You can’t take it anymore. Everything has gotten to be too much. School, family, friends, everything that could possibly go wrong this week has and you are about to burst. The stress is too much and everyone around you is just as tense. Who do you turn to?
Our lives are fraught with all sorts of problems. They whirl around in our heads and seem endless. Thinking about your troubles and how big they are does not help you solve them. Get that stuff on paper.
Writing about what is bothering you takes your thoughts out of your brain and presents them visually. Having your deliberations in front of you allows you to better make sense of them and start looking for a solution. This method certainly helps me. I figured out my college career by writing how I was feeling about the situation and taking notes on what I was good at and liked to do versus everything else. Or, sometimes, just writing about your feelings can relieve the stress of them.
I find that the best way for me to deal with a problem is to write down my thoughts as I think them, also known as free writing. Many people keep diaries or journals in which to free write daily. With their thoughts on paper they can clearly see each one instead of them rolling in their mind with no possible culmination in sight. When your thoughts are in front of you, you can take each at a time and slowly come to resolutions.
Another way to sort out trials and tribulations by writing is to write yourself as a character in a story. Writing this way allows you to review everything that has happened in recent time. To finish the story, you have to figure out a way to solve the problem. Your story can even have multiple endings, providing lots of possibilities for dealing with life. Writing a story depicting your being creates a disconnect so you can see all options without actually having to live them yourself.
Focus your writing on an aspect of your situation. Try reimagining it, working it so its outcome becomes plausible. If your issue isn’t too serious, try writing a comedy about your life and see the funny side of it. Write an action scene where you’re the hero and finding a solution will save the world from horribly mutated tree frogs that are trying to spread their frog colonies all over the Earth! And when you do, contact me, I’d like to read that.
Even writing a story that has nothing to do with your life can make you more relaxed. It could be about what you want to happen and, writing it down, you see a resolution. Write the same story twice but with different details. Write about the good things in your life (there is always something good; think movies, video games, the taste of pizza, etc.). Or write about something fun and made up to relieve anxiety.
The next option for writing about your worries is poetry. Although this does not require finding a solution, releasing your emotions in a poem can help you sort through them. Expression is important for stress relief. Personify your reactions in an object or try and write in the style of a favorite author. Try different style of poetry, from haiku to sonnets to freeform. Thinking about a rhyme scheme or keeping a haiku’s form of three lines following units of 5-7-5 syllables will help take your mind off your anxieties. Sonnets using iambic pentameter will certainly keep you focused on writing rather than the whirlpool of contemplations in your head.
So there you have it! There are, of course, many other ways you can use writing to relieve stress and overcome life’s trials but I hope these give you some ideas. And of course, if your issues feel too big, it is always best to talk to someone about them. Talk to friends or parents, teachers or counselors. There is always someone willing to listen. Or someone willing to read your writing if that’s your preferred communication. Take a pen to paper if you’re feeling down. You will feel better and maybe even figure out what to do about your problem. And the best part about writing down your thoughts; you can just throw them away after if you don’t like what you’ve written, and start again.
