College is probably going to be one of the most stressful times in your life. As a student you don’t have\u00a0a consistent sleep schedule, you aren’t\u00a0exactly eating the most nutritious meals (I mean, who doesn\u2019t like pizza?), most of us work but money is tight for all of us, and\u00a0you have\u00a0multiple classes each with a unique amount of homework. On top of that, we all want to have some sort of a social life and engage with other people.<\/p>\n
The bottom line is that college is stressful! Sometimes this stress can build up to the point of a full-out anxiety attack. And, eventually, this could lead into general anxiety disorder (which is an entirely new battle). But I wanted to use this blog post to give you advice on how to manage stress so anxiety doesn\u2019t control your life!<\/p>\n
Here are some anxiety managing tips:<\/p>\n
1. Say \u201cno\u201d when you can\u2019t fit anything more into your schedule<\/strong><\/p>\n Most of us are out to please other people and do things for them (because we\u2019re nice). At the same time you may\u00a0working to make money while managing homework and classes. However, we all need to work on finding our limits and saying no when we need to. If you are skipping meals, reducing your sleep and other things, you\u2019re probably taking on too much. It’s okay to say no!<\/p>\n 2. Question yourself<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cDo you really have to do X thing right now? Can it wait?<\/em>\u201d Now, I\u2019m not talking about procrastination, which leads into extra anxiety, but I\u2019m saying if you\u2019re sacrificing your own sanity to accomplish work, you\u2019re probably stretching yourself too thin and not really focusing on what you\u2019re doing and giving each thing you do your 100%.\u00a0Ask yourself, “Why am I feeling this way? What can I do to better my own situation?\u201d<\/p>\n 3. Focus on what needs to be done first<\/strong><\/p>\n Instead of bouncing between tasks and homework like a madman, focus on what needs to be done first, or what takes more priority. Do you have a big paper due tomorrow? You should probably be doing that first before something that is due the day after tomorrow.\u00a0When people are anxious they tend to think in the future. \u201cWhat\u2019ll happen if I don\u2019t do this?\u201d \u201cIf I don\u2019t do this I\u2019ll be in trouble.\u201d They tend to think in \u201cwhat ifs,\u201d which is usually just your brain playing tricks on you (this is coming from my own personal experience). Focus on the present. This will help you improve your ability to manage the future \u2013 not the other way around.<\/p>\n 4. When you feel anxious, breathe<\/strong><\/p>\n Sounds easy enough, but this is often forgotten. When your body is anxious, it\u2019s usually being deprived of oxygen, which causes you to be taking in frequent shorter breaths. Breathing in deeply will change your body\u2019s tendency from fight-or-flight to a relaxed state. Take deep breaths (until your gut is full) and exhale slowly. Do this until you feel calmed down.<\/p>\n 5. Accept that you\u2019re anxious<\/strong><\/p>\n You\u2019re not any less of a person for being anxious and stressed. Love yourself for who you are!\u00a0Remember that anxiety is a feeling. By reminding yourself that it\u2019s just an emotional response to stress, you begin to see it for what it really is: emotions. If you can change your thoughts, you can begin to change your actions in order to take that energy from anxiety and stress and use it to benefit you.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t tell you not to be anxious, but as we head into finals, and for some of us graduation this spring, remember to take care of yourself.\u00a0Keep succeeding, Warriors! Don\u2019t let anxiety control you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" College is probably going to be one of the most stressful times in your life. As a student you don’t have\u00a0a consistent sleep schedule, you aren’t\u00a0exactly eating the most nutritious meals (I mean, who doesn\u2019t like pizza?), most of us work but money is tight for all of us, and\u00a0you have\u00a0multiple classes each with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":1037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-1031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wellness-blog","tag-stress"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7PQJv-gD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/wellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/wellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/wellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/wellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/wellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1031"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/wellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6767,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/wellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions\/6767"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/wellness\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/wellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/wellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/wellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}