There comes a time in someone’s life, numerous times, when the feeling begins to seep in. The feeling of pressure, worry, a heavy burden; when it’s all a bit too much. That’s when you know you’re stressed. Stress can make a seemingly simple task feel like Mt. Everest. Something that could’ve been completed in five minutes yesterday all of a sudden feels incredibly unachievable when stress is involved. It makes us anxious, irrational and a tad loopy.
The Collins English Dictionary defines stress as “emphasis” and “tension” and offers synonyms such as “significance”, “force”, “weight”, “pressure”, “strain” and “anxiety”. Some stress can be good – as all students would know, a little bit of stress about that due assignment, more often than not, acts as motivation. Yet when it becomes more than that and you feel distressed it can become quite destructive. Stress is often formed in the face of a deadline or when conflict arises, or when you just have too much on your plate that is humanly possible to cope with.
Some time ago I used to struggle with dealing with stress. It was only in high school when, realistically, there was not all that much worthwhile to get stressed about. Yet I would get that tight and uncomfortable feeling and just want to cry and hide under my bed covers and not deal with the world. Thankfully, I got over that phase. Stress is horrible. It’s stressing me out just writing about it! But as I learnt in high school, there are ways to deal with it. Despite my Mum having taught me loads of important things while I’m growing up, there is one pearl of wisdom (which is perhaps the best piece of advice I’ve ever been given!) that has stuck with me the most: and that is to focus on TODAY.
That sounds a little lame and new-age, but let me explain. The thing with stress is that it clouds our vision because we often worry about what we have to do tomorrow, and next week and next month. Life is busy, so of course looking long-term is going to stress us out. I used to worry about absolutely everything, so Mum taught me to only focus on one day at a time, to try my best each day to get what I need to get done for that day only; then the next day, I can focus on today. Sometimes when I feel super busy, I break it down even smaller than that. To get through my first class, and then my second, and then my lunchtime tutorial and then that meeting after school.
I don’t have it perfect. I still get my knickers in a knot and then Mum has to remind me to focus on today. I’ve got ‘today’ written on the back of my bedroom door and on the face of my alarm clock and I still forget. But when I remember, it really works. When I don’t focus on today I achieve nothing, because I worry about the bigger picture, get stressed and procrastinate. When I do focus on today I achieve what I need to and feel much more stable. I recently finished my mid-year exams and I didn’t really get stressed at all. Since then I’ve crashed and burned mentally, physically and emotionally, but it doesn’t bother me because I’m still not stressed. The solution to stress is to just get your stuff done today. Then worry about tomorrow tomorrow.
Each day should be about today, because when you look at the smaller picture everything is far more achievable. But super important is to look after yourself. When you have a big burden, that’s when you need a good night’s sleep and relaxation time more than ever. Don’t overdo it. Achieve a little everyday and then by the end of the week you’ll have achieved a lot. “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
