Stress Relief Tips

03/05/2020 12:02 AM

Dealing with the stress of college is hard. I am struggling A LOT right now, this semester is kicking my butt and it is only the first week. So with that, I thought I would tell you guys some ways that I deal with the stress of balancing life, classes and all the activities you are wanting to partake in.

This week I have had a multitude of group projects, online homework, work in the admissions office, work for my internship that I am doing, and attempted to sleep and have a social life. These are all difficult tasks and I am the type of person who thinks I can do it all. News flash: I can’t, so I have spent the weekend doing things to ensure that I take a break from all this stress to try and relax me and make things easier. So here are a couple of things I do to lower my stress levels:

Paint or art in general. I am not a very talented artist but I have noticed that allowing myself time to just paint is very mindless and calming. This has been a big way that I have alleviated my stress of the week
Workout. With school being hard and requiring a lot of my time it has been good to be able to get out and about and get away from all of it for a little while. Plus Bradley has such a nice recreation center that there are tons to do there and it is a great place to go to destress.
Clean my room. Something about cleaning my environment makes me very calm. It makes me feel like at least one aspect of my life is controllable and allows me to think clearer.
Get coffee with friends just to catch up. In Peoria there are lots of great coffee shops like Zion or Thirty Thirty or, if you prefer, the local Starbucks is pretty great too. There are tons of places to go to get away and just catch up with an old friend.

While these things may seem like they are taking away from your time where you could be working on things, studies show that taking a break to do something you enjoy actually helps you focus and do better. It is also super fun so take time for yourselves.

Also, I would love to hear some of the things you guys do to destress because something tells me that this is just the start of the stressful weeks of this semester, so please comment below! I would love to hear it.