I don't know what it is but it always strikes my mind and body during exam week. It is a sensation many would confuse with anxiety, yet after personally experiencing symptoms of restlessness unlike ever before, I started investigating the root of the problem deeper. It was mid-April, and I had just woken up after a fun, night-out with my friends. I woke up with extreme fatigue and with the worry that I had lost some personal items I took to the concert we went to the night before. At first, I thought my fatigue was due to all the dancing at the concert yet as I rested more throughout the day and didn't feel any better, I started overthinking.
There is nothing I hate the most than not being in control of my emotions. I knew something was wrong inside of me, but I didn't know what it was or how to describe it. I just didn't feel myself. The end of the day arrived and I was supposed to drive forty minutes all the way back home since I was at my Aunt's house for that weekend. To my surprise, I wasn't able to drive due to feeling drowsy and out of myself. I started feeling agitated, sweaty and had an extreme difficulty of concentrating. "What could it be?" "Did someone put something in my drink at the concert?" "Am I going insane?" These were a glimpse of some of the distorted thoughts going through my mind at the moment.
A week passed and I still had a low profile, and even though I was trying to rest my thoughts out and shake it off, a part of me was still having trouble being myself. Then it clicked. It was stress that I had kept all to myself. I had so many assignments that I was stressing about that they were ending me with the thought of them. What was crazy to me was the fact that this is the third consecutive year these panic attacks occur to me, at the same exact period as they usually summon annually, during finals week. It is usually an event that triggers paranoia within me which causes me to have nausea, disruptive thoughts and trouble sleeping.
The difference that scared me this time was the extreme physical symptoms I experienced for the first time, which were tense muscles specifically in the neck area, which forced me to buy medication due to the pain I was experiencing. Along with neck pain, I had difficulty concentrating and was feeling out of myself, accompanied by excessive worrying.
What I want you to take away from this is to take it easy, breathe in and breathe out and be mindful that life is so short that if something happens to us tomorrow, the problems we place upon us are completely irrelevant. Don't obsess over problems or ideas that aren't even real. Be responsible, study hard and try your best but don't sacrifice your health for perfect grades. Trust yourself to the best of your abilities and have faith that everything will turn out great. Nothing good comes from worrying and instead of doing that 24/7, enjoy the life that is passing right in front of you. Relax and keep a positive mindset while living one day at a time.
