We have all been there, sitting in class, tapping your foot, hands shaking, and your brain feeling overwhelmed. Whether you are taking a hard class or worried about grades, school tends to cause a lot of stress for many people. 

Most of us have a hard time dealing with stress, mainly because we don’t know how to alleviate it. It’s hard to determine what will help you because everyone is different. 

The American Heart Association published their “3 Tips to Manage Stress” one of these tips is, Positive Self Talk. Talking to yourself in a more positive light and ending negative thoughts about situations or yourself can be a major help in decreasing your stress. How you talk to yourself will always have a major impact on who you are and how you deal with stress and everyday activities.

Being positive and talking to yourself in a confident way can make you ultimately feel better and happier, while also abating your stress. 

Scott Canfield, Psychology and Sociology teacher at Ross High School stated, “It is statistically proven that happy people process stress in a more positive manner, which obviously leaves them feeling less overwhelmed by daily stressors.”

For me personally, journaling and talking positively helps the most. Before I go to bed I take a few minutes to just sit down and write out everything I’m feeling. When I journal it helps me to get my thoughts on paper so they aren’t crowding in my head. 

Canfield gives his personal ways to relieve stress, “Take a break or time out, and rechanneling are two of my favorite ways to deal with stress. Time out simply means that when you are feeling stressed out about a specific situation, you walk away from it for a short period of time. Most individuals will find that they make poor decisions when stressed out. Take a break and allow yourself to process the situation. Rechanneling is simply reevaluating the situation to fully understand what is being asked.”

Students feel the pressure of high school everyday. It can be difficult to juggle all of your extracurricular activities and classwork while trying to achieve good grades. When all of it gets too much it’s usually best to take a break from what is stressing you out and focus on something else.

Chelsey Hair, junior at Ross High School, stated, “Whenever school is stressing me out too much, I try to do something that is completely unrelated to anything with school. I will usually go exercise because it automatically pumps serotonin through me or I will go practice soccer because it clears my mind. If I don’t have practice or don’t want to exercise, I tend to take a power nap for 15 minutes, listen to music and clean my room, or watch Tik Tok.”

In the end, you have to figure out for yourself the best ways to deal with stress. Since everyone is different, you have to find what helps you. It could be something in this article or something you find on your own. If you need help don’t be afraid to reach out to a counselor to talk about your stress.