You're tired of lamps and late night snacks and neverending cravings for both sleep and Netflix. Desire to escape from the present of homework is a thick fog blocking your view of better days. I am here to help you cope, or at least learn some new strategies to limit your encounters with deadly anxiety.

The last week of summer is here and this is your final chance to organize your life and make a couple critical purchases: a whiteboard and sticky notes.

I am going to share my personal ways that I handle stress and anxiety in high school and how I prevent these situations from occuring. The answer lies in efficient planning. It is important to plan as much of your day as possible in a calendar not only on your phone, but also in a physical planner. After orientation you were most likely bombarded with papers and dates of upcoming events. Take out your planner and add every important event before school starts, because during the crazy year, you're gonna be happy you know when graduation is. Here are a few examples of what this looks like for me athletic wise:

• Cross country important team bonding dates, events, meets, other races.
• Ultra marathon training schedule: date of race, workout and distance goal for each day leading up to race
• Ballet schedule: Dates, times, auditions, etc.

It's important to know what your goals are for taking care of your body, so planning your sports and athletics is important from just the dates to planning the days and times you're going to stretch.

Beyond athletics, planning out all expenses you have to take care of: senior pictures, car registration and any other fees your school wants you to do- take care of it before school starts. You get the idea, know your work schedule, put on a your calendar when your dentist appointments are and make sure to actively communicate with people because nothing is worse than getting caught up in the tide of junior and senior year while everyone is yelling at you are missing another meeting. Knowing what is happening on each day gives you peace, deletes unnecessary stress and makes you "check yourself before you wreck yourself": meaning not over committing.

Summer homework is also important to take care of correctly. Make sure you not only complete your AP english assignments, annotations etc, but also have a list of thoughts, ideas, and reflections to contribute to the conversation in the class. This means flipping through your book to figure out what you read and why it was meaningful… conversing and insight also helps develop your relationship with teacher!! (College recommendations).

As you grow up you learn that stress can be eliminated by simply addressing issues with an economic attitude: do I benefit from this? No? Delete it.

I always have more ideas and insights on how everyone can handle stress that ranges from meal prepping to reading one book a week for pleasure. Make this school year one that is memorable and remember that life should be a healthy balance of fun and hard work!