you’re like many people that consider themselves to be “pro” gamers, you’ll end up stressing yourself out more due to having extremely high expectations for how people should act in your games. Or, if you’re the more casual type, you’ll find this to be a nice and fun distractor. Either way, you should always play with friends, they make whatever game you’re playing infinitely more fun.
These are just a few ways that I deal with stress. When it comes to helping someone else tackle this, the best and most you can do is just be there for them. Listen to them rant, let them talk about what is causing this stress. Sometimes just talking things out can de-stress a person more than actually handling it. Often, people who are stressed just want someone to talk to so they don’t have to deal with this all by themselves. If you can come up with a way for them to eliminate stress, that’s even better. But just talking things out, I’ve found, really clears a weighted mind, you’re giving someone the opportunity to explain what is bugging them, something that others may not have done. We’re all in college, we’re all struggling, but we don’t have to go through it on our own. We made friends for a reason: so we have someone to fall back on when we can’t do things ourselves. They can help, we just have to let them do just that.
