Stress and anxiety are two inevitable things that many students in the Highline community suffer from. So what better way to comfort our community than providing great ways to de-stress yourself for this merry season.
Now that fall quarter is wrapping up, students face many issues from turning in assignments, transportation, managing personal and student life, getting ready for finals, and preparing for the winter quarter, all of which involve stress.
Three out of five students experience a sense of overwhelming anxiety during their school year, according to studies done by the American College Health Association.
Even though anxiety and stress can never be fully gotten rid of, we can take it into our hands to find coping mechanisms to manage and lift some weight off of our shoulders from these mental issues.
Here is a list of 10 ways to de-stress to make this a more merry season:
- Try counseling at Highline College
“Therapy techniques give people an opportunity to deal with and offload the emotions in this proverbial bag, which ultimately decreases the stress response in the body,” said Tiffany Toombs, a mental wellness expert.
Highline offers daily counseling resources and sessions both in-person and virtually for the community, helping students navigate the ins-and-outs of all the different challenges students face during the school year. Counseling prepares them to pursue their own academic and personal goals. For information about the Counseling Center at Highline visit: https://counseling.highline.edu/
- Yoga
“Yoga does not transform the way we see things, it transforms the person who sees,” said B.K.S. Iyengar, a famous Indian yoga teacher.
Yoga helps promote and nourish the divinity in oneself. Prompting energy circulation, calming the nervous system by getting back the fluidity we lose from stressing out and helps guide our brains to focus on important issues and create a resistance to stress.
- Try reading a book
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go!” a quote by the one-and-only Dr. Seuss.
Just picking up a book and reading a few pages can help you with many stressors by taking you away from your one life and giving you the opportunity to live thousands of lives through those pages.
- Create a vision board
“Hold the vision, trust the process,” said by an anonymous author according to momentsbycharlie.com.
People have many dreams and ambitions in their lives, but people manage to take a moment of their own time to take these ideas and draw them out. Setting clear objectives and goals for what someone really wants in this life.
- Try listening to music
“Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up,” said Hans Christian Anderson, a renowned fairytale author.
Music is a way to stimulate and set the human mind in this calming and relaxed state, helping quiet the mind and relax one’s muscles, releasing the stressors of daily life.
- Try cooking
“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well if one has not dined well,” said Virginia Woolf, a famous English author.
Cooking requires a person to focus on this one focal point giving you the steps and materials to create a main end goal. This relieves your stress of daily problems you can face and puts that frustration into a positive outlet engaging our senses.
- Take a walk
“An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day,” says Henry David Thoreau, an American poet and philosopher.
Taking a walk any time of the day can help people in many ways like releasing endorphins causing your mind to become more relaxed and improve your mood if you ever find yourself in a funk.
- Unplug
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes…including you,” said Anne Lamott, an American author.
Like how people reboot their computers when they find a problem, imagine rebooting your own brain by giving it a rest from your constant technology interaction. Giving people the chance to finally reflect and enjoy the things around them in their lives.
- Buy a plant
“When you plant something, you invest in a beautiful future amidst a stressful, chaotic and, at times, downright appalling world,” said Monty Don, a British horticulturist.
Taking care of life, having a routine of giving a plant water is a great way to pull away from everything, and change your focus on priorities. Humans have different priorities than plants, but both exist in the same world.
- Discard and organize
“Within you, there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself,” said Hermann Hesse, a Nobel Prize winning German-Swiss writer.
Being surrounded by mess and clutter can have psychological effects on you. Cleaning your surroundings can often make it feel like a burden has been lifted from your shoulders.
Different people suffer from different stressors, but everyone deserves to find a healthy way to deal with that stress.