Laurel Faith

Stress

January 24, 2016

Stress

First of all: I'm sorry for not writing for such a long time.

Secondly: Today's topic is going to be a little more serious.. Not too serious though. I couldn't do that to you guys ;) I might even give some tips, ones that helped me a lot.

As you can see this post is about stress, and also a little about anxiety for loads of things but mostly exams and school. I have been wanting to write about this for a long time and after last week, full of stress, I can now finally find it in me to actually write it.

There are a lot of types of stress and anxieties / fears. I'm just going to talk about stress for school. I, myself get a lot of stress from school. Especially in test weeks and when there are a lot of projects due around the same time. I always put a lot of pressure on myself. I guess it is normal for teenagers and students to have a lot of stress, but too much isn't healthy anymore. So I suggest you find something that calms you down, if you feel like going crazy because of all the stress. And what always helps me is planning. Start on time with your projects / essays and start studying for tests at least a week beforehand. That way you can spread your work and you won't be up all night working on stuff for school. That's another thing, sleep enough! Go to bed at a reasonable time, get a minimum of 8 hours of sleep and don't wake up too late. If you wake up later you won't start your work until late in the afternoon, which will give you more stress and probably less sleep. It's also smart to have regular times when you eat and just don't eat to unhealthy. I know that one is a little harder, I struggle with it too, but you will probably get more energy from some type of fruit than a lot of sugar. Eventually the sugar will wear you out and you will be even more tired.

Another thing that really helps me stay calm while working on things for school and studying is listening to music. I know that this is different for everyone, because some people can't concentrate when they're listening to music. But for me it makes it a lot easier. But the only time I listen to music while working on school is when I have to do stuff on my laptop because I always put my phone away when I'm studying or doing homework. I do all of my schoolwork in my bedroom upstairs and when I go upstairs I just leave my phone downstairs.

If you try these things, if you want to, maybe then your stress-level will lower and you'll be more relaxed.

Fun fact: I tried something during my first week of winter break. So Christmas time. I actually, this is true, turned my phone off for the whole week. In my next blog post I will write about my experience without a phone.

Ok, moving swiftly on. Fears, of course there exist more fears than I can count. But in connection with stress I want to write about fear of failure. I've been suffering from this for about six years now, if it isn't any longer. So since I was about twelve years old. I have been struggling with it a lot at school, especially when it came down to taking tests and presenting. I'm actually terrified of talking in front of people. And if I know that there is a presentation coming up, I will get stressed, which is like a really annoying feeling.

Over the time, probably since two years ago, I finally admitted to my parents that I was actually really struggling with my fear of failure. So my mom took me to see a psychologist who was a very nice lady, but since I'm not a person to talk a lot about my feelings, she couldn't really help me. She did give me some tips though. For example, I've learned that if I feel the anxiety coming up to just take deep breaths, look away from I'm supposed to do and just clear my head before continuing. And if I'm presenting something to just start with explaining that I'm very nervous / scared and if, in the middle of my presentation, it gets worse to just turn around to calm down.

Last year I had to do a speaking test for my French class and right before I went in the room I got so scared that I just started crying. Right in front of my teacher, which I'm still a little embarrassed about. My teacher obviously didn't expect that to happen because he didn't know what to do and he started asking me all these questions, which in my case is a bad thing to do. I'll just get more anxious than I already am so that wasn't a great start, but after I calmed down I actually did a good job.

I feel like everyone with this kind of fear has different ways to calm themselves down or to take the anxiety away (even if that is just a little bit). But I think that everything is good when it comes to basically 'treating' the anxiety. I don't really know how else to call it. As long as it's not self-destructive then everything is good.

Do you have any experiences with anxiety / fears / stress?

Share them and maybe we can all help each other.

I hope you still enjoyed reading it, even though it's a little more serious.

xx Laurel Faith