This is a false and harmful statement, " Anxiety happens in your mind and your body so trying to think your way out of it won’t help."
Cognitive reframing, self-talk, and other intentional ways of thinking are crucial to nearly all interventions in anxiety and thus, indeed, DO help. Perhaps you meant something like "thinking by itself won't be sufficient to alleviate all anxiety".
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Absolutely
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"Three things to help your anxiety:
Limit your sugar … and caffeine intake. Because anxiety is physiological, stimulants may have a significant impact."
Please check your science -- despite common misperception, sugar is not a physiological, or any other type of, stimulant. It is fuel. That is not the same thing.
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@Cats&music True - sugar is fuel, and in the broad sense of the term, not a stimulant. However, when referring to the response it triggers in our system, sugar can be called a stimulant for the sake of conveying their point. Sucrose (aka table sugar) is a disaccharide, which our bodies metabolize incredibly fast. As opposed to digesting polysaccharides (complex carbs), which we get sustained energy from, we digest sugar in a fraction of the time, leading to a peak in our blood sugar levels. The instability in our blood sugar is what leads to heightened energy (the stimulant), and then immediately following, a crash. Of course, this isn't always a bad thing. Right before physical activity, when we need quick energy, it's pretty useful. However, as the article is directed towards people who deal with anxiety, I believe that the idea is that the spike in energy will be directed towards their anxiety and further intensify it. Also, since sugar is linked to several receptors in our brain, this increases the responses we experience from eating it.
It's very possible you already knew all of this and just intended to be precise, but I wanted to add my thoughts about it because I personally don't think it is misleading to classify sugar as a stimulant.
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This article helps people who don't know, to distinguish between worry, stress, and anxiety. Knowledge of the subtle differences between these three problems should help people identify what might be happening in their thought processes. To take this a bit further, figure out the role of factors such as social media and interaction with electronic devices might play in fostering these thoughts. Figure out how to defuse these thoughts to prevent them from morphing into mental health disorders. Factors such as diet, pharmaceuticals, and other substances that affect the brain can play a role in exacerbating the problem too. Awareness is a good first step.
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This article helps me to identify the difference between them, which also help me to know how to deal with these negative emotions. As a student, ’Worry’ plays an essential role in my life. I will do the self-reflection while I am worrying about something. I still remember I had a hard time during the application quarter. I usually worry about my transcript, thinking about my exam scores. If I did not do well in some courses, whether my dream school/other well-known universities would consider me, I fell into deep thought. It evokes me to find the rationale reason of a problem. I will find out the solution to confront those worries. When I worry about my scores, this signals me to work hard and be confident about some bad scores in subjects. Worrying is indeed a repeated process, but it is helpful that the author mentions that worries can push people to come up with the next step or take action, just like what I did. Similarly, ’Stress’ is always surrounding my life. It is noticeable when there is a slog of tasks, strict deadlines&many requirements. Sometimes I also feel stressed if I have high expectations for something. Eg.I wish to have high quality and get high point for my art project. High expectation also make people feel tense. To ’ Anxiety,’ is an accumulation consequence based on stress&worries. However, I think the solution to overcome Anxiety is to manage their stresses and worries. People can do exercises/hang out with friends to distract themselves from anxiety.
5
Now that school has started my stress and anxiety has definitely increased. Having to balance school, sports, family/friends, and mental health all at the same is not always easy and definitely stresses me out at times. But, what I've found most helpful is to make time for myself. It's obvious I can't avoid all the things happening in my life at all times, but I can take a step back for a second and spend some valuable time by myself. And by doing this it helps me refocus and in a way it rejuvenates me before I get back on handling my stress. On a different note, the title of this article is stating stress, worry, and anxiety are all different. But I would say I disagree. Yes of course they all focus on slightly different types of mental health. But they all originate from the same feeling of anxiety. At least for me, when I’m stressed my anxiety and worries are usually the causes of stress. And beyond that, as anxiety is such a broad topic to talk about between the different levels it contains, for stress and worries to be called “different” when they are some of the main factors of anxiety. I'm not sure if they are entirely different.
7
Since school has started, stress, anxiety and worry are becoming very common now. Every person when they wake up have thousands and thousand of thoughts in their minds and more than half of those thoughts are negative. We experience worry, stress or anxiety at least once on any given day. “Worry tends to be repetitive, obsessive thoughts,” said Melanie Greenberg. Some examples with me is that I always worry about if I will get a good grade on an assignment. “Worry is a way for your brain to handle problems in order to keep you safe,” Dr. Marques explained.
There are many types of stress such as work stress, school stress, family stress etc- that can affect your mental health and physical health. Anxiety is a natural response for a threat -People with anxiety disorders struggle with anxiety, and can also cause some physical health which can be overwhelming (butterflies in stomach) is a very common symptom of anxiety. To control worry, stress, anxiety, I meditate, do things that will take my mind of it - exercise, coloring, reading and don’t compare your stress with anyone else’s stress.
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Some of the readers responding are relaying life events that to me fall in the category of causing PTSD, which can and should be addressed with professional help. But if your experiences seem to fall within the scope of the discussions in this article, look up "The Guest House: A Poem by Rumi". A friend sent me the poem when I was very anxious about many things in my life at that time and I now use this mindfulness and acceptance of the emotions as a means of dealing with my own anxieties.
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I am anxious that the Jan 6 planners have not faced consequences. It's anxiety that I can't shut down. The DOJ could help.
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I agree completely!
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@zula Z
totally get it. if a (woman) is not outraged about male violence THAT is a problem...
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@zula Z I empathize, while encouraging you to let go of things outside your control, for the sake of your health.
3
Lately I have found a new approach when my mind is racing to solve some problem and typical physical relaxation techniques aren't working (breathing, body scan, sensory awareness). It helps me to try to feel and label the emotion. Worry is one. But as another comment pointed out there is grief, as well as shame, fear, anger. Mind, body and emotions interwoven.
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Try raking. Yes, raking.
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This article is shallow, superficial. Solutions offered are useless. Try listening to Deepak Chopra or Eckhart Tolle.
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@william matthews where and how to listen?
The time worrying can be spent constructively.
Both worry and anxiety will be diminished by concrete action alone or in concert with others.
Anything less is twiddling your thumbs.
Get the fever…
Keep on truckin …
Pray…
3
One thing is mostly missing from this article: grief. I spoke with a friend this morning who has lost 28 friends and family members. That is a load of grief which helps create the other three.
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In California, disaster is one fire away. My son lost his house a year and a half ago to fire. I was literally screaming at him on the phone to leave, when he was working on saving it. I experienced orange day. The firemen here come around to assess property for fire-proof qualities. We never know if we can take a family camping trip in Northern California, and are camping earlier and earlier in the summer when there is usually less heat or fire danger. We may never have a campfire here again, partly from the guilt of particles going into the air from fire. This year it rained, but it stopped in January, and I am not sure if I can grow my extensive vegetable garden this year, even though I already ordered all the seeds. It will get to 80 today, and I am thinking of starting my garden in mid-February instead of April. Yet, my family lives here and we have wonderful meals together, connection and many laughs as we watch our silly dog. There is a saying, "kiss the joy as it flies" Life is fleeting as is love. Perhaps with global warming there are more people realizing this. Of course we recycle, eat consciously and do our part, and that is all we can do.
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I had a car accident in 2019. I was driving very carefully. Had stopped at an intersection and saw no moving cars. Went across the wide open intersection and was hit by a car on the passenger side; it totaled my car. I cannot understand how that happened. Since then I have disaster thoughts - I see cars coming at me; I imagine terrible events and outcomes; I flinch several times a day. Then in 2020 there was a flood at a vacation house. It could be repaired; walls could be painted, flooring, toilets, vanities etc. could be replaced -- but I couldn't choose -- I didn't know what I liked any more ! I had always had a sense of personal style. I was panicked -- I didn't know who "me" was anymore. I am better but still not who I was. Worry, anxiety, depression -- I have them all.
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@Gima I was sleeping in bed and a scorpion fell out of the AC grill & onto my chest. Before I located it and killed it, it stung me 6-7 times. Fortunately, my physical reaction was minimal but it was months before I could sleep in that bed. Eventually, I caulked every opening and used a mesh grill to prevent a reoccurrence. Bottom line, confront your tormentor, never hide from it. Mitigate it with all of the tools at your disposal. It will never be completely gone, but you will be to drive and I am able to sleep.
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@Gima I was diagnosed with PTSD--essentially, that is like the nervous system getting stuck on high alert, at least, that is how I experience it-- the sense of panic and loss of self is real. You may possibly find healing via a therapy method called EMDR; it has helped me.
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@Gima
Aw, Gina, what a tough story. I too had an auto accident, not my fault, during the pandemic and became afraid of driving. I've forced myself to do it, but I certainly empathize with your worry, anxiety and depression. What's helped me a little is at times addressing my despair and anxiety as separate entities and suggesting that they find lounge chairs by a pool and take a break for an hour. Oddly, it does work. But I imagine some readers will find it weird. Be well Gina, the real you will eventually emerge from this wreckage.
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Sadly mental disorders plague my health records and I have yet to conquer those problems. Therefore I would be lying if I said that I have not ever been able to cope with worry or anxiety, they pretty much dictate all my decisions in everyday life situations from work to school to social situations.
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@Elijah
I have just been to a breathing expert. Admittedly i was able to relax after a few weeks but then I started getting flashbacks from my abusive past, but now I know they are just bodily memories I can cope. And now I am good at breathing better i can really relax. I am stoked. Lay on the floor with a hard little pillow or book under your head. Breathe in for two into your abdomen, and out for three. Keep going and in ten minutes you should feel a bit better. Always make the out breath longer and that tells your body it is safe to relax.
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I tend to stress a lot about school and many personal issues. I’m an athlete, so when i play basketball it tends to help me cope with my stress. I found this out my 8th grade year when i was going through a very hard time. When i play, the anger and stress that was put on the court gets left on the court.
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As a teenage girl in her Junior year of High-School, worry and stress play a huge part in my daily life. I am enrolled in college credit classes, making sure my GPA is in order, studying for the SAT, and trying to search for colleges in my spare time. My day to day tends to exhaust me and even more my mental health. I try to reduce my levels of stress by focusing on the things in my life that make me genuinely happy. I practice art, I sing with my school’s choir and I play a sport. Now with the increasingly worrying situation due to COVID-19 and school closing, my usual actions have been chaotic. I cannot go to the gym for pre-season, and school has been shut down temporarily. I have had to rethink how I deal with the stress I am under. Sometimes I will just jump out of my seat and sprint around my house with all of my extra energy. So, when I get too stressed or nervous, I’ll go take a walk or a jog for 10 to 15 minutes, I will listen to my favorite song, or just grab a snack for a break. It’s not the most ideal situation for me to deal with stress, but I can promise you once quarantine is over, I will be jumping and hopping my way to a stress-free environment.
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@Gabriella Gonzalez I'm thinking of you and all the great things you're doing for your mental health. You've inspired me to get moving as I've been sitting and reading the NYT too long this morning!
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@Gabriella Gonzalez Way to go Gabriella! Hope all gets better in the future - however you are doing very good figuring out a plan in the meantime. You are going to have a good future with a mindset like that!
I agree with other people; the human mind is an incredible thing, but it’s also a burden. My mind is constantly thinking, whether it’s what homework I have to do or if it’s what I should ask my mom to make for dinner. Staring at a wall and thinking about anything and everything is my specialty, but all this thinking is not beneficial to my mental health. I’ll worry over assignments that are due in a week, but I still never start them early. Though, I do concur with the article in saying that stress, worry, and anxiety are normal occurrences in everyday life. I know that it is constant in my life, since I’m an overachieving teenager who wants to have high A’s. The article did help me understand the difference between these three feelings. I always knew that these three things are connected to each other, but I never gave it much thought. In the article, the explanation of anxiety is accurate to me. One wrong look could occupy my mind for days. After a long time of not knowing how to deal with it, I found my one way of coping that works most of the time. As mentioned in the article, listening to music helps me immensely. It clears my mind because all my attention will go to the melody, beats, and lyrics. Honestly, I have never thought about having a “worry budget,” but maybe that’s the one tip I’ll start to use from this article. I do think that everyone has different ways to cope though, listening to music or having a worry budget might not work for everyone.
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Since I was little I always found that pushing back my stress helped me get past it faster. I haven't felt the consequences from this until this year. My stress levels got so high that I couldn't just push it back and I never learned how to deal with it. This caused more than just stress for a while. Since I had no experience I went to methods that were not good for me.
The article talks about the different types and how to help each. Reading through the ways to help stress I realized I've been doing it completely wrong. That is why it hasn't gotten better. I need to understand that I can't control everything. So many teens are filled with stress because of school and social life but don't know how to deal with it. It may be different between each person but the basics can still help.
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@Kali Hatcher I started "counting" when I was ten years old. I would run my tongue across my teeth six times over and over. This made no sense to me at the time and I told no persons in my family about this because I knew it made no sense. I was to learn that is typical OCD and the result of arguing by my parents and being constantly alert for the war zone we lived in. As time went by my mom died a slow painful death from cancer and my father fell into alcoholism and chased women abandoning me at age 14 to a small room above a restaurant. The fighting of my parents ceased when I was 11 and we started up the ladder of success ended by the death of my mother. I tell you this to make the point that we are all products of our past and in some way I still suffer from this though I am now 83. It never goes away for me and to add to this mess, rapes, and violence seemed never to be far away. Sometimes I feel it is my fault but I cannot see how I could avoid my birth to these two people nor would I want to. In spite of war zone, very loving and caring mom and hard working father. We all have our crosses to bear, I became solitary book worm with penchant for jazz and very musically inclined. Lived in 13 states and had a very interesting life in spite of pain. Still checking stoves and locks but am better now.
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Worry plays a role mostly in my school life, social life, and personal life. Stress plays a role in my school life and personal life. Anxiety plays a role in my personal life. In school, I tend to stress and worry a lot, and out of school, I also stress and worry, but also feel anxious. A time that I experience stress is when I hear news of gun violence and people getting killed near my neighborhood and when I hear news about the Corona virus. These times made me feel stressed about my safety and health. I coped with the stress by distracting myself and watching movies or TV shows that interested me. From the article, I definitely learned that stress, worry, and anxiety are all different and whether they deal with the mind or body. The tips and recommendations that I found most helpful was to distract yourself when you experience anxiety, don’t compare your stress to other peoples’ stress, and write your worries down.
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1/2
Everyone has dealt with worry, stress, and anxiety at some point in their life as it’s an unfortunate side effect to living. Which leads to questions and methods on how to manage them. I believe a solution is different for everyone and what I do is I use a bullet journal, which is a sort of diary, planner, and sketchbook rolled up in an aesthetically pleasing little package. It can combine some of the tips like writing down worries and organizing what can and can’t be controlled. Personally having all my assignments and events laid out in front of me helps calm my nerves as I can organize it and ensure everything will eventually be completed. My worries usually stem from my fears that I have forgotten something or won’t be able to do all that needs to be done and having a bullet journal helps that as it keeps me on track and prevents any tasks from slipping through. By just writing down a to-do list the journal helps clear my mind and lessen the amount I can worry about. My stress comes from my want to pan out the way I intended it to, so if I am stressed about things out of my hands the process of writing it down helps create some semblance of control.
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1/3
Worry, stress, and anxiety play a role in my everyday life. I can't imagine a world that isn't at least a little bit terrifying. In some ways it keeps me going; when motivation is lacking, a fear of being unproductive replaces it. However in other more common ways my anxiety keeps me from many of my goals.
The way that the author describes worry sounds a lot like the beginning stages of catastrophizing. "What ifs" and obsessive thoughts can lead to irrational beliefs that conditions are far worse than they actually are or will be. It's important that people who worry use it to be productive and fix their problems rather than let their fear grow into something they can no longer control. The suggestions given by the author to control worrying are intriguing to me, especially the one about worry budgets. I've never thought of stress or worry as something that could be scheduled, and I'm not quite sure that it is.
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2/2
It helps me realize that I can’t control everything and I need to be okay with that. With anxiety, it is due to my fears of how things will go and help cope with it I list everything I can do so I am the best prepared I can be for the event. While this may not be the best method for everyone, for me once I have done all that I can it helps console me as I will know that there was nothing I could do about anything that goes awry. During this time of crisis right now with a pandemic happening and seemingly endless bad news by doing my bullet journal I find a little clarity and calm in the nonsense.
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3/3
First of all: Anxiety. Is. Debilitating. Knowing that there is probably nothing wrong and there is nothing that can be done while still feeling as though you might be dying is an awful experience. I appreciate that the author carved out a whole section to point out that feeling anxious and having anxiety are two separate things. I also like the term "false alarm response," it articulates what anxiety really is quite well. Anxiety is not something to be messed around with. The help section is mostly general, but I do like the second one listed. The suggestion to "check in with your toes" is an incredibly corny way to say "try a grounding exercise". Grounding exercises are a good way to calm yourself down when feeling anxious. The goal is to realize your senses and pull yourself back into reality and out of your own head.
At the end of the day worry, stress, and anxiety are very separate types of mental and physical reactions, but they are often switched around and mistaken for one another. It is important to recognize each one for what they are, so that everyone may be able to help themselves and others through each type without confusing one for the other.
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2/3
The fight or flight response is a simple concept, but when it transfers into the modern world it becomes much more complex. Most of the population no longer has to worry about predators and starvation, but we still have that fear etched into our DNA. The author wrote about a type of situational stress much like we have all felt while going over the first hill of a roller coaster, but they also describe a more day to day stress that lives with us for extended periods of time. It wasn't until a friend told me it was stress and anxiety that I was feeling when I described an urge to run and sleep at the same time that I understood how the fight or flight system exists in modern life.
1
Worry, stress, and anxiety play a major role in my life, specifically throughout the school year. A majority of it stems from school, and the pressure to obtain the best grades possible to secure a good future. This, coupled with the lack of sleep that school ultimately leads to, further worsening stress, worry, and anxiety, creating a vicious cycle which worsens my mental health. I heavily relate to the methods to manage both stress and anxiety, as i have began exercising more often to reduce stress, as well as slowing myself down and controlling what i can. In regards to anxiety, i have stopped drinking coffee every day like i previously did (although it was the only thing keeping me awake most school days) and i try to distract myself as often as possible during anxiety episodes
I never thought of stress, anxiety and worry being different from one another. I always thought of them as being the same thing. I learned in this article that anxiety is a combination of both worry and stress, which means it has physiological response and a cognitive element. Therefore we experience anxiety in both our mind and our body rather than one over the other. I have dealt with anxiety for many years now and can say I have yet to find a coping mechanism. One thing I realized after reading this article is that talking or thinking about it will not help you, it says the best way to help is by distracting yourself. Although that makes sense to me now after reading it, I always figured talking about it is the best way to overcome it. I think this article had amazing tips on how help anxiety, stress and worry. It also did a great job explaining the difference from the three.
4
Worry, stress, and anxiety play the role of a battle that many continue to overcome. In the article, it is expressed that one should not try to think through anxious feelings. I can attest to that, for I tend to experience more anxiety when attempting to think through a situation. The only way to forget about the anxiety is to do something else; for example, playing a board game or going for a run to stimulate the brain and body simultaneously.
I had always used the words worry, stress, and anxiety fairly interchangeably, so when I learned that worry was a cognitive fear of a possibility whilst stress was the reaction to something worrisome I recognized the lesser amount of stress I experience, but greater amount of worry. I also discovered that anxiety is nearly the fear of fear itself which led me to realize the importance of keeping the mind occupied. All three play their own role to help us function properly, but when put into situations where we don’t respond to stress in the proper way we find ourselves with a psychological disorder.
I have found that exercise is one of the best ways to reduce stress and boost morale. Stress and anxiety are physiological so it takes physical actions to calm the biological reaction.
In the beginning stages of the coronavirus outbreak I wasn’t too terribly worried, for I knew science was going to catch up. however, now that is not the case and I have found that by keeping myself on a schedule helps reduce stress, worry, and anxiety.
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People often get confused with what the definitions of worry, stress and anxiety are and after reading The Difference Between Worry, Stress and Anxiety by Emma Pattee, I now have a clear understanding of what each of the words mean.
Being a teenager in High School comes with a lot of worry, stress, and anxiety. Oftentimes students don’t tell others about their struggles and the negative impact it has on them. I for one know that I worry and stress too much about all the school work I have to keep up with. In the passage The Difference Between Worry, Stress, and Anxiety by Emma Pattee, she gives alternative tips that will help calm you down during an anxiety episode. “talking or thinking about it will not help you. Try to distract yourself with your senses: Listen to music, jump rope for five minutes, or rub a piece of Velcro or velvet” (Pattee). I really appreciate that Emma included some tips to help others deal with anxiety. It is important that people know that they are not alone and that there are always ways to reduce worries and stress levels.
If I learned anything from this article it would be that it is key that people become more comfortable with discussing mental health. Another takeaway would be that sharing helpful tips is important especially for people who don’t know how to handle their anxiety. I find that it is important to know that worry and stress are symptoms of anxiety.
1
Being a student in my junior year of high school, I have felt a great deal of stress, worry, and anxiety from the recent SAT, work that's given to me, and my AP tests that are coming up. It is rare of I don't feel stressed or worried, that's how much these negative feelings have taken over my life both in and out of school. I experience anxiety once in a while, and as the article says, one experiences adrenaline when dealing with anxiety, which I also feel. However, worry and stress are things that I deal with daily. I feel stressed and worried a day before a test or when I am given a lot of work and I feel like I don't have enough time to complete it all, my mind goes into a state of fear and worry, making it harder to complete my work. When I do experience stress, worry, or anxiety, I do have coping mechanisms that calm me down. First, I like to write, I write down how I'm currently feeling, any thoughts, or dreams. Writing has always been something that I love to do and it really does calm me down. Second, i like to listen to asmr. A lot of people think that asmr is weird, but it really does help me so I am able to focus better. Through the times of the coronavirus outbreak, I feel extra stressed and worried because of the AP tests coming up and the work I am receiving. I tend to stay away from reading about the outbreak because it will just stress me out even more. This article gave me a better understanding of stress, worry, and anxiety and how to cope with them.
The tips given in the text don't really help considering everything is circumstantial. As he says, "Don't compare your stress to with anyone else's stress. The tips given in the text don't really help considering everything is circumstantial. As he says, "Don't compare your stress to with anyone else's stress." These tips may pertain to one person's stress rather than anothers.. For me personally, as a teen in modern-day society, dealing with all of the above, these tips don't work for me. They may work for someone else, so I won't discredit it, but I feel like this is for more minute cases. Worry, Stress, and Anxiety are all in your head so you subconsciously do things that will help you in general. But some people have experienced things in which you can't help. Personally, with my anxiety, I can't help but be paranoid in public so I try to get to my destination faster. I worry about things that could happen if I take a risk. I stress about what would happen if I do something in a scenario that could jeopardize my health or my well being. Jeremy Engle says that anxiety is a false alarm, however, I feel that it is you being ready for anything to happen. I feel that anxiety is more a person being vigilant. People can work on getting these thoughts out of their head but I will take some amount of time. I'm not discrediting Jeremy Engle, but I feel like better tips should be to take your time and don't worry too much, and work at your own pace. Everybody is different.
The tips given in the text don't really help considering everything is circumstantial. As he says, "Don't compare your stress to with anyone else's stress. The tips given in the text don't really help considering everything is circumstantial. As he says, "Don't compare your stress to with anyone else's stress." These tips may pertain to one person's stress rather than anothers.. For me personally, as a teen in modern-day society, dealing with all of the above, these tips don't work for me. They may work for someone else, so I won't discredit it, but I feel like this is for more minute cases. Worry, Stress, and Anxiety are all in your head so you subconsciously do things that will help you in general. But some people have experienced things in which you can't help. Personally, with my anxiety, I can't help but be paranoid in public so I try to get to my destination faster. I worry about things that could happen if I take a risk. I stress about what would happen if I do something in a scenario that could jeopardize my health or my well being. Jeremy Engle says that anxiety is a false alarm, however, I feel that it is you being ready for anything to happen. I feel that anxiety is more a person being vigilant. People can work on getting these thoughts out of their head but I will take some amount of time. I'm not discrediting Jeremy Engle, but I feel like better tips should be to take your time and don't worry too much, and work at your own pace. Everybody is different.
I don’t find any of the tips particularly useful for myself, the reason being is that I’ve tried them all. Doing physical activity and movements doesn’t take away anxiety, worry or stress away from me, rather it subsides it. The problem with this is that all of those negative thoughts that come with those three things get put off into one big pile until it is far too much for me to handle. It is at that point when I suffer a panic attack or a mental breakdown. Looking at this article, which explains what exactly anxiety is and what its components are, is comforting for me. To battle my anxiety I had to bring myself back to reality, and one of the ways I do this is becoming informed on the topic of my anxiety. Essentially having a definition or an explanation is the best way I can cool myself down. Seeing the words “false alarm” plastered alongside anxiety may indeed help me ground myself in the future. I think that Jeremy Engle's advice may work for a person who has complete control of themselves, which I do not. But it is not her advice that I feel will have the greatest impact on this perilous battle I face daily, rather her use of diction and the definition of anxiety, stress, and worry that will lead me to a more centered sense of self.
I personally hadn't been able to identify the difference in anxiety, stress, or worry. After seeing the differences with each, I realize I become anxious often from situations I manifest in my head; I will think ahead of myself and create a fake scenario in my head causing me unnecessary anxiety. I tend to deal with anxiety, stress, and worry all in the same manner; exercise. I am a competitive figure skater and I skate a little extra on days that I feel stressed. As the nation is currently in quarantine and my ice rink is closed, I find myself walking my dog more often or going for a jog in the neighborhood. Another way I deal with my stress is by listening to my favorite artists: BTS, Doja Cat, Conan Gray, and NIKI. Taking time out of my day to sit against my wall with both my AirPods in just helps me unwind before bed and relax. Music is a constant in my life and I personally listen to the same songs on repeat because while the world is constantly changing around me, these songs become constants in my life and the aspect of my life that I have full control over. The genre of music I listen to completely depends on the situation I'm facing: a test or upcoming deadline or a relationship issue. If I need more confidence then I find myself listening to female rappers such as Cardi B and Doja Cat, yet there also many situations where you feel better after crying. In these situations, I listen to Conan Gray and NIKI; for whatever mood I'm in there is a song to help me!
As a high school student, three quarters of the way into her junior year, I can confirm that stress is a dominant factor in my daily life. Even though this article also discusses anxiety and worry, it helped me realize that stress is the major denominator in my life. School is my major stressor because of the constant need to prove myself to my peers and to myself. School has become very demanding and has also engraved into our minds that in order to get into your dream university you must take all the AP and Honors classes you can possibly fit into your schedule. This will then lead to you one day have a successful life. Chronic stress as a result of school continues to affect me once I am at home because of the demanding schoolwork that cuts time from me being with my family and having a social life. I know I am not the only student who suffers from the same issue. This also sheds a light on the current education system and how it fails to accommodate for the fact that high school students are only just developing into the adults they will one day become, and the overbearing stress will eventually affect the development of their adult lives. I must admit that I deal with my stress very poorly by letting it control my life. Occasionally, I do allow myself to destress by enjoying the activities that make me happy. I know that this is only the beginning of the stress I will face but I do hope that I will eventually get better at managing the issue.
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I didn't know that anxiety was a combination of worry and stress. Despite the amount of discomfort that these bring, stress and worry plays a huge part in my life. The most obvious example is in my school life, where my assignments are given with deadlines and a grade that plays a huge part in college admissions. Stress and worry are what push me to finish work on time and thoroughly study material. However, these feelings seem to be magnified to unwanted levels by the current Coronavirus rather than relieved like most students suggest because I lose my ability to ask teachers for advice and meet with friends, as well as any active reminders on assignments, and exams. In order to cope with these feelings in times like these, I rely heavily on music and spending time with family and friends. In fact, hearing other peoples' stories, interests, feelings through song or conversation distract me of my own problems. If for any reason these things are inaccessible, I turn to drawing and studying anatomy, lighting, etc. for its similar distracting powers. Of course, I have to limit myself because I may forget responsibilities for too long, making me stress even more when I return to reality. However, without stress I would never complete or fulfill my responsibilities, and I think they will be a vital contribution towards my success.
Whether I would like to admit it or not, worry, stress, and anxiety play a pretty large role in my life. I must admit that I do realize this may sound like a bad thing, but it is all how you cope with each of these. School acts as a major platform for these three, and just as I am sure many can admit as well, the online schooling due to the Coronavirus may be upping some of our stress or anxiety levels. I know mine are. I have always been one to overthink just about everything so worrying and feeling anxiety about assignments is practically my specialty; nonetheless, I have managed to cope with this in a healthy way. For some of the students who read the newspaper article on here, I am almost positive when I say this, grades probably play a major part in your school life. Mine do. The one thing I have learned from all of my stress and anxiety is that the best thing you can is to turn it all into motivation. High expectations, tension headaches, late nights, last minute turn ins, and the worry that you aren't doing it right should only motivate you! You may not see it, but you will. All of this adds up to a resilient student! Anyone who can relate to this comment knows the stress and anxiety and worry that we all feel as assignments are posted on weekday mornings, but that doesn't stop a single one of us. I may be a single story, but I know I am not the only one. This may have not been an article on the Coronavirus, but these feelings are a part of life.
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@Phebe Carroll I really couldn't agree with you more. Worry, stress and anxiety also play a significant role in my life; sometimes I am able to turn it into motivation to study harder for a hard test, other times it will just result in a mental breakdown. The current situation we students find ourselves in now is one most of us have never had to deal with before- online school and self studying, however, I, too have tried to turn my stress into motivation. With three AP exams coming up, I can't give up now, and I can't deny that my hard work must be payed off. It's only a little longer before we take our exams soon. Personally, I have been learning the importance of growth and mental health, and although our worldwide situation may be glum, I wish us all the best and our toughest fighting spirits.
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I experience stress, A LOT. During a school week, I almost constantly have a stress headache, and I’m always exhausted and unable to relax. Most of the stress I experience comes from the pressure I put on myself. I’m not satisfied until I know I couldn’t have done a better job, and even still, I always think it’s not good enough. So many people have super high expectations for me, but my own are even higher, and if I don’t reach them it stresses me out. To cope, I simply use it to my benefit by allowing it to fuel me and my hard work.
Although I experience loads of stress, I don’t really worry that much, because at the end of the day I know everything will work itself out. I’m a strong, capable person and I know I can do pretty much anything I put my mind to, so I never worry about tasks or problems that may arise. I don’t worry about what the future has to hold, because I believe that God has a plan for all of us and He won’t bring anything to us that we aren’t strong enough to get through.
The only anxiety I really experience is due to public speaking. Before a presentation, I get so anxious. Even though I’m proud of my work and know what I’m talking about, I hate speaking in front of people, so I always volunteer to go first so my anxiety won’t build up. I even get anxious about raising my hand to speak or share in class, I hate it. To deal with this anxiety, I simply force myself to speak a lot, in hopes that eventually I will get less anxious and uncomfortable.
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I worry a lot. It's just part of who I am. I worry about the future, I worry about stuff in the news, I worry about getting sick, and I worry about losing things. Worrying is basically constantly there, bugging me. However, the thing about worrying is that I can usually push it to the back of my mind by doing something fun.
I also experience stress, but less frequently. I usually experience stress before a competition or a test. When I experience stress, I usually get a stomachache, and I find it hard to enjoy fun things because of this. I can't really push stress to the back of my mind the way I do with worrying. One time I got so stressed before the student council election that I had stomachaches for days and had to go to the doctor.
Anxiety I usually get directly before a competition, test, etc. It's less distracting than stress, and usually the worst it does is builds up some nervous energy.
So, I experience worry, stress, AND anxiety, but I can feel the difference between them, and, for the most part, know how to handle them and say to myself something like, "It's just stress."
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Teenagers often deal with abundant amount of worry, stress and anxiety. Generally, that transitional stage in life from childhood to adulthood is tough but in addition to that school is getting harder. Deadlines for assignments will stress students out, students worry about the grades they receive on work, and not fitting in could cause serious anxiety. Personally, those three things have the most influence with things related to school. There are times where I struggle with even doing my work because I feel so bogged down by it. I have been spending most of my days stressed since the start of my junior year and the quote, from Dr. Greenberg, “Stress is defined as a reaction to environmental changes or forces that exceed the individual’s resources,” really resonated with me. I have never been able to describe stress with words, so this added a lot of clarity to my thought processes. The easiest way I have learned to cope with stress is through music, weather if its playing songs as loud as I can or playing the piano until my fingers are sore, it helps me clear my head and provides an outlet. I deal with anxiety in a similar way but when I have an anxiety attack I freak out and I don’t know how manage it. I have never tried wiggling my toes or rubbing different materials, maybe I will now.
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Though I try to prevent it as much as possible, when I feel stressed or anxious I try to do something active—like go for a run or play some basketball with friends. Whatever I can do to get my mind off whatever is stressing me out helps. The worst thing for me to do is to simply sit around and leave myself to my own thoughts; that is what accentuates the negative feelings the most. My advice to anyone who is dealing with stress or anxiety is to do something that will really take your mind off of it.
I feel as though I experience all three of these--stress, worry, and anxiety--multiple times each day. Both in and out of school, I'm constantly thinking about my homework or upcoming assignments, so often that I find myself completing all my work nearly a week before it's due, it's a constant obsession with needing to get things done or else I won't be able to sleep, or the anxiety will consume me. My friends, from what I have observed, have no problem procrastinating and staying up late the day before an assignment is due to get things done, which shocks me because I know I could never do that. I experience the most stress when I get assigned multiple homework assignments in one night, because as I mentioned before I would need to get those done, but if I don't go to bed by 9:30PM on school nights I know I will lose my mind because sleep is the only thing that keeps me sane. To combat the overwhelming feelings like this I often get, I turn to the comfort of music. When I'm stressed or overly worried, music always helps keep me focused and calm. Anxiety, on the other hand, is a whole different demon. When I have anxiety attacks, I try to ground myself--staying still and looking around my room, identifying objects that are around me, and it helps to bring me back down to earth rather than being totally in my head. I never did try the toe thing mentioned in the article, but maybe now I will.
@Allison Alfonso I believe that everyone experience at least one of these symptoms but it how we deal with it that sets us aside. I to deal with all of them in and out of school, but in order to overcome it I try and plan things out like the article mention. I tend to put assignment off putting me in a even more stressful situation when it come to completing them. I might start managing my time more wisely because not having enough sleep doesn't help either. I never thought that caffeine can affect your anxiety so from now on ill try and limit my intake.
Worry, stress and anxiety do not play much of a role in my life because I try not to let those feelings control my actions. When my friends act off of any of these emotions I tell them to not make any decisions they will regret.
Other than taking meds, music is my main coping method. Music doesn't judge you, music doesn't make you feel like you have to feel guilty for having emotions. Family and friends are a good way to help, but music is something different. Some artists are just beautifully gifted with portraying exactly how I am feeling. Screaming your favorite song after having a horrible song is more freeing than a lot of alternatives these days.
From a young age I’ve dealt with anxiety. It progressively got worse as I entered my teenage years for the fact that I was dealing with hormones, fitting into society, and extreme family issues. I’ve always had this intense thought in my head to be the best at everything I do and if I’m not then I’ve failed. I worried myself endlessly to get everything done at one time and I would stress myself out to make straight A’s and to be apart of every sport or club there is. I used to worry majorly that I wasn’t fitting in, that I wasn’t good enough, or that my family would be prouder of me if I just worked that extra bit harder. It became an obsession and completely unhealthy. I’d have anxiety attacks left and right because I was afraid I'd made a B or because I wouldn't make it onto a sports team. It got extremely bad and downright terrifying. For myself, for my friends, for my mother and sisters who watched me as I went into this downward spiral. To get better, I started exercising. I’ve learned that the only thing I can truly control, is myself. I’ve learned ways to cope with my anxiety and to calm myself when I stress too much. Anxiety disorders can be discouraging, but achieving whatever you want is STILL possible. I deal with anxiety, stress, and worry daily. I think I always will. I just make sure it doesn't stop me from obtaining what I want. I know and you should know, that you WILL overcome and conquer. It just takes time.
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As someone who deals with anxiety, it really takes over my life sometimes. Having depression also takes a toll, but the two combined is quite terrible. Some days, I'm just proud that I got up from bed. Being surrounded by people who don't understand mental illness is frustrating. You're not mad at them for not understanding, you're happy they don't deal with this, but at the same time, you just wish they understand your actions. To be honest, I have no idea how to cope with it. Although it's unhealthy, I just ignore my feelings and wait for it to pass. I don't think anyone has the "perfect" coping mechanism. Everyone deals with things in their own way. I think the worst thing for me, is knowing that I'm going to have to deal with this for the rest of my life.
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I think I deal with stress a lot in my daily life, I mostly get stressed when I have an abundance of school work and I feel like I might not have the time to finish it. School is by far my #1 stressor ,and sometimes it is really hard to balance all of the things going on in my life. I really learned a lot from this article, usually I use the words stress, anxiety, and worry interchangeably but they are all very different. Sometimes I experience anxiety when I do not have much school work, I think that there must be more and I have forgotten something. This article gave good ways to deal with three things that many students deal with on a regular basis.
(Pt. 1) As an individual clinically diagnosed with generalized anxiety, I can safely say that the symptoms of anxiety, including stress and worry, avidly dominate my life daily. Although many are distraught over the new at-home schooling due to COVID-19, I have been relishing in my ensured isolation from others, as public school maintains the #1 spot on my list of stressors. However, the angst sadly follows me seemingly wherever I go that isn’t my homely room. Specifically, in social situations. Not only in places that are unfamiliar, but even visiting a market that I frequently shop from. For in my mind, every day is different; different people with different possible circumstances. Like in the article, when Jeremy Engle explains the ethics of anxiety and how even the feasibility of a threat can trigger it. I experience this regularly, even when I am nested in my cozy comforters. Just recently, I even felt so petrified by my imagination that I impulsively called the police to come to my house, as I feared someone trying to break in. This incident happened weeks ago and yet, my nervousness has increased notably and has driven me to fret about extraneous concerns to incite a catastrophic reaction. Coping mechanisms such as counting to ten and flexing every muscle in my body are all long but tried.
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As someone who overthinks everything, is very scatterbrained, and is (worst of all) a teenager, worry, stress, and anxiety play a major role in my everyday life. There have been times where I’ve been worried about one thing and then tried to think of something else only to start stressing over something completely different. Thankfully, I’ve been dealing with these things for some time and have learned ways to cope. Many of the things I do, such as reminding myself that things are out of my control and distracting myself, are mentioned in the article. The article also mentions things I’ve never even considered like lowering my sugar and caffeine intake and giving myself a “worry budget.” Something I often do that isn’t mentioned in the article is taking a step back and reassessing the situation. I’ve been surprised at how outlandish some of the things I stress over are. Of course, sometimes it doesn’t matter how many times you reassess or how often you distract yourself, sometimes stress and anxiety get the better of you and there’s noting you can do other than just wait it out.
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I often find it difficult to deal with stress and anxiety. It seems as though my stress is always instigated by a worry, normally about school, that sort of snowballs into this underlying stress that stays with me all day. I always just tell myself that once school is over for the summer, I won’t have anything to worry about. I’ll have no deadlines, no tests, and hopefully no big summer assignments. I know this is probably an unrealistic expectation, but can sometimes help, to know that there’s an end date.
The worst part about stress, worry, and anxiety is not knowing how to deal with them. At this point I’m so used to stress that it’s just normal for me to sit and ignore it, but if my friends were to describe me, they’d probably say I’m very anxious. I think I must have figured out a while ago that music can help, but now I try to listen to music every second of the day because the silence feels deafening, but the music feels repetitive, and I don’t know what’s worse for my anxiety.
When I do try to alleviate my stress, I’ve found that the best way to get rid of it, as the article said, is to exercise. I often take walks in the mornings because I know I have the rest of the day to finish my work and a walk just relaxes me. I can get rid of my energy and think only about my music and the road ahead of me for a couple hours.
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When I am worried about something I go over every single possibility in my head and try to plan out what someone might say or do in every situation. Just to prepare myself for every outcome. Same goes for anxiety. I think about all the possible outcomes and a response to each one of them. If something doesn’t go as planned then a little improvisation is in order. I am a go with the flow kind of person worry and anxiety doesn’t really affect me in the way it may others. If I am stressing over something I try to deal with the stress as immediately as possible so I have time to relax and think about how stressing over whatever it was, was a waste of energy.
Like most teenagers I deal with a lot of stress, worry, and anxiety. This comes a lot from school and cheer but mostly school. I get so stressed out about all the work we are given and the fact that some teachers just don't care. Sometimes I'm up super late doing homework and honestly sometimes I get so tired that I don't even finish everything and I just go to bed. The way I handle it is to talk to my mom about helping me and getting me all straight and organized about it and another way to just completely forget about it and go do something completely different, but that's not always the best answer. It's hard for me to deal with this because I do have a lot of anxiety and I overthink a lot of things but I think the best way to handle it is to just talk to someone about it.
@emma If I had a dollar for every late night I've stayed up to finish my mass amounts of homework, I would be as rich as Jeff Bezos. A lot of my teachers don't understand the amount of work that stacks up between my classes. Especially when certain classes give way more work than others. It's easy to fall behind and sometimes you just need a day to catch up. Balancing school and your personal life is a very important part of mental health. You need to make sure you are being productive but at the same time you are not overworking yourself.
Why hold the hot stone when you can simply put it down and pick it back up when it is needed?
(Part 1)
Let me tell you about what the last few months have taught me about stress/worry/anxiety. Stress, for me, makes me tight. If I had a chiropractor crack my spine every day I still probably would feel tense. I MUST get an A to be the best me to get the best grade to enter the best college to get the best job and to live happily ever after... and that’s worry. I know right now in this moment that none of that is true, that my circumstances and worldly success don’t determine my worth, but subconsciously these things weigh on me. Besides, I know right now that’s overreacting and overthinking, but in the moment it just feels like drowning.
(Part 2)
I have mostly (but not exclusively) school to thank for this. As I have said, I know a lot of my stress and worry is due to unhealthy thinking on my part, but I believe a large portion is also due to the expectations I feel put on me. Each class begs for so much of your time, neglecting that life for most of us exists beyond equations and grammar rules; we’re not going to talk about how much time I spend in my room doing work most days.
This burden of worry in my life is recent, though. What can I say-- school got hard and will continue to get harder. My case is not unique. The best thing I can do is keep pushing but remember that my health matters, that my life does not truly depend on getting an 89.5 instead of an 88, that my attitude is an enormous contributor to how I handle anything, that it’s ok to admit that sometimes things suck, and, most importantly, that life is still good when you stop and look around. Like the article said, stop and look at those wiggling toes of yours; they’re still your toes that help you to run and that feel the grass and dirt between them in the spring. It’s gonna be ok.
Anxiety has always been a part of my life. It didn't take long for my family and I to realize I struggled more with it than other people. It was third grade for me when I started to go to therapy. Week after week I got new assignments and new exercises to help make things better. Medication was introduced pretty quick as well. Over the years things continued and I was actually starting to get better slowly. My nervous ticks had decreased and my number of anxiety attacks was slowly dropping. Even though it was better it still wasn't perfect. No matter what I do I will never be anxiety free. Starting high school didn't help my anxiety either. What a surprise. The only thing I can do is continue trying new things until I can feel the best I can.
The article had good definitions that set apart the differences between worry, stress, and anxiety. Lots of people don't really get the difference. Something that helps me when I'm having an anxiety attack is finding a distraction. From books to video games I have so many things I enjoy so I just need to combat my bad feelings with good ones. This doesn't always work but it's nice to give it a try.
I've always been a worrier, whether it be about school, the safety of my friends and family, or my own well being, I've always been a worrier. I think that a lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm a pessimist. I always imagine things turning out for the worst, and in turn, I am worried about what the outcome of a situation might be. Despite all of the worrying that I do, stress or anxiety weren't things that I experienced until this year. This year, my classes got harder, my father moved out, leaving me to pick up his responsibilities around the house, and the future of my life and my family's hung in the air as I patiently waited for my mother to make a decision about moving to be with my father, and for myself to hear back from the boarding school I had thought about going to since 6th grade. With all of this, I developed anxiety. I was in a constant state of "I don't know what's going on in my life" and "What if everything goes wrong and next year is awful". Right now, It's March. My dad moved out and school started at the beginning of September. I've been dealing with my anxiety for about 6.5 months now, and as much as I want to say that I've completely figured it out, I haven't. That's not to say that I haven't gotten better, but sometimes dealing with anxiety takes serious measures. I'm just trying to push through to the end of the school year. Hopefully by then, my anxiety will drastically improve, and I will be able to proudly say that I made it through this year.
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@Uma Volety While I cannot share a similar experiencing regarding anxiety, I certainly have felt the stress levels raise in the past few months. With applications pending for Junior year and school drastically ramping up in difficulty, it's hard to find time to myself or just hanging out with my friends. And that time that I do find myself relaxing, my brain is always wired to be thinking about the homework that I still have to get done at some point. I can't turn off my homework brain because there always seems like there is more that can be done, whether that be an English assignments, History studying, or catching up in online classes.
The only "cure" I can recommend to you is that you use your friends to help you through your rough time. One of my wise friends once sent me a long message about how I can always turn to my friends if I need help, and that stuck with me.
I know we'll make it through this trying time unscathed. We just have to believe in ourselves and keep on keeping on.
Like any highschool student I often experience all of stress, anxiety and worry in all their forms.
I’m not a natural worrier, however when it comes to school most of the personal rules I’ve set for myself kind of tear apart, so in that case I worry a lot. When it comes to big projects especially, since I can often get lost in the guidelines which makes me worry about missing an important factor.
I’m horrible at time management, and would rather waste time dreading working on an assignment than actually doing it. I find myself dealing with acute stress basically anytime I have homework. Fortunately, that goes away once I turn in the homework and by then the feeling of all the stress leaving my body leaves me exhausted.
I don’t really feel anxiety in any way. As I said I’m not a natural worrier and I only deal with stress in short bursts, so I wouldn't exactly say I’m dealing with continuous stress and worry. Many of my friends say they have anxiety, and for some of them I believe that, for others I highly question it.
I have one method of coping when all of stress, anxiety and worry decide to gang up on me. Open up a blank document and basically curse out my life and when I'm done "waste" time doing things that actually make me happy.
Generally, I complain about teachers and homework, but instead of stress and worry I blame being overworked and tired. My hair says otherwise, though because I’ve gotten premature grey hairs once which left me kind of shocked.
@Natalia Rivera, I’m in the same boat that had a lot of highschooler‘s will have stress. Unlike you, though, I do worry. It’s just something that kind of happens without me realizing it sometimes, but usually, I’ll buckle down and do an assignment if I’m motivated. I like your idea about opening up a blank document and just letting it all fly. I Used to do that in a journal, but since the beginning of high school, I’ve had too much work to be able to sit down and let it all go. My parents always accuse me of overworking myself too much.
And then that’s when my breakdown comes. I never know when to stop working and struggle with fighting between being ok with where I’m at and trying to get a little bit ahead. Maybe sometime when I feel all three of them getting up on me, I’ll have to try your method of sitting down and letting it all fly.
Stress sucks. That's it. It's so simple. When you're stressed about something, it controls your mind. It's all you can think of 24/7.
So, from my own experience, when I'm stressed about something (or when I have anxiety over something), I try to keep myself busy. Sitting in your room or having alone time is the worst possible thing to do in these scenarios. You have to occupy your mind with something else. You can do this by hanging out with some friends, going to a sporting event, or even shopping. Really anything that takes your mind off the subject at hand.
I enjoyed the stress-free years of school until this January. Before I was breezing through high school without me stressing or feeling anxious. Come January, all of a sudden I have loads of homework. And not to mention I wouldn’t get back home till 9pm everyday for six weeks. For the first two weeks, I felt overwhelmed and drowning in a hole for work. I tried to manage my time between work and family time. But I ultimately had to sacrifice one of them to keep me afloat.
I deal with stress by either just taking a step back from work and thinking everything through or taking a shower. As the article states, dealing with stress you have to accept the fact that you can’t control some aspects of your life. I’ve gotten better about stressing, I’ve accepted that I can’t control the amount of work I get but I can control how I manage my time. The root of my problem was that I think too much and to stop that I had to let go. Thinking too much also led me to worry too much. I saw that talking about the amount of work I had just stressed me out more and I’ve tried to stop myself from doing that.
This semester has taught me that stress is going to be a part of my life forever now. There isn’t a way to avoid it but there is a way to cope to it.
@Priya Patel
Our semester is a mess isn’t it. I can’t believe you only just cut out family time. I made that change two years ago. Sad, I know. No one should choose between doing homework or spending time with family, but that’s just the way the system is.
Like you, I was also having a good, easy time only having to worry about what book I was going to check out of the library next, when suddenly, a tidal wave that is the second semester slammed into me and knocked my breath out. Since we both have the exact same classes, I feel oddly comforted knowing that It’s not just me going through this. We’re both figuring out the best ways to stay afloat before another wave crashes down and drops a grade. It’s the delicate process of climbing up two points, dropping one, repeat. Not to mention we have three AP class finals with no time to study. That’s what’s getting to me. That’s my main concern now. I don’t know about you, but thinking about the two months we have left and the three exam prep books that I’ve only just now opened are stressing me out. If I think about it, my heart pounds (stress indicator!). If I don’t, I feel like I’m not doing enough. But I’m glad you’re feeling better about your situation and that you have ways to cope with the stress. Since we’re both going our separate ways next year, I wish you the best with finding new, inventive ways to relieve yourself and hope that you won’t always be stressed.
I spend a lot of time worrying, sadly. Whether it be worrying about the grade I got on my AP world or math test, worrying about the English assignment I have yet to finish, or worrying about my French homework, my thoughts can sometimes consume me. This means that I have both a physical and mental response, and I become stressed out. As the article states, stress is an effect to the cause of worrying.
I often find myself wishing that I wouldn’t worry, because then I wouldn’t stress out, and my stress wouldn’t lead to the anxiety that I experience on a daily basis. I’m a very anxious individual, there’s no getting around it. Maybe it’s because I’m also quite sensitive, but I think it’s mainly due to the amount of time and energy I put into worrying and stressing out about things in my life. Things that more times than not, I have no control over. And I think that’s key, knowing when to calm yourself down at certain points and reminding yourself that you can’t control everything, and every outcome.
It’s truly amazing how our bodies react to stress, it affects us just as much physically as it does mentally. We become tired, less aware, and less focused on what we’re doing in the moment because we’re too focused on what could happen in the future, or what’s happened in the past. Everyone experiences worrisome thoughts, stressful moments, and anxiety. A huge part of life is learning how to realize that these things aren’t a part of you, but rather just moving through you.
@Sadie Dunne Worrying about something is a sure sign you care about it and while worrying about making sure you do something right can lead to anxiety, it is also good for you as stress pushes you to do a better job the same way that peer pressure does. You dont know it's actively doing it but it is and it helps you.
Worry, stress, and anxiety don't play any part in my life, though I know many who are affected. I was stressed at some points during past school years when tests were stockpiling into one singular week and practically my whole class was stressed out. I became startled and am now afraid of what anxiety can do to someone. I found that getting my head clear was the best method to cope with these mood swings. Similarly, the coronavirus outbreak hasn't had much of an effect on me. The best I can do is to deviate from crowded gatherings and stockpile resources at my home. In contrast, some of my friends seem to be spooked by the news or are making fun of it, and none of them seem to be prepared.
I believe all high schoolers face stress, worry, and anxiety everyday. Personally, I tend to overthink every little task, text, action, anything, which makes me a huge worrier. Along with this overthinking nature I have plenty of schoolwork, a social life, and sports and clubs to balance out, which leads to more stress and anxiety. High school and college years are hard but with the right practices like meditation, staying active, eating right, and doing whatever works best for you to stay calm and stress free, it is a lot easier to get through.
Ring goes the bell. It’s 8:30, and I can feel the sweat start beading up in my palms. I suddenly feel warmer than usual and notice my cheeks slowly turn a pinkish color. Flash forward to the end of the day, where I’m itching to jump out of my seat and leave class. My euphoria doesn’t last long as I realize the pile of papers whispering my name to complete them for the next day.
I’m sure every teen has been on a verge breakdown because of all the things they have to complete with not enough time to do it all. I’ve learned, though, that there will always be things that are out of my hands, and I can’t spend my life dwelling on those things. I enjoyed finding out where my stress, worry, or anxiety comes from and ways that I use myself to combat these fears.
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@Hope Heinrichs I loved how you made your comment almost like a part of what you experience everyday, I can relate to it much more because it feels so real for me. And I’m sure it feels so real for many other high schoolers out there. Going through an already stressful day and then gazing down at your work, all you have left to complete can be intimidating. It feels as though you’ll never be able to get it all done or cross the finish line because even when you do, there’s a whole other day and week full of the exact same thing waiting for you. I get it, completely.
You’re right, knowing when you can’t control something or dwell on it is extremely helpful. Knowing this ensures well really, your survival in high school altogether. The people who succeed to the highest degree in school are those who can’t just handle stress, but can do it all with confidence and a level of maturity. Stress, worry, and anxiety can all be causes and effects of one another and worsen each other, but it’s important to remember that they don’t have to stay forever.
As a high school student, these things are something that I face constantly. Similar to what is stated in this article, worrying can be one of the biggest motivators for me. Although that sounds weird to say, worrying about getting good grades, being on time, and studying for tests is the way for me to actually put these things into action. I believe that worrying is someone deeply caring about what they do, therefore they want the best outcome. However in my personal experience, I face high levels of stress and anxiety as well. I cannot remember where or when it began but ever since I was little I would easily get stressed out or overwhelmed over little things. As I get older, I have learned different techniques of dealing with these issues. A technique that works great for me and which I use as a way to decrease my anxiety is distracting myself. While taking slow, deep breaths and focusing on different objects around the room, eventually I find a way to slow my racing thoughts and ground myself. Especially in current situations surrounding COVID-19, it is incredibly easy for these overwhelming feelings to pop up. Personally, I try not to listen to the media too much. However, I believe it is important to stay informed and take information from reliable sources and take things one step at a time. In the middle of this mass panic, it is important to worry about loved ones, especially elderly, while managing levels of stress and anxiety.
I don’t have to feel stressed or under pressure very often, but when I do it is mostly because of school work. When I have a lot of homework and/or a big project due I get stressed and end up doing the assignment worse. When I am crunched on time I end up rushing the work to get it done, instead of trying to do the work well.
Something I noticed has helped when in these types of situations is planning out my entire afternoon and writing down how much time I need to do each task well. Planning out my day helps me do my work slower and better. Remember, quality is better than quantity.
After reading this article, I realized how I really have more worry and stress rather than anxiety. While I’m sure that sometimes I do experience anxiety in certain situations, it’s most likely stress or worry. All of these things honestly play a pretty big role in my daily life. I always tend to have something that I’m worrying or stressing about whether it be school, softball, or anything else. I don’t necessarily think that these things are completely bad because no one can go through life without feeling stresses or worried. I do think that especially today teenagers do face stress, worry, and anxiety more than we think. After reading this article, I think that all teens can use those tip to help with stress or any of the other things. I think that personally the worry “budget”, exercise, and eating better can really help me reduce my worry, stress, and anxiety.
I suffer with anxiety disorder. I was 'diagnosed' when I was around ten years old. That's pretty young. I struggle to deal with it to this day, age sixteen. I can't seem to calm myself down sometimes, and little things build up and make me a mess. Sometimes these 'messes', as I call them, result in crying. Other times they just resolve in sadness. Sometimes in anger. Other times in fear. As I've talked to my therapist about this, we agreed that anxiety is one giant thing and depression, OCD, etc. all come with it. It's like a bag of chips. Anxiety is the bag but all of these things are the chips. Although it's been six years, I still sometimes feel like every day is my first day experiencing anxiety, if that makes sense. It never truly has gotten 'better' for me, yet. I work with my therapist to come up with some coping skills but they never seem to work. I guess it will just take time. Worry, for me, is different from anxiety. when I worry about something, like the Coronavirus, it is less scary and intense than me being anxious about it. When I'm worried, it normally just gives me a weird feeling in my stomach and I feel uncomfortable but anxiety is so much more to me. Stress is the feeling of helplessness and frustration. School is a great example. I get so stressed out about my work, my grades and my classes that I forget highschool is short and I need to enjoy the time I have as a teenager. These are the differences between stress, anxiety, and worry, to me.
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As a Junior in high school I experience stress, worry, and anxiety almost everyday. Most of the causes are generally school related. For example, the AP coursework, extracurricular activities, and of course the continued emphasis on the exaggerated importance of standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT. I usually come home around 6 after practice and start my homework about an hour or so after. After continuously working for hours, I still find myself unfinished with my homework. I check the clock to see that it’s the next morning, 1 am. Eventually my brain and body give up and I convince myself that I can wake up early to finish my work, so I lay down in bed to sleep. However falling asleep is nearly impossible. No matter how physically and mentally tired I am, my brain keeps reminding me of my unfinished homework, or i keep doubting myself that I didn’t study enough for the big test tomorrow. This causes me to worry all night, which results in a lack of sleep. The following day i spend stressing over everything, and one way I relive that stress is by letting it all out and crying. Another coping mechanism I use is running, which clears my mind, and helps me focus on my breathing. One other thing that I do is that I think too much about what could go wrong rather than maintaining a positive mindset, which also brings me down. My anxiety starts taking action when everything hits me at once, and I realize that life is not easy at all, especially for a junior in highschool.
After reading this article, I now know that stress and worry are two very different things. I’ve always thought that I had stress from school, but in reality, it’s just worrying. I’ve experienced anxiety recently since at my last gymnastics competition, I needed to get a 35 or above for my all around to get into states. It was also practically my home meet and that just added more worry and stress on me. I didn’t make it to states, though, but during the meet, I coped with my anxiety by thinking that it was just a normal practice. I cope with normal worries and stress by procrastinating, which adds more stress. I know that I should be finishing up all of my work, but when I worry about it, I feel like I won’t finish it. Stress, worry, and anxiety are all things that people experience daily, however, coping with all of these are easy. I’ll definitely start trying out these coping methods, and if it doesn’t work, I’ll try others. It’s never too late to try new coping methods.
Yes, it is very clean to anyone who has struggled with or studies mental illness that stress, worry, and anxiety are all different. Worry is the lightest form of negative dwelling on things that could happen. People worry about small things like they worry that they could have too much work. Stress is the reaction to mid to large forms of worry. People are stressed because they have too much work and feel uneasy about getting it done. Simply put, worry is a thought and stress is a reaction. Anxiety is a short term for a certain kind of mental illness.The most common is generalized anxiety disorder. Generalized anxiety disorder is severe stress (reaction) that is ongoing throughout the day. Symptoms are an overwhelming amounts of panic and fear. Panic attacks are the inability to control anxiety. They are often dangerous. Victims feel tightness in the chest and shortness of breaths. Many people claim or joke about having panic attacks, but they are rare. They can often be mistaken for mental breakdowns which are very common. Everyone has those moments when their school work is laid out on the label and they start to hysterically cry, or maybe even laugh. I don’t believe people can have a lot or a little anxiety. You have it or you don’t. It must be diagnosed by a professional. I find the way to cope is to distract myself. This can be through an activity or talking about it. In situations with extreme anxiety, nothing can help me. I’m not sure that there is even a way to cope.
I feel that stress is something I've built to where i'm standing in my life right now, I have no stress because I've built the mindset to be able to not stress and let simple, meaningless things have any negative and emotional effect on me cause when you stress, you slow progress on literally anything your trying to accomplish.
To worry to me is something that personally I hand to god and let him hold my issues, and for someone who can keep a positive and optimistic perspective, the times that i really worry are very slim most of the time, and pretty much the same can be said for anxiety.
Coping with these help a lot more if your able to surround yourself and focus solely on the task your doing then, so that you take away those factors you had. I also put my phone away so it doesn't distract me, because from what i've seen the phone and social media can be the direct saoure if the issues, so then taking that factor away makes a huge difference on being able to relax. Since I live close to the beach, in the summer if theres anything on my mind ill go surfing during the day and relax on the beach, or I cant do that ill paint, granted im not a great artist but I think being able to paint whats on your mind or just anything is a great way to help cope.
Stress and worry play a major part in my school life. Specifically, a lot of my worries are derived from expectations colleges set for their possible students to complete in high school. The result is a trickle down effect that ends in major stress for me. When I went on college tours, many of the schools stated that they wanted their applicants to take the most difficult classes offered by their high school. For my school the hardest classes are APs. This year (junior year) I have filled my schedule with as many APs as would fit, thinking that this would be the best course of action to look appealing to colleges. As a result, I have an average of 5-6 hours of homework each night, on top of sports and getting extra help if needed. My school also doesn’t allow students to have a lot of study blocks so I literally do not get a block during day where I can start making a dent in the mountains of assigned schoolwork. Although I am taking AP classes which are college level, I am spending more time studying and doing school work per week than the average college student. It should be noted that my school situation is partially my fault because I did sign up for all of these classes myself, but wanting academic rigor shouldn’t be penalized with literally making it impossible for high school students to decompress.
After reading through the article’s solutions for how to deal with worry, stress, and anxiety, one that resonated the most with me was exercise. Although it can be daunting at times to get myself to go to the gym, get onto the exercise bike, or even step outside for a power walk, there has never once been a time that I have finished a workout and regretted it. Exercising helps me to release endorphins that make me happier and more relaxed. Plus, I am always extremely proud of myself for completing a workout when I finish. Exercising gives students time for themselves to listen to music, watch TV, or do whatever they’d like while making their body healthier. It has helped me so much to manage my stress and worries relating to high school, and I highly recommend it for helping others manage stress, worries, and anxiety at ANY stage of life!
@Margaret I agree with you, exercise helps clear my mind, especially riding my bike and listening to music or going for a run. I think the music helps me, as well, but the exercising takes my mind off of whatever is bothering me at the time and makes me focus on the moment right then and there.
Feeling anxious or stressed is a time where I feel most vulnerable because I allow my fears to captivate my daily life. The events I find myself falling for are most commonly the ones that I have no control over. At first, I feel as if there is no way for me to cope with the stress associated with these events. By educating myself, however, I am able to make means with my fears and I allow myself to know everything will work itself. I urge people that also fear over things they have no control over to take deep breaths, process the information, and continue to spread positivity.
Seeing these staggering statistics of these mental deficits doesn’t truly surprise me. I personally constantly feel stress worried and anxious and for me it can be hard to decipher exactly which one I’m feeling. I think it’s important to get the idea of all of these out so that others can also kind of self diagnose, because these are extremely common especially in society today. Reading the memoir on edge helped me understand anxiety so much more and it even covered the ideas of worry and stress and these are important ideas to understand if society wants to face it and help reduce these mental issues in society.
`Throughout my childhood and even my life today stress, worry, and anxiety have played a large part in my life. As a teenager, I usually don't have the time or the motivation to evaluate every example of adversity in my life. Therefore I have never thought to try to categorize or compartmentalize worry, stress, and anxiety that I experience daily . Most days of the week, I am either at school or training for sports which tend to cause stress and worry. Both of these areas in which I work so hard have a lot of baggage attached to them. For example when it comes to wrestling, I worry about my weight, college recruiting, and the next big tournament coming up. Stress for me is a more common beast in my day to day, because personally it can get negative and is more difficult to deal with with a busy schedule. To deal with my stress I usually like to release some endorphins by going for a run or read and try to find a moment of serenity. As with the others, anxiety works in a much different form, Dr. Marques said, “anxiety is what happens when you’re dealing with a lot of worry and a lot of stress.” Learning to cope with all three of these is a necessary life skill students should be working on so they can succeed in the future.
Stress, Worry and Anxiety is very common for people my age. Being a teenager in general is a tough period in a person’s life. A test can stress a student out, the grade on a test can worry a student, and a weird look from a peer can cause anxiety. Personally, stress, worry, and anxiety controls my life. It wakes me up in the morning for school and keeps me awake to study. I agree with the article when it says that stress is “a physiological response connected to an external event.” Therefore, there needs to be a stressor and how your body reacts is how stress affects you. I also thought that stress was more common than worry, but after reading the definition of both I think that people may experience worry just as much as they stress out. The article defines worry as something that “happens when your mind dwells on negative thoughts, uncertain outcomes, or things that could go wrong.” If you think about it, someone could be worried about the stressor that is stressing them out and then have anxiety from it. I don’t think there is a real way to make these thoughts go away. There are coping mechanisms, but I have a hard time believing they are all effective. Yoga and meditation is usually recommended. I have found just taking time to think about myself, distracting myself with friends, or simply watching a movie clears my mind from what is stressing or worrying me. I think they can be handled if one can find the right way to cope and balance their life.
People are saying that school stresses them out and while I do think most of my stress is due to school, I also worry about a lot of different little things. I think the younger generation especially has to worry about a lot of things like climate change, mass shootings, and our mental health.
But what our generation usually does is laugh at our problems. For example, like with the corona virus. Many people are worried that their going to contract it and die like the thousands of other people who have unfortunately been infected. While this is a fear among people, I have also seen people joke about the virus as well. I’m not sure if this is a healthy way of dealing with our worries but I do think that laughing in the face of death can be healing.
@Carla Luna I agree with your comment. Yes, school work can play a big part in stress, but I typically find school work at the bottom of the list of all my worries and thoughts. There are so many other things to be stressed about, especially in our day and age. School/mass shootings being a huge one. I constantly sit in class wondering if at any moment I could hear gunshots down the hall. And especially now with the Covid-19, I find myself constantly thinking about it, and what it might mean for our world.
People make jokes to laugh it off and make it feel like it isn't a huge problem. That's because people cannot face their problems head on. They're scared of the terrifying reality of things. I don't think it's healthy, but I understand why people do it. They're only scared.
Worry and stress plays a decent sized role in my. The amount of stress and worry I deal with is nowhere near the severity of others. I have dealt with a lot of stress in my life. I stress a lot about school and maintaining my grades, and I prioritize my grades over a lot of things I should not like spending time with my older family and friends or even my health because I have been stressed. I once had a low grade fever, but I freaked out because I did not want to miss school. I took the reccomended dose of tylenol and I went to school with a 100 degree fever. I felt sick the entire day, but it was worth it because I did not miss school. Stress like this leads to poor decision making; I could've gotten a lot of people sick, but I was more concerned with missing school and I went anyway. The stress and worry I have builds up, and it puts down the good things in life sometimes.
As far as the coronavirus outbreak, I have been a bit of a mess. I have been telling myself not to worry about it, and I know that it really isn't something I have much of a control over other than practicing good hygine. However, the media overexaggerating this illness is bad because it builds it up to freak people out. My family and friends have told me not to worry, and I tell myself not to worry. I reflect how much time spent daily watching the statistics and seeing that there are now over 100 cases in my state. The paranoia that the media is bringing is bad to the health of worriers like me.
Stress, worry and anxiety are probably in the top five of worst feelings for humans to feel. They are feeling that everyone will undoubtedly experience in their lifetime, but will try to avoid at all costs. To try to avoid these, people come up with their own unique coping mechanisms to alleviate them. I personally experience stress quite frequently at my age since I have so much to worry about. I have to worry about keeping my grades up in school, maintaining employment, what others think about me, and what I will make out of my life in the future. The worst by far though is school, more specifically studying for tests and doing homework. This places a large mental strain on me that both affects me psychologically and physically. To combat stress, worry, and anxiety, I turn towards arts or any of my passions. Most of the time I will just play the piano, listen to music, draw, or punch a punching bag. These all help me get all of those negative feelings out of my body and allow me to refresh myself. However, sometimes when I just have too much to worry about for school than I can possibly manage, I just call it a day and stop working on it. One day of missed work wont hurt me in the long run so I might as well just say "screw it" and just enjoy the rest of my day. Life is too short and time is precious, so I believe that it is okay sometimes to value yourself above everything else if it means that you won't be in a bad state of being.
I’m just like everyone else, just like you. I get stressed and it is because of school, sports and/or work. I do get worried about upcoming things, past actions etc. But I try to not let it get to me. Usually I try to address the situation and handle what I have and other times I just take a break from reality and sit back and play my guitar. Guitar is my outlet, I can come home tired, stressed and not feeling well and after playing for about an hour I feel great again.
Worry, stress, and anxiety all play a small role in my life, However I know these effects impact many people a lot worse. It's not to say I don't experience any of these because I do, however to a low degree. As a child I remember having a lot of anxiety and worry. I can think of an occasion where I went to the bathroom at a Bruins game and couldn't find my way back to the seats. I thought in my head that I would never see my dad again. I ended up calling him on a strangers phone and found him two minutes later. The thing that I have learned is that there's no real need to worry about the majority of things that happen in life. My philosophy is that everything will be okay. If I'm doing something I don't like or am having a hard time with something, I think to myself it'll be over soon. I understand that worry and anxiety are not things that can be controlled for most people, however I have in a way taught myself that I don't need that, and that life is too short to worry. The corona Virus is something in today's world that is causing a lot of worry, stress, and anxiety. I think this is one of the few cases where It would be okay to worry about something like this. For the most part and for me at least, I am young, healthy, and take necessary daily precautions(washing my hands) that I think I'll be okay. I do believe though that for people not in good health, or elderly it is something to worry about.
My biggest motivator is stress, which often leads to anxiousness. I have the brain of a procrastinator and it isn’t until the adrenaline kicks in from a deadline, that I can work efficiently. As much as I hate the feeling of stress, I couldn’t get through school without it. It has pretty much become a lifestyle. I wouldn’t say I am a worrier about school because I know that I will eventually get to the point where I will be motivated to complete whatever task I am procrastinating for.
However, I would consider myself a worrier about the future. This is not to say that I have negative thoughts about my future, but I worry about how certain situations will turn out, as most people do.
As much as worry, stress, and anxiety are perceived as something negative, I think it plays a very important role in people’s lives. How are we supposed to prepare properly for the future if we don’t consider all the possible outcomes? The simple answer is you can’t. Being prepared means you are ready for something to go wrong. I think that people who don’t worry will eventually develop anxiety because things will eventually go wrong since they aren’t going to be prepared.
I have learned to cope with my worries about stress and anxiety through realizing that stress and anxiety is something that everyone deals with- it’s normal.
School is my main source of stress. It's very confusing where one week, we will have 3 projects, lots of homework, and a test. The next week would be less than two homework assignments. I think that my school should fix that and try to help the teachers format their work better so our school life could be more balanced. Sometimes, I don't think a lot of the teachers now that have lives outside of school. A few of my friends do lots of sports and after school clubs and won't get home until 8:30 and thats not a lot of time to finish the loads of homework we're given.
I get stressed out a lot because of school. There are some weeks that we just have too much homework. It makes me lose sleep which also affects how stressed I am. Thankfully, I have a great friend group that helps distract me from the things I’m stressed or worried about. When I’m stressed, I usually just eat my feelings away which isn’t good because I eat junk food. Another thing I do is watch videos of BTS since they make me very happy. When you’re ever stressed, I suggest doing something that would make you happy and distract you from your stress.
As a high school student, I deal with all three of these things on a daily basis. Even if it’s not me dealing with it, I can look around at any moment and see any of my peers dealing with some sort of worry, stress, or anxiety throughout the school day. This kind of pressure within the school system can really negatively affect students’ lives, especially at such a young age. Although, I know that stress can impact many people through many different things. For me it’s school. My parents, work and adulting. My brother, college. Dealing with this stress is something that always manages to keep me and my peers on our toes.
The article describes the differences between stress, anxiety, and worry. It also mentions many ways to deal with these three issues. These clarifications really helped me to take a look at my own life and help me deal with these on a daily basis. Along with the suggestions from the article, (deep breathes, focusing on other topics, etc.) I like to exercise and listen to music to calm down. Playing with my dog also helps me to feel at peace. Stress, anxiety, and worry may all play a part in my life as a student, but learning to deal with these is an ongoing opportunity for self-growth.
Being that I am in high school, I do have a lot of work to worry about because I am in charge of getting it done on time and having it be good quality work. For this reason, I have lots of stress and anxiety. A lot of my teachers will throw a whole bunch of homework at me and I'm expected to do it that same night and have it perfect. Other stress comes from my friends and family that I'm around everyday. There is a whole lot of drama in high school and just dealing with that alone is very stressful.
Whenever I am stressed out to the level that I can’t talk to anyone or even look at a sheet of homework, I like to do things that make me happy and calm me down. I love to read, so when I am trying to calm my nerves, I stay in my bedroom, away from everyone and just read. When it’s really bad, I always end up drawing. I like to put my emotions into my art work and just focus on that and not the problems, drama, or school work. I would say the biggest thing that helps me is my music. I don’t know what it is but my music has always been something to calm me down. It helps me tune out everything else and just sing along to whatever song it is. I would say that some tips for people that are really going through it, is to just try and breath. Do something that makes you happy and focus on that for a little bit. Take a break because all in all, your mental health is so much more important than any paper that you are being made to write or any math problem you have to solve.
Stress really played the biggest role in my life beings though I go to one of the best schools in the state of Pennsylvania. And the fact that I always have something to do after school whether its hockey or an after school program, i'm just always busy and it really affects the time that I can get my homework done. I am always up to 12 at the latest doing homework and studying school work. The effect of me staying up so late makes me very lazy and tired in the morning because I have to get up at 6 in the morning to get ready for school and head out to school. And then all the work and tests we get brings me that stress because I am never ready for the day and I feel like there is so much in my hands and on my shoulders that I just feel like giving up the next day so everything would just stop. I wish life could just be easier without very much homework and school work at school so that way when I am at my after school club or sports meeting I can get a good night sleep and be ready for the day and normal for the next school day. Stress is almost my evil twin.
Worry, stress, and anxiety don't play any part in my life, though I know many who are affected. I was stressed at some points during past school years when tests were stockpiling into one singular week and practically my whole class was stressed out. I became startled and am now afraid of what anxiety can do to someone. I found that getting my head clear was the best method to cope with these mood swings. Similarly, the coronavirus outbreak hasn't had much of an effect on me. The best I can do is to deviate from crowded gatherings and stockpile resources at my home. In contrast, some of my friends seem to be spooked by the news or are making fun of it, and none of them seem to be prepared.
Worry, stress and anxiety are definitely involved in my life, not to an overpowering amount but to a decent degree. The only time I experience worry, stress, or anxiety is when I have something very important in school coming up or if I have family and friend problems. Whenever I do experience those things though, I try to ask myself will this situation matter in ten days? Ten weeks? Ten months? Ten years? and if the answer is no, I just let go of the situation and try to move on.
The thing that I found most interesting about the article is that limiting sugar intake may help with lowering anxiety. I never really thought of this. But knowing it now might be helpful.
I think the thing everyone should do when they feel either worried, stressed or anxious is to just remind themselves that the situation will pass and when it comes to dealing with it, just handle it to the best of your abilities.
Pt. 2 (In pt. 1 I talked about my old unhealthy coping habits.)
This year, I think I’ve finally started winning the battle against my academic stress. I became close friends with a person who is incredibly good at time management, which I was/am terrible at. There have always been people who got things done on time that I’ve envied. The difference this time was that I could see that their method weren’t that complex. So I finally did what I need to do all along: work to solve the issue. I started trying to procrastinate less and this time it worked because I had a new perspective. In the past, I just waited for some miracle to happen and fix everything. I tried different forms of scheduling, meditation, exercise, the Pomodoro Technique, etc. Now I know that that isn’t how life works. Progress takes time. There are always tips and techniques you can use, but the most significant change isn’t that easy. At some points, it can feel like nothing’s changed and nothing’s working. But then I look back at my past self and realize how much I’ve improved. I’ve started to accept what I can and can’t change, and taking action based on that. After three years of almost constant stress, I’ve gotten, “comfortable with being uncomfortable” (my 5th-grade teacher told me this and it hasn’t happened until now). When I’m stressed, I try to think about the bigger picture. I know that in the end, I will finish my project, and then I’ll forget about it. All the anxiety and worry is only temporary.
I can easily get stressed out and it can affect my mood and impact the way I act to other people. I’m also very insecure and when I get stressed, that stress fuels my insecurities which can also cause me to worry. Two examples of this that cause me to stress and worry are friends and relationships. This can flow into many thoughts, which, can cause me to start thinking about certain things that make me feel insecure such as, “Does that person still like me?” or, “Did I do something to make that person mad?”. This causes my stress to worsen which, as I said, can affect my mood or personality. I think another major source of stress besides relationships, can also be school and schoolwork which causes this buildup and makes most students stressed out. For example, grades play a big role in this spectrum. Students worry about how well their grades are and that makes them super focused on their schoolwork, which at times, can be unhealthy and can have a major impact on that person. I can also often get anxious as well but not to the extreme where I have an anxiety disorder. I think that stress, worry, and angst can all have an unhealthy effect on your body, and I think that there should be more ways to help reduce this in students’ social, personal, and school lives.
As an athlete, I experience stress all of the time before soccer games and track meets. I become pessimistic and always assume the worst is going to happen. I’d like to think I deal with worry in good ways, but most of the time I overthink things and have a bad performance. I always stress about winning or not letting my teammates down, and I forget my training and skills. It’s becoming a large factor in my performance because I psych myself out and don’t really recover until the second half of a soccer game or another event in track.
I remember I had one of my best performances ever in soccer when I didn’t stress. I was told we were playing a bad team, so I wasn’t worried about letting my team down or making mistakes. I think when we let ourselves breathe and try to forget about our worries and live, things turn out much better in the end. From what I experienced as an athlete, trusting yourself and your abilities really helps my performance.
@Tori Okorodudu I really liked what you said about trusting your abilities and just living life. I think that this is a really good point and a lot more people should think this way. I get stressed really easily whenever it comes to school and there are some times when I forget that things can be easier if you don't let it get to your head and you don't stress yourself out. I think whenever you don't doubt yourself and trust what you know can get you very far.
Pt. 1 (I've spent a couple of years thinking about this stuff so I have a lot of thoughts, I'm sorry about the inconvenience).
I experience a lot of stress, worry, and anxiety. Almost all of it comes from school. I’m a major procrastinator so at any given moment, I have assignments due tomorrow. Ever since I came to my current school, I’ve had to cope with an overload of stress and worry. My homework load shot up and I started going to bed 1-3 hours late. I developed some unhealthy coping methods like crying at least once a week, listening to “sad music,” reading depressing quotes (I cringe whenever I see one now), and suppressing my emotions with YouTube (this just made me procrastinate more). Then I started masking my sadness. I continued to overuse YouTube, but my music taste shifted to upbeat pop. I started laughing at everything, including my bad habits. I’d say things like, “I cried twice last night lol.” I dreaded going home because at school I was happy, but at home, my work habits still hadn’t improved.
Stress and anxiety play a big role in my life. With the pressures and expectations set on high school students, I'd say that a lot of my peers could say the same thing. I tend to get stressed out pretty easily, especially when it comes to school although it depends on the class. For example I'm fine when I have two hours worth of textbook problems to do for math, because I know exactly what to do. I have a certain number of problems that each come with formulas and their own set of rules, which makes me feel in control. Then, in a class like French or English where the assignments tend to be more vague, I’ll get stressed. Being in high school for the past two years has taught me that I'm much more content when I'm in control.
I've also figured out that my anxiety tends to be a byproduct of my stress. An example is when I'm stressed out over an English assignment, and I get this panicky feeling that doesn't even seem to relate to English anymore, and I sometimes it takes a few hours to get rid of it. I'm able to control my stress by exercising and finding aspects of a situation I can control, like the article recommends, but once that panicky feeling sets in it's hard for me to escape it until my flight or flight response slows down.
I know that this pattern of stress and anxiety is common in high schoolers, but my school rarely addresses it. I think that if teachers found ways to prevent student's stress that we would be a lot more productive.
I feel as though I always have schoolwork, regular work, extracurricular activities, and social activities to stress about. I keep myself very busy in and out of school, allowing for very little time to destress. Sometimes my stress and worries build up to the point where I began to lose sleep. When this does happen I try to stop myself and look at my life from a bigger picture to put my worries into perspective. Managing my stress is something I need to do more regularly. I believe that my stress largely stems from not getting enough sleep which negatively impacts my ability to manage my time. The things I need to focus on in order to manage my stress are drinking less coffee (caffeine) and getting enough sleep!
I can easily say that I do tend to stress and have anxiety attacks quite frequently. Mainly from overloads of homework, which leads to me lacking sleep. Then that brings me into a bad mood, and as a result, that makes me stressed. I feel like my main problem is being overworked, which leads me to being sleep-deprived. When I’m stressed I feel like the whole world is spinning, nothing is going right, and I’m just going to fail. It makes me all worked up. Like I’m stuck in a tiny box, and can’t get out. I can usually resolve it by going to sleep. But when I have work to do, I know I need to finish it before I can.
Stress and worry are two big factors that mainly play into my school life. Not a single day goes by without me panicking about getting called on or having more homework than I intended. Even so, the ways that I deal with both are listening to music, going outside, staring into space, distracting myself, or taking it a little bit at a time. Crying is also ok, depending on how dire the situation is. I know that yesterday I was feeling too sick so I stayed home. I came back today and I have a lot of work to make up, so it does at to the stress meter but I just procrastinated by listened to music and went outside for a bit. By the time I’m typing this, I’m still doing my homework but it’s ok. As long as I get it done, even with stress and tiredness on my back.
Stress, worry, and anxiety are all parts of my daily life. I think they often get mixed up and confused. I often give myself anxiety for no reason and worry about things that probably won’t happen. I have lots of stress, being a student, and am not good at calming myself down. It is comforting to know I’m not the only one feeling this way. I often talk to my friends about my worries, stresses, and anxieties that I have.
Personally I don't really struggle too bad with any of these issues. Sure, I get stressed whenever I'm not sure if I might make it to school on time, or get anxiety when I have to present a speech to a lot of people, and worry when I finish a test sometimes, but overall these emotions tend to pass by very quickly. My sister suffers through anxiety a lot and from the ways she describes it, it sounds horrible to have to deal with nonstop. I try to think positive as much as I can, so worry isn't really a big factor in my life. If I had to choose which one of these three affects me the most, it would definitely be stress. This is mainly due to a bad habit I have of procrastinating things such as homework. If there's any strategy I've learned to help me deal with this stress, it's to set reminders for myself to finish things before the last minute so that I won't be stressed about it later.
Stress, Worry and Anxiety play a huge role in my life. Recently, I have been sick, and doing the homework without being in that class can make it hard, and some teachers won’t give a warm welcome, as I have been gone three days.
I was not aware of the differences between worry and stress, but have experienced them both, as has every human. I am familiar with anxiety as I struggle with anxiety. I think people often use stress and anxiety interchangeably, but I think the article did a great job of explaining the differences. When you have anxiety, rather than being anxious or stressed or worried, there’s sometimes no particular reason for the feeling. It’s not rational and it often lasts longer than stress or worry does. For me personally, I get anxiety during times of change as my brain tells me that something is very wrong. It feels like the feeling you get before a big presentation or performance, but it doesn’t go away and there is no big presentation or performance. It can get very frustrating as I know that how I’m feeling isn’t rational, yet I still get anxiety; however, the article stated it best: “Anxiety happens in your mind and your body so trying to think your way out of it won’t help”. As with any feelings of worry, stress, or anxiety, you have to acknowledge them and then move forward. The most helpful thing for me is talking to my mom, as I get the feelings out and it doesn’t seem as overwhelming once I talk about it. I also try to keep myself out of my own head too much, otherwise it's easy to put myself in a worse place. Music and Netflix are great at helping me out.
All of these things play an important part in everyone's life. I deal with stress a lot but I don't feel like it takes a tole on my mental health. Anxiety is supposedly the culmination of stress in your mind. Stress is built up from threat or changes in your environment. Worry is different from these things because it is the thoughts that dwell in your mind. Although similar to stress, worry can build up and effect you mental.
Worry is ironically a negative thought with mostly positive outcomes, as defined by Ms. Pattee. When we worry, we calm the brain, problem-solve, and take action. Similarly, stress response activates the limbic system while liberating adrenaline and cortisol. The cyclical depiction of stress is intriguing; it implies reoccurrence. Separately, anxiety culminates worry and stress lacking any threat. I now understand that these words should not be used interchangeably as they imply separate things.
I never really knew that Americans were dealing with so much stress. With 40 million Americans suffering from an anxiety disorder and 3 out of four Americans saying they've been stressed recently, it seems we’re a very stressed country. So it’s good that this article is telling people about how to differentiate between worrying, stress and anxiety and how to handle them. Being able to understand why your brain or body is having the reaction it is, can help it to affect you less, or even realize that these reactions can be helpful. Stress can motivate you to fix the situation causing it, and worry is a way to get your brain problem-solving. It’s only when these things are uncontrolled that they can cause problems in your life.
I have an anxiety disorder, but I've never really found a good way to cope with it, there's been a few times I’ve been able to take deep breaths and try to calm myself down, but normally the only thing I can really do is get out of the situation making me anxious, and it can make trying new things really difficult. And while I don't really get very stressed, it means I often don't get that boost of motivation that stress causes. But worrying about problems honestly sometimes can calm me down if I try to imagine what to do during the worst case scenario and how i’d deal with it if it happens, can mean I have a plan, and it’s never really as bad as it seemed.
I feel that many people in my school think they have stress or anxiety but I don't think they do because some really don't act like they have anxiety or stress and just say it just to be pitied. I think that my mom is stressed because she is always working. She goes to work at 8 a.m. and gets home at 7 p.m but she is supposed to get home at 5 p.m.. She is overworking herself.
Truthfully, I am not sure if most other people do what I do to snap out of episodes of worrying and stress. When I notice myself starting to worry to the point where I start shaking, I just stomp one foot on the floor and think to myself that I need to suck it up, shut up, and face whatever caused my stress head on. Just about every time I do this, my worrying lessens, I stop shaking, and I essentially allow myself to handle my problems with a bit more focus. Despite there being nicer ways to calm down, I like handling my stress this way since it’s straightforward and it helps me get it together quickly. In regards to problems that are out of my control, I often just turn to music to make myself feel reassured that everything is going to be ok in the long run.
Stress and anxiety overpower a lot of my life, it is very hard to overcome the obstacles that they bring. School tends to be okay but sometimes it does make me very anxious, I am not anxious about getting school work done, it all the stress that comes with the classes altogether. When I get anxious I try to talk myself out of it, I might look crazy but it does help me calm my breathing down and think about how little the situation is. In the article when they were speaking about when in the middle of an anxiety attack it is good to listen to music, I resonated with that. When I am at home and I have an attack I tend to play music on blast to overpower what is happening in my head.
@Kaira Malone The music also really stood out to me. Music is really good at changing moods and even acting as a distraction. I use it a lot to either calm me down or distract me. It feels really nice to scream out a song and dance around. It helps me get out a lot of energy. I would recommend music to anyone looking for a healthy distraction.
Sorry, anxiety, and stress are roles that take place in my everyday life. I deal a lot with anxiety mostly, but mainly that’s causes by my worrying/ stress. I’m a junior in high school and you can tell me that I haven’t experienced anything close to worrying yet, but it still doesn’t take away from the fact that I’m allowed to worry about school, the act, sports, family, the worlds events that take place today. In my opinion there’s a lot to worry about, but still there’s many ways to learn how to deal with these stressors. In a way I like to think of all of the problems in our world today( corona virus), which makes the little worries in my every day life seem, not so stressful. Then, I like to think of those big problems and just focus on the little problems at hand, which puts everything into perspective for me. Complicated right? Not really, you just have to practice. Also, it helps to take 5 minutes to yourself, just 5 minutes to breath and relax. It’s not that hard, just settle your mind, and try.
@Rachel C I really like your strategy to deal with worry. Everyone has their own problems, and they have every right to be stressed. But thinking about all the stuff that I'm sheltered from, and how much worse it could be (as bad as that sounds) puts my issues into perspective and makes them feel much less life-or-death.
Stress plays a major role in my life as I am junior in high school. Throughout my high school years I have experienced stress almost on a regular basis as I have many tests to study for and homework to complete. However, the most stressful situation I have encountered was during my schools final exam week. During this week, we take a final exam in every class which covers content from the whole semester. Last year many of my grades were borderline which required me to score well on my finals to boost my overall grade to the next letter. I was extremely stressed out because I felt as if I had no time to study for everything. However, I have learned from this experience and now know how to better manage my time when studying and begin preparing sooner.
I do worry and I do stress. I worry to much but I may not show it in my actions when I am at school or other places. But I worry about my friends and school work and sports.
I stress about if I can do it or not like in mostly my school work and sports. So the pass day I have stressed out becusea I had to do homework and I couldn't becusea my computer was broken and I had a cry stage at home. And for my sports I cheer and I stress during that OMG I can't, but I have to deal with it. But when they tell me to do this I stress out, but it's like learning something that I can't take but I try to get it done with if I have a bruses I well still get back up and do it again and again.
I don't have stress per se, I'm a teenage boy, it's not like I would be stressed out about getting laid off a job and going homeless, now that would be stressful. The scenario that would make me anxious, would be completely different. I can be anxious about many things, like when I will finish my homework, the home workloads themselves, if I will be late for school, that type of stuff. It's not like my social life is collapsing! That would be stressful. And if any kid has to go through that type of stuff, they have every right to be stressful, but me? Naw... I tend to worry every now and then, but overall I can cope with anxiety and doubts pretty easily. But of course, those are just my circumstances, everybody has their own stuff to deal with. That's just a part of life.
I cope with all three is similar ways. The strategy I use most (even though I know it is bad) is to ignore it all. I think that this always works up until a certain point where you have to just talk it out with someone you trust (normally my mom). I think that this helps me manage my stress, worry, and anxiety effectively (although it isn’t very mentally healthy).
@John Ritsko Glad to see that you know your methods are not the best but if that's the case, why don't you change them? Perhaps you could get recommendations from friends or family? Although, I suppose it depends on how big the stress/worry/anxiety is.
Stress and anxiety definitely play a huge roll in my everyday life. Really simple things trigger my anxiety like having to meet a lot of new people, being places without people I already know, and going to places where people have an opportunity to judge me. I don’t really show it that often, so only people I trust see me experience it. But it happens pretty consistently. I also stress, but mostly about school related things. When assignments pile up or I know I’m going to get in a lot of trouble for something is when that takes place. Worry, though, is not a huge one for me. I think the last time I worried was when my sister got hit by a car. There was a lot of tears (from me at least) and I had a panic attack in the waiting room. I don’t remember it that vividly, but my aunt said it was pretty bad.
@Bree Thomas, Like you, I struggle with anxiety and stress. I have multiple classes that fuel my anxiety especially when the class is brand new to me. I also don’t like being in public with new people which is why I don’t go to the grocery store with my mom or why I don’t go to school events very often. I stepped out of my comfort zone last year and I joined the track team at my school. I even joined the hurdles team which was brand new to me. The events still stress me out but I love my friends and the new ones I’ll meet.
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In my life, stress is an everyday factor because we either have a lot of homework, a test coming up, or a project due. This causes a lot of students to worry to the point where they get stressed out. School affects my life daily because I always worry about upcoming tests I need to study for and projects that are due soon. With these things on my mind, I tend to forget a lot of other things because those things are on my mind and they cancel out the other things I forget to do. I find it useful to take it slow at first by doing the little things and doing bits of the hard things and not all of it at once. I am constantly worried about the coronavirus outbreak because it is spreading quickly and it is making me paranoid and scared to touch things. The coronavirus is one of the things I’m stressed about. Therefore, I hope people take it slow instead of rushing.
@Zhaire Easley I know exactly what you mean. I have this mental checklist in my head of the many things I need to do and once I complete everything I will be free of my worries. But the thing is, I always have something to accomplish and therefore I’m always stressed, especially with school.
I hope you don’t let the fear of the virus invade your thoughts. Just practice good hygiene and try not to get sick of anything.
I can relate to all three things in school. Usually it’s over homework, grades, or a teacher randomly calling on people to answer a question. My main way to cope with stress is to jst go to my swim team practice and just swim laps. When you focus on technique, pacing, and the next part of the practice, the bad feelings just go away. When I come home from practice, I feel awake and ready to get my homework done. Just not thinking about what is worrying you can help. Especially with everybody stressing about grades and college, I really think that schools should teach children how to deal with either anxiety, stress or worry. It would help students a lot and would let them know that the school does care about them, not just their grades.
What I have noticed in my time as a student is that worry, anxiety, and stress are often misconceptualized as being the same thing. Even after looking up synonyms for stress, coincidentally worry, and anxiety are some of the first words to pop up. While everyone manages stress differently and how severely it affects you depends on the person, to me stress is kind of like a mixture of both worry and anxiety but at a more severe level. At my school worry and anxiety are definitely not unheard of. For the most part everyone's focus is on doing well in their classes, which I guess is great and seems like how a school should be, but on the other hand I feel like too much pressure is being put on the idea of perfection. For me specifically friends/classmates put the most strain on me as a student unknowingly, and while sometimes it allows me to push myself, other times it seems like I am stuck in a competition to see who can get the highest grade, or be the favorite. Sometimes I question whether the people around me are pressuring me, or if I am just making more issues for myself out of an unimportant situation.
When I'm stressed out, I usually go to a quiet place and just meditate for a couple of minutes. Sometimes I'll be so stressed out that day that I will sit there for an hour just in my thoughts, but it does help a lot and it gets you in a state where you were less stressed than you were before. Also, when I'm having anxiety, I'll just put my headphones in and listen to music and it's a good distraction because you can focus on the melody, how the instruments are playing, and stuff in the song that you didn't notice before.
I have felt worry before. Frankly, I’m worried all the time. I struggle to focus on the positive side of things because I’m always frantic that one thing will go wrong. I won’t say I’m stressed or have anxiety, and if I do, I bring it on myself. I try not to, but it’s difficult. I know I need to focus on positive things, but it feels like I have these chains holding me down, keeping me at the bottomless pit of worry. I just want to break free from those chains.
Every day there is some sort of project that needs to get done or a homework assignment I forgot about, and that sort of stuff makes me worried. “Did I print that?” and “Oh, that…” seems to be something I say on a daily basis. Every night when I try and fall asleep I think of all the things I might’ve forgotten to do. It’s not true stress or anxiety, but it’s still a problem. If I feel like I have way too much to do and nowhere near enough time to do it, I just try and remind myself that everything’s gonna be OK. Just because one homework assignment didn’t go my way doesn’t mean that the world is going to end.
Just yesterday my friend who has several mental issues, came to me about the coronavirus. She told me that she thinks she was going to have a panic attack and that I was the only one she could come to about it. I don't have any background with mental illness, and it’s hard for me to understand anxiety. But I try to look at it from a different angle, and be understanding with people who deal with it. Some of my friends and the majority of my family have struggled or do struggle with anxiety. My friend told me when she was having a panic attack that she understood the logic behind the coronavirus. I told her that she was very careful and cautious about it, and that she had a small chance of contracting it. I also explained that out of the 300 million people who live in the U.S. only only about 100,000 people have it, worldwide. She understood that it was overhyped, but her mind was still racing. I couldn't understand it, I couldn't understand a constant worry. But I think I figured it out. It's not about the severity of the situation, it's about your mental state, and how this mental illness eats away at you. Even though you can prove these accusations that your mind is telling you, with logic. It still eats away. I just told her to try her best to push through it, and talk to me if she ever needed help. I reminded her that it’s okay for you to be afraid, but not to let fear become you.
I know from personal experience what anxiety feels like, it hasn’t had much of an impact on my life and personally I people use the word too much. In my opinion there is a difference from having anxiety and being anxious, anxiety is a condition anxious is something that you are feeling.
I think I don’t really experience any of the three things mentioned in the article except for worry. For example, when a teacher is handing back a test, I’m worried because I could have gotten a bad grade, or I'm walking home late at night and I hear a noise behind me, but I feel like that's probably a feeling close to everyone has felt at some point in their life. I kind of coped with it just using logic. For example, in a situation where we are getting tests back, I’ll just try to reassure myself that I didn’t do bad. I’ll usually say in my head that I studied hard, I usually am good in most subjects, and life will still go on. If I heard a noise behind me late at night, I’d just say to myself “It’s probably just a squirrel or a stray cat, because those are pretty common in my neighborhood”. If it’s a person, I’ll go to the closest house and pretend to be unlocking the door, or go in a really unexpected path to see if they are indeed following me. I think it’d be very unlikely for me to be kidnapped or assaulted (Touch wood). Now that I’ve read the article, I may try tips that were mentioned in the text to help my situation.
One time when I have experienced stress and anxiety in my life was last year when I was working on a math project. I had a partner who didn’t really do any work and so I was left to do it all. The Thursday before it was due (Monday), I had my dad check over our work to see if there were any mistakes in our work. He told me that we messed up with the proportions because we made one side 29 ft and the other equivalent side 20 ft. I got really stressed because I practically had to restart my math project and do it over the weekend. Luckily we were able to fix all the mistakes and I was still able to get an A on my math project. I’m glad that I didn’t let the stress overpower me so I was still able to get a good grade and fix all the mistakes.
For me I have this thing about talking to people. If I ever have to talk to an adult for something it could be a teacher, asking someone at the store for something, or asking for a simple request I can’t do it, even if I’m going to do something where everyone would be looking at me I don’t like doing. I’ll start to worry and eventually get myself worked up about it. My parents also sometimes get mad at me because I don’t like walking into places alone or going into somewhere ahead of them I can’t do, it just scares me. The thing about me is that I get to worried about things and I get myself worked up about it. After that it takes me a while to calm down. A little while ago I had to go see my teacher who is in a different homeroom with older kids. Everyone knows that when you walk into a classroom that is a different grade then you most of the time the class will look at you to see what you’re doing. Well, on the way to the room I started thinking about that and got myself so worried I almost turned around and went back to my homeroom.
As a student, I really do not love the position of dealing with stress and anxiety. I go to a school where almost everyone is filled with one of both every single day. Some of the stress revolves around teachers relations with students, and their grades. There are understanding teachers that try and help you out as best they can in a nice and gentle way, and there are other teachers that go at you with full force on things out of your control. With grades, students think they need to get a 100 on every one of their assignments, but that is not always the case. Parents today think that their kid needs to be perfect, when they do not. Adults and parents have to stop putting so much pressure on their students and children, because it is not good for them mentally, and even physically. Stress and anxiety in our world today is a terrifying thing that happens to a lot of students, and parents and teachers, should be the ones helping prevent it, not helping cause it.
I don’t get stressed because being stressed is not something that I feel right now because I don’t have anything to stress about. I don’t think that having a lot of school work is stressful because no one is forcing you to do your school work. I feel like I get anxious about stuff and worried about stuff. I have been overloaded on work before but I now have a better mindset which is the work has to be done regardless of the time. I don’t look at the clock at night after I am done with school work so that I don’t get anxious about getting up on time and not being too tired throughout the day. Stress worry and anxiety are all different but are the factors of depression. All in all those are my thoughts about the big three stress, worry, and anxiety.
I worry every day because the school I go to usually makes us go home with a lot of homework and some days I’m usually worrying if I’m going to get it all done or not. Some night's I’m up until 12 and then I start worrying if I’m gonna get a good night’s sleep or not. But, some ways that I cope with all that stress is that I take breaks in between so I can get my mind off of it so I don’t stress too much about that situation. If I’m stressing over something that’s not school-related, I usually just listen to music because doing that just makes me feel like I’m in my own box and it makes feel for calm.
I definitely have experienced stress and worry many times before. Going to a school with a lot of homework/schoolwork to finish in a short period of time, and having to take big tests, I experience a lot of stress. I normally start to feel stressed when I realize that I have so much work to do and only one night to do it. When I am feeling stressed, I try to get as much schoolwork done as I can and then I take my mind off of it by doing something else. I am experiencing worrying with the corona virus. I'm not worried that I will get it, but I don’t want school and other events to be cancelled for such a long time.
Stress is definitely a real thing...I experience it usually during all my studies and homework. I’m a student that works on many extra curricular activities such as travel soccer and travel softball. I participate in my school play, and I usually have a lot going around me. At the school I go to, I usually get a lot of homework and much to study for-for tests. With all these things floating around me at one time, it’s easy to witness stress. The other worry in my life and many other kids' lives are grades. It’s easy to get stressed up on grades at this point in my life because I’m in seventh grade and all the pressure is on me for high school. If you think about it, seventh grade leads you to high school, which leads to college, which leads to getting a good job, which leads to getting money. It feels like my life is on the brink of this year, and it just makes it so stressful this year.
Personally, I feel that stress or anxiety doesn't exactly play too large of a role in my life as whenever I feel that I may have anxiety, I find a way to flush it out. For me, any anxiety I feel is most likely to do with school and as a result, dealing with it would have to include a school-inquired solution. I had problems thinking of the solution to my situation, so I went to my sister for help. She recommended that I would keep a to-do board in my room. This way, I will be able to layout a schedule of my priorities and things I want to get done. After it eventually got integrated into my habits, I began to see its importance and how assuring it is to walk to a reminder of what I have to get done (and check if I did it).
Worry, stress, and anxiety have all been experienced in my life, mostly because of grades and school. One time I experienced one of these was when I didn’t understand how to do something in math, and I was too scared to ask anyone for help, so the more I just kept it to myself, the more I began to worry about how I would do. I was very worried about the upcoming test, and I didn’t understand the material, but one thing I learned from the experience was to never be afraid to talk to someone when you need help. I usually cope with these feelings by listening to some music that I like, or watching a video that I like. Sometimes, I just go to sleep, and it helps a lot. A lot of times, I experience these feelings when someone says something bad about me, because I’m sure no one likes to experience that, so the feeling of stress comes to me a lot. I usually just try to write it down somewhere, instead of getting angry, because I know that it won’t help much, and writing it down is a much better way of coping with it, if you’re not comfortable talking to someone about it.
Recently, whenever I become really stressed or worried about something, I get chills. On some days I'll have like one chill, and then next I'll have one every thirty or fifteen minutes. Sometimes they make me jump, and others I just have like a wave of cold run through me. Whenever these happen I play a song that I really like, or do something to distract myself. If I'm in a public place, I try to just breathe and focus on my surroundings instead of what I'm worried about. Lots of times my friends help too, and just having them around helps me get my mind off of what I'm worried or stressed about.
Wow, okay, fun topic! This is a very large subject, but I am going to explain to the best of my ability how I handle each one of these. Stress, worry and anxiety have seemingly become more ‘popular’ among teens and young adults, however I feel it’s always been there- just now it’s being talked about.
Personally, anxiety is the most consuming of the three listed. Physically, anxiety feels like a cool, raw fear rooted in my chest. Anxiety episodes and attacks can happen randomly for me, even when I’m having a good day and am surrounded by friends!
When I feel an anxiety attack coming on I start to feel nauseous. Once the sick sensation has set in the cold fear hits, as if someone is striking a cold bell in my chest. I can’t do anything to stop it from happening once I’ve realized it’s going to happen, but getting it to stop is possible. In order to ease the intensity of the attack, I try to sit down, lay down, get comfy, and put on some music; if I am with friends I’ll let them know what is happening and holding hands, or a good strong hug- any physical connection helps ground me and makes the sensation on go away.
Unfortunately sometimes these attacks happen in public when I am alone, or with people I don’t feel comfortable with announcing my anxiety to, so I have to ride out the attack alone. I know that I can get though it- even though sometimes it feels impossible by repeating this phrase to myself: “There will always be a time after this one”.
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I try to stick to being myself and knowing when to speak. Not getting so hard on myself because I know life will go on and I will be able to go do things I enjoy to do. If I start to feel anxious or anything I try to stay quiet so I don’t let my anxiety talk and make it worse. If I am ever stressed I just try to focus on what’s making me stressed and fix that or finish what’s making me stressed.
Currently, I am enrolled in 7th grade. Many of my peers have been complaining about stress and anxiety. This stress and anxiety pertains to the amount of homework we get from school. Many students in my class are stressed and anxious about the homework that we receive. Homework is the main thing to be anxious about, according to my peers. Homework leads to stress in my school. However, I cope with our homework. For example, I would do 20 minutes of my homework, then I would take a five minute break. I would do this if I have heaps of homework. Stress and anxiety are hard to get rid of, but you can learn how to cope with it.
Even though this is kind of bad, I do not have a very good way of coping with stress. I tend to just bottle it up and hope that I will forget about it in a few days. This is not healthy! Everyone’s coping techniques are different and some may not work for others.
There are many techniques to cope with anxiety: listening to music, exercise, meditation, taking hot baths etc. But for me the coping technique I choose depends on what type of stress I’m struggling with. The most extreme situations I deal with as a dancer is being backstage before my solo. You’re quietly judging fellow competitors dancing on stage and realize that in a few minutes everyone in the audience is judging and critiquing your body, technique and facial expression. In this case you can take deep breaths to calm yourself or listen to music. In other situations like a huge exam I like to sleep a lot and take a bath with magnesium to ease tension. I know that sleep is a higher priority than studying all night because having a healthier and positive mind will make you more successful for the exam.
The Corona virus has made me anxious because of media's interpretations and the treatment for people that has been infected by the virus from the Chinese government. The negligence of the infected people is really stressing. They are no longer themselves, being discarded from social life leads them to a mental breakdown, affecting their physical health as well. The media's interpretation of this is like the infected people has lost hope and therefore , they should redirect their efforts to the uninfected people for the future. Also the address to this issue from the Chinese government is really inhumane, from a moral perspective. I can't evaluate the exact danger of the virus because i have never experienced it , and can't say if this way of treatment is necessary or not, but watching people like me get forced to be locked in their houses, being shot and tossed away like garbage when they are dead is really despairing. My family lives in Europe, away from me, and just the imagination of this happening to them is a complete disaster for my life. It feels like we are playing a worldwide luck game, where people can't do anything except pray for their win. I know, with current technology and knowledge, that the virus is curable, but the movies and TV shows i have watched and my inexperience about the situation has affected me unconsciously, leading me a state of stress and panic. I thought of not thinking about the virus, but that would be like neglecting the people's sacrifice.
In complete honesty I have been struggling with anxiety for a long time but the last two years it has gotten much worse. Sometimes even making everyday life hard. Hand in hand with anxiety is stress, I stress over having anxiety and have anxiety because I’m stressed. The way I cope with this is through therapy sessions and journaling. Stress, worry, and anxiety all make life difficult, but as long as people know how to cope with it and get it over with, they will know that they have achieved something. I am on my path to recovering but I still have a long way to go. I also read and meditate to help.
All three things are very topical in my life as many of friends and I experience them often. Being part of lots of different things in my school my schedule is filled to the brim. I also have a horrible case of procrastination, which I’m sure many students can empathize with. I oftentimes go to school with assignments that aren’t done and stress about that, among all the other things I still have to get done. With all negative media I’m exposed to daily to weekly, I often worry about many different issues. All of this among other personal issues, leads to my anxiety. I generally prioritize my health (mental and physical) over many things, because I can’t get anything done if I’m not in a good mind and body. When I feel the vale of anxiety cast over myself, I try to slow down and breathe, put everything into a more realistic perspective and take care of myself. I think that’s the most important part of having a healthy mind and body: taking time to take care of yourself.
I know for a fact that many kids in my school, including myself, can relate to all three things: stress, anxiety, and worry, all related to their grades. My understanding is that worry can be helpful in motivating you, which I guess is true. For example, it might encourage you to study for a test. However, I feel like teachers, family members, and even peers can be external forces that cause stress. They might emphasize or compare your grades and lower your self-esteem. Lastly, I think anxiety is both things, but combined. You might start thinking that you are not good enough for something, or you might procrastinate over an assignment or test unnecessarily and waste time. None of these things are beneficial for your long-term health.
@MC Stress, as you said, is not beneficial for long term health. As mentioned in the article, there is a lot of support for this idea. Though stress and worry can be necessary to push a person to get something done quickly, like a school project, increased stress levels are also linked to high blood pressure, heart disease, and other bad effects. Students are stressed because they have to worry about grades, and adults have so much to do at their jobs that they must stress as well. Because everyone is stressed, methods to remove this stress are important. People must realize why they should remove stress: they can be protected from numerous health conditions. All these things are important to understand to know why stress is bad for long-term health.
I’ve always felt that a great way to cope with stress and anxiety is to have a release. For me that’s basketball, and going to the gym and shooting around with friends or playing pickup games. You always have to know that with anxiety, nothing is going to be as bad as you make it seem if you’re stressed out. You just have to make sure that you keep your stress in check, and not let it affect you.
@Aidan Murphy I too find my outlet from stress in sports. The soccer field is a place I can go and forget about my problems so that I can have pure fun for a few hours. It's a great feeling to step on that field and feel all your burdens leave you for a little, and it's particularly beneficial during high school season when you get to practice immediately after school to let out any tension you may have been dealing with at school that day
I love soccer and think that it is an excellent way to relieve my stress, but also, there are times that it can be a creator of stress as well. I play at a highly competitive level and because of this, it is not unusual for me to have a big game on my mind that worries me. I do not experience anxiety or stress over these games, but I certainly worry and sometimes this makes it hard to focus in other parts of my life. When this happens, because playing soccer will not resolve my worries, I confide in my friends. My friends are always willing to listen to me and provide support when I need it. If something goes wrong or I feel stressed and worried, I know I can't count on them. It's very comforting to know I have the support that I do and I know I'm very lucky to have people who are willing to be there for me when I’m feeling worried.
I know for a fact that kids in my school, myself included, can relate to all three things. My understanding is that worry can be helpful in motivating you, which I guess is true. For example, it might encourage you to study for a test. However, I feel like teachers, family, and peers are external forces that cause stress. They might emphasize or compare your grades, lowering your self-esteem. Lastly, I think anxiety is both things, but combined. You might think negatively about yourself, or you might procrastinate over an assignment or test unnecessarily and waste time. These things are beneficial for long-term health.
Personally, I find extracurricular activities helpful. They give you a chance to focus on something different, have something to look forward to, and learn new things that can be useful later in life. I look forward to my ballet classes after school, and I hope I can play the cello in an orchestra in my later high-school years. However, they can cause stress when you feel overbooked or like you do not have time to do anything. I have experienced this, and find that making an agenda for myself helps. I like to set a time estimate for everything I have to do: “Ok, so I have about half an hour of math homework… So I can do that in-between cello and ballet class, then my social studies homework after dinner.” Or, “Mhh… if there are three chapters to study for this science test on Monday, I will do one every day, have them done by Friday, and review over the weekend.”
Another thing that helps me is talking things out or writing things down. They give me a sense of assurance that I am not alone. It is normal to worry, stress, and experience anxiety about things in life, but there are many ways to cope with all three.
I consider myself to be a pretty laid back person and I don’t let a lot of things bother me. However, some classes, especially math, really stress me out. As I have gotten older, I’ve also started to get more anxiety in my life as I have to do so much each and every day.
One thing I have gotten better about is actually dealing with stress. I have found that when I’m doing any type of physical activity, everything I’m worried about just fades away. When I am in the gym, all I think about is the music I’m listening to, and the next rep.
Another place that takes away stress for me is the baseball field. At practice, baseball is the only thing on my mind and I just focus and school and drama just leaves my mind. On game day, I get so excited and during games I have so much fun and that really helps with stress and anxiety.
The last way I handle stress is hanging out with friends. On the weekends, I have way too much fun to be worried about school which is my main source of stress. Overall, I think it’s important to learn how to deal with stress and know how much homework or school work you can handle.
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Everyone has experienced difficulty in their life. Stress, worry, and anxiety follow every person in the world. All people in this world want to do is go, go, go. Adults
cannot sleep at night while worrying about current events. College students labor for hours over papers. High school students stay up late doing math. The constant thrum of technology calls that social media is waiting for you and that the news has a new, shocking story to offer. Even elementary school students are forced to face stress and work on difficult assignments. It is impossible to avoid. People worry that if they forget a responsibility, they will be stressed, but in thinking this, they cause themselves undue worry. In order to stay productive and not be overcome by these factors in a modern world, it is crucial to combat internal stress, worry, and anxiety.
The first step in doing this is to realize the differences between these three. Stress is a response to a single particular event. Worry is a habit of thinking about negative things constantly. Anxiety is a combination of stress and worry, a constant fear even when there is no threat. Knowing this, what can be done to stop these?
What can be done to combat these is to think if an issue is worth stressing or worrying over. Also, keeping healthy by exercising can help. Last, calming activities can let you refocus on topics at hand. Doing things like this can help ensure a more-stress-free, worry-free, and anxiety-free life.
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My entire family suffers from anxiety and I still don’t think we know how to manage it. Many people may try to take control of something in their lives or maybe just ignore it. I know for me that I’m not really sure how to “manage” it but I do temporary things like taking deep breaths or focusing on something in the room that I’m in.
When I am worrying about something (which is almost all the time) I try to down talk the situation and show myself that it’s not a big deal. I tell myself all of the good things that could happen instead of what I’m imagining.
Before I read this article, it had never occurred to me that there was a difference between worry, stress, and anxiety, or that they’re supposed to be helpful in our lives by motivating us to take action. Lots of students definitely encounter stress at school or leading up to something there, including me. If I’m behind on a project or I need to present something that I’ve been working on to the class, I definitely feel these responses and it can affect productivity in my day if I worry about it obsessively. I’ve also experienced other people dealing with stress, under different circumstances. Everyone has a different reaction to stressful situations whether they’re real or not. It’s hard for me to cope with stress because I often think that I don’t have enough time to finish something correctly, and I end up wasting time worrying when I could have been working to get closer to that goal, I think that giving yourself time to worry, but then focusing on something else, having a “budget,” could help me and others who get obsessive over problems in their lives and the anxiety they often bring.
In terms of the coronavirus outbreak, I haven’t been experiencing more stress, but I would say that’s because I haven’t been exposed to any trace of it here. I worry for the people who it may affect most, but I’m glad that there is a high rate of recovery for those inflicted, so if it spreads here, I hope I don’t need to worry as much about the welfare of my family and friends.
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Part 3:
I believe that my situation is somewhat on the extreme side of anxiety, and anxiety has always manifested itself in different forms throughout my life. But one thing I’d like to point out is that students are more anxious than ever, and it’s not just me who feels like my entire adolescent life is consumed by school, and the fear of performing below the standards I’ve set for myself. Throughout school I constantly hear students talking about how one minor thing that’s happened either with their grade, with their schedule, with their GPA is going to ruin their life. Where they go to college, the career they choose, it all circles back to highschool. I think schools need to start addressing and realizing these problems, and start caring about the well being of their students just as much as their academic performance.
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The terms stress and anxiety has been bouncing around a lot in modern culture. I felt like sometimes I didn’t know if I was using it right, but after reading this article I’ve gained a better understanding of these words. Currently, some people are experiencing worry, stress, and anxiety over the corona virus crisis. Some people are worried that the virus will impact them, so they go to Costco and buy the big container of hand sanitizer and packs and packs of water bottles. Some people are stressed because someone in their community bubble has tested positive for the virus. Some people may be anxious about the virus, where they physically go under and mentally worry, just because of the new articles. I really believe that some people are not completely informed about the virus, which then leads to such long state of worry, stress, and anxiety. While worry, stress, and anxiety are sometimes good especially in the short term, long term these qualities can critically worsen an individual's health, just because they’re not informed enough.
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Part 2:
My biggest worry is school, grades, and everything I have to do to have a perfect application to college. I fear if I make one mistake, and slip up one time, everything I dreamed of since I was little would be taken away from me, and in effect it would ruin my entire life. High school is more competitive than it’s ever been, and as the U.S school systems advance towards a survival of the fittest-type system, where peers are pitted against each other, students who want to go places in life constantly have to worry about never making a single mistake, instead of learning from the mistakes they’ve made. It’s harder to focus on friends, and it’s harder to focus on the actual joy of learning when you’re focusing on outcompeting rather than actually learning.
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Worry, anxiety, and stress controls every aspect of my life, and no matter how hard I try it’s hard for me to get away from it. My mind can’t help thinking about the future, and it never stops asking “what if?”. “What if I do bad on my test?” “What if that test lowers my grade below an A” “What if that makes me get below an A in the class?” “What if that plummets my GPA” “What if I don’t get a dream school because of my plummeted GPA” “What if I ruin everything I’ve set out for myself in my life.” One worry leads to another worry in a spiraling effect, until i’m locked in a cycle of worry, and stress. My heart starts to beat, every muscle is tense, and I feel like I'm about to be sick. Because of my constant, and often irrational worries , the symptoms of stress persist often, and make it hard for me to function on a day to day basis.
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Worry, stress, and anxiety are pretty similar to me except for why I feel these emotions. I think that stress for me is more related to schoolwork, tests, and my academic life in general, whereas worry and anxiety is more related to my personal life. Stress is probably what I feel the most often out of the three, just because there is a lot of pressure to get good grades at my school. To cope with something like homework or due dates, I try to say everything in order of importance in my head unless there is just too much and in that case I will just write it down. Sometimes if I get really stressed after school, I will just go outside and play basketball. Playing basketball really clears my head because all I have to do is practice and I don’t need to think about anything else.
I am not someone who suffers from anxiety, but like most other students in my grade, I will be stressed. The challenge of having to constantly keep good grades and making my parents happy while also maintaining my social life is very hard. It also doesn’t help that schools think that the stress is coming from us doing something wrong and not them. Continuing on the topic, I have never personally known somebody with anxiety so I couldn’t really tell you what it's like, but I think that I could tell the difference. Anxiety is definitely a more intense reaction so you could tell while stress and worry are something that I think you could tell easily.
Stress, worry, and anxiety are different yet similar. I feel that worrying causes the stress we have in our daily lives if it is a long period of time, and stressing over a long period of time causes anxiety. Anxiety is like a big group where stress and worry are part of it. Children in the present day mostly focus on school, and most of them report that they stress over schools. Grown-ups are also stressed but over work. There are many ways to cope with stress and anxiety, including breathing slowly or taking a break from what you are doing and maybe do something that you like. But for me, I also found that music calms me and relieves me of stress. Sometimes focusing my mind on something else that I like takes my attention to somewhere other than the things that give me stress and that really helps. Stress, worry, and anxiety all make life difficult, but as long as people know how to cope with it and get it over with, they will know that they have achieved something. Anxiety and stress are like obstacles in your path, and if you go around it, everything will be better.
Recently, I feel like I’ve been really overloaded with unnecessary and time consuming work, the worst kind. All of that along with issues at home and personal goals can pile up to cause stress, worry, and anxiety. I do think all three emotions are connected in a sense but not exactly the same. An example of stress might be stressing over the work for a project you haven’t done. Worry might be worrying about your grade on the project or worrying you will have awkward stage presence when talking in front of your peers. Some emotions can be inclusive with others, I think anxiety can be applied to all of the examples I just gave. For the most part though, I think of stress as more short-term and anxiety as long-term. Based on my personal experience, I’ve learned to manage my time really well. I think it can help a lot to reduce your stress and anxiety to have a schedule and list of all the things you have to do. I would recommend checking things off from your list of things to do after you have done them. This can be really satisfying and help you to take a step back from your negative mindset.
The coronavirus outbreak is a current event that can cause stress, worry, and/or anxiety. People are freaking out over it, leaving no hand sanitizer (or toilet paper) in stores, all because of it. Furthermore, stock markets are going down, hurting many employees and their employers, and making them stressed/worried/anxious. My family has a drawer filled with hand sanitizer, and we’re constantly washing our hands. We’re reading all of the news we can get, whilst checking the statistics. We are also hoping that nobody else dies and that we don’t get the coronavirus. All of this is added to my daily life, which is stressful enough trying to achieve high grades and keeping them high. However, I don’t think that I have it as bad as other people, though that doesn’t mean I don’t experience stress/worry/anxiety. It is, after all, only natural to experience them.
I learned that anxiety is a result of worry and stress. And that something really little can trigger an anxiety attack for some people. And that you never know if someone has anxiety so you should be more aware about the things you do and day. On the other hand, I also learned about how worry and stress can be helpful and that it actually helps me all the time. I usually wait until the last minute to do an assignment and that I can actually thank worry and stress for me being able to finish it on time before it is due. If I didn’t worry or stress it would probably take me a lot more time to finish because I am not worried about it that much. Like right now as I’m writing this I’m typing pretty slow. I’m sure that it was something that was due in five minutes that I would be typing really fast to attempt to complete it before it is due. Those were the biggest things that I took away from this article.
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During my regular life I sometimes have anxiety episodes. It's usually a thought I get that I can’t stop rethinking and can’t get out of my head. If I’m at home I usually stop what I’m doing and think it over once. Then tell myself that everything is ok and resume what I’m doing. In school, however, I also rethink it once but it doesn’t go away. I tell myself that I have to do classwork and try my best to concentrate on it and forget about the thought. What I have noticed is I get more anxious when I drink coffee or energy drinks. I realize that this really does affect my anxiety levels. After I realized this I stopped drinking so much caffeine and now I get smoothies.
Overall anxiety is not really pleasant. It really bugs you and can make you feel really down. Anxiety episodes also interfere with your work. Sometimes you are so anxious that you just can’t do your work and have to distract yourself or just sit and think. If I want to get distracted skateboarding really helps. It’s really fun and it takes my mind off of anything unpleasant.
Currently, I’m not really worried about the Coronavirus. From what I know it’s basically the flu but worse. I’ve had the flu and it’s manageable. Also healthy kids aren’t really at risk of death from the virus because they have strong immune systems, so that makes it less scary.
The role stress, anxiety and worry play in my life is normal. They cause you to waste time and be out of control with your emotions, they can cause depression or fear of talking with others. A time I experienced stress was a soccer game in which we were losing in the end of the game and we all had to score to tie it up. It caused me to panic and I coped with it by playing and moving faster. Now, I probably would do the same because exercise is a good way to deal with stress. I learned that worry and stress cause anxiety but the article did not change my definitions of them. The stress my school causes with homework, constant projects, classwork, due dates, and tests are not as bad as some make it out to be. I think it is most likely because all the work takes a lot of time to finish and people usually do not want to dedicate that time to finish. I think another main reason stress hits hard in my school is because the teachers are erratic with assignments and are not as forgiving if you are absent or made a simple mistake like spelling. Teachers also wait a long time to put grades in which can give students stress because grades matter a lot even if people say they do not in school as they check your grades to see which school you get in or your parents pressure you into getting good grades.
For me, two of the tips that help with my stress are figuring out what I have control over and not comparing my stress or struggles to others. Figuring out what I can and can’t control can help by showing me that if I’m stressing over something I have no control over than its a waste of energy. The time I spend stressing about something I can’t control is the time I could be using to change something I can control. Furthermore, Not comparing my stress or challenges to others helps me be more confident that I’m able to overcome my challenges and that my stress for a situation is valid. When I compare my feelings to others who are maybe dealing with their stress better than I am with mine, it makes my stress, feelings, and struggles feel invalid and that the situation isn’t to blame for my struggles, but rather myself. This can make things more stressful because it makes me give up hope for overcoming whatever is stressing me.
When lots of people are stressed, they do something else for a period of time, but for me, that doesn’t work. For example, if I can’t understand something for my homework, and I go swimming, when I get home, I still won’t understand the homework, and I’ll have less time too, so I’m not really sure what to do to cope with stress. I usually just go on my phone and waste time or ask for help after a while. I get stressed a lot because of the extracurricular activities I have. Exercising does help, but I feel like it takes too much of my time.
I feel as though the tip about limiting your sugar and caffeine intake is the most useful. This is because it is something you can do before the attack happens, therefore making it more in your control. For example, let's say you have an anxiety attack. You will be feeling so down you may not want to do anything, you just want to lay down and cry. In this situation, it would be harder for you to take an action to make you feel better. But a tip that I use when I suddenly have an attack is to talk to my sister, who is much older than me. Because she is a teacher, she often deals with kids who are feeling the same way. Because of this, She knows how to calm me down and helps me work through my problems. I also find that teachers can be very understanding, if you are honest with them. If you tell them how you feel and what you are going through, they will talk to you and help you manage your workload, or whatever is making you anxious. Finally, a trick I know that works is carrying around a sour spray. If you feel an anxiety attack coming, you should take the spray out and spray it on your tongue. This will often bring you back to reality in time to keep you calm.
In my life, the main cause of stress and worry is school. School is fun for me because I get to see my friends, however projects and tests really stress me out and I start to worry. I never really have anxiety, unless I'm in a new place and I start to have stupid and unnecessary thoughts. Worry and stress don't really affect my life, they are just little minor inconveniences during my day. On the other hand, whenever I have anxiety (which is really rare), It is pretty bad. Sometimes when I try to go to bed my eyes adjust to the dark and I start to see things, and I get anxiety that something is in my room and it's trying to hurt me. When that happens I can't sleep and I get very scared. I find that wiggling my toes, going for a run, or just stretching in my room always helps me calm down. Based on my experiences, I would say that just drinking some water and doing any form of exercise is always beneficial.
Stress and anxiety are just some of life’s obstacles. Sometimes those obstacles are big, and sometimes they aren’t. For many teens and young adults, the obstacles just keep coming. Some worry about school or may even be looking to get a job. It’s unhealthy to constantly be stressed, but it can be hard to push past those obstacles.
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At my school, we run on stress. It's how we get our reputation, how we get our bad grades, and how we get our good grades. Without it, people wouldn't have so many opinions about my school, we wouldn't be so disputed. On the one hand, stress is good for schoolwork, we don't ever miss a beat in order to stay ahead. But, then again, the stress we have is eating away at our childhoods, the little we have left. When I was in fourth grade, I had copious amounts of anxiety, unrelated to schoolwork. I coped by having Worry Time every evening with my parents when I would unpack all the stress I had during the day and only think about it only in those fifteen minutes. That helped me a lot, and I think more children would find that really beneficial and also a really good precaution for as they age. If we are programmed to have a space to think things through every day, we won't pent up our emotions so much, as many teens and adults do.
I used to stress about everything. Whether it had to do with school, friends, or my past relationships, I always found something to stress out about. The littlest things would cause me to be stressed. As I get older and become more mature I have now learned how to not worry as much. I try to look at the positives over the negatives. I'm not saying I never get stressed, but it has definitely improved. I now deal with my stress by thinking everything's meant to be and will plan out. In the next few months I will be stressing over something new and over my problems now. I have realized being happy with yourself and having confidence can help improve your life all the way around.
Stress and anxiety are a part of what makes life difficult, how you handle stress and anxiety in my opinion defines you as a person.I tend clear up my head and be more focused because I feel like with all that stress and anxiety, I start to overthink and it’s just too clouded in my head. After reading what worry, stress, and anxiety truly are I think I relate to them and have all of them. I don't always get affected by them all at once but for example I get stressed over the amount of unnecessary work one of my teachers gives, and then I get anxious about doing new things.
I would say that normally I don’t deal with a lot of stress and worry, but recently I have been starting to worry about simple pointless things that I don’t need to worry about. I have been thinking the worst if I forget something, and that makes it hard to sleep, which causes stress the next day. The only way I can prevent this stuff is by stopping myself from procrastinating and doing everything before I go to sleep.
The term Anxiety comes up a lot in my school. My school is a magnet school, so you have to get a certain grade to get in- you are supposed to be the "smart kids" whatever that means, and that puts a lot of stress and pressure on a lot of kids. A lot of kids joke about having depression or anxiety, but some of them actually do. It's kind of hard sometimes to tell whether someone is joking or not, and that can create a lot of problems when you laugh off someone who has a serious problem, or thinking you need to tell someone about a joke. I think a lot of people do confuse being stressed with having anxiety, or the other way around. These things are serious, but I don't think anyone at my school actually knows how serious it is, and if they do, they either pretend like it doesn't exist or overplay it, but the few people that actually do have these problems don't know who to talk to.
I suffer from extreme anxiety. In settings where there are too many people, like my classroom, I am prone to having an anxiety attack. Combinations of things going on in my life with stress, and depression, I hold everything in and sometimes get outbursts of different emotions. This is very hard for me because usually these things happen when I'm alone. I've had them in the middle of the night, at school, etc. When they happen, my vision blurs, I cannot walk, and I can't think straight. I cry and I feel horrible. At school during lunchtime, twice, I have had these outbursts. I don't think my friends understand. Not even my parents know what to do. The root causes, I believe, are my depression, stress, and settings with too many people. I'm not sure what to do and I need therapy. I haven't had any of these in a couple of days now. If anyone has any coping strategies, please let me know. <3
At this point in my life stress and anxiety have gone from an emotional state to basically a personality trait. I get what seems like only a little bit of homework, but the second I get home, It just feels 400 times bigger. Then, I’m stressed about it all and become literally on the verge of crying, because I have what feels like 4 hours of homework in front of me. This then causes me to think about my almost perfect grades and how if I don’t do my homework they will all fall. This then gives me an anxiety attack and it feels like I’m going to die. My parents will want to talk to me about something, and at this point my mind is so completely shot that any human interaction will kill me, I break down. Then, I realise I’ve wasted an hour just worrying, so I put in some earbuds, turn on some white noise, and finish what seemed like 4 hours of homework, in only an hour and one half.
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I go through daily stress including maining all A’s in school maintaining a reputation and a lot of other stuff that comes in role. Throughout the years I have found ways that help me cope my stress. Some of which being listening to music as research proves calm music calms your heartbeats. Another way I calm myself is by playing games on my phone or giving myself a break from the studies also sometimes i take a power nap when I am really stressed. Everyone is different but trust me you will also fine what cals you down when overloaded with stress.
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What I do to manage my stress, anxiety, and worry is too workout or go for a run because it clears up my mind and with all that stress and anxiety. I tend clear up my head and be more focused because I feel like with all that stress and anxiety, I start to overthink and it’s just too clouded in my head. After the run or workout I clear my mind and become more focused. I also listen to music that relaxes me. Gets my head to calm down and relax. For when I worry I tend to just hope for the best and tell myself if it’s really worth worrying about it right now, sometimes we worry for things we shouldn’t but because of all the thoughts in our head, we don’t see it. I also just “ lo qué diga dios” ( What God says)
Stress and anxiety are a part of what makes life difficult, how you handle stress and anxiety in my opinion defines you as a person. It shows me how good of a person you truly are. Beyond that anxiety and stress seem to be more and more common among teens and young adults. I think that social media plays a large part in causing unneeded and unimportant stress and anxiety, worrying or being stressed about your job or girlfriend, but having anxiety over what you look like because you compare yourself to those on social media, it is a unhealthy and common cycle among teens
You can’t, it’s undescribable.
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I used to be constantly stressed. Whether it had to do with school, friends, or swim I always found something to stress out about. The littlest things would cause me to be stressed. As I get older I have now learned how to not worry as much. I try to look at the positives over the negatives. I'm not saying never get stressed, but it has definitely improved.
As someone who does go through dealing with stress, anxiety, and worry I know how it feels. To me stress is an overwhelming heavy wright feeling that is hard to function in. Worry is a panicky, on edge feeling that I don't know how to deal with except to breathe and try not to panic. Being anxious to be is like a mix of the stress and worry but also has a more bleh feeling.
After reading what worry, stress, and anxiety truly are I think I relate to them and have all of them. I dont always get affected by them all at once but for example I get stressed over the amount of unnecessary work one of my teachers gives, and then I get anxious about doing new things.
As someone who suffers from clinical anxiety and it’s clear to me that although stress worry and anxiety are all different feelings, one emotion can easily lead to another. When we are overwhelmed with stress that can make us more worried or more anxious.
One easy way I've found helps me deal with stress is to make lists. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with work and assignments and it can feel like a lot when those ideas are just swarming around your head. When you write things down you may realize that maybe you don’t have as much on your plate as you thought you did.
Another thing I learned is that anxiety and excitement are the same feeling, your brain is just telling you which one it is. So if you have to give a presentation in front of the class or are singing a solo in the school choir and you start to feel overcome with anxiousness, take a deep breath and remind yourself that you are just excited and know that there is truly nothing to be anxious about.
Despite all these tricks, we cannot always control our anxiety. Sometimes we can get anxious for no real reason. What has helped me the most as someone who as dealt with this kind of uncontrollable anxiety for most of my life was getting tested and finding the right medication. Another thing I utilize daily is mindfulness and meditation as well as breathing exercises to help center myself.
Although anxiety and stress aren’t always under our control there are things we can do to help deal with these feelings.
Ever since I moved in 7th grade, I would have anxiety and stress all the time because I was more worried about my appearance and trying to make people like me. It took me the first three weeks of school to finally have a small group of friends since I wanted people to come to me rather than trying to go to them. Now, I'm not as anxious or stressed anymore as I surrounded myself with a good group of friends and I don't care about what people think of me anymore.
I'm not that worried about the coronavirus outbreak as it's just another outbreak that's affecting the world again. It's just getting to the point where it's becoming annoying as a lot of students in my grade make it an issue and want our school to be shut down even though we would most likely have to make it up in the summer. Our school did close down just for yesterday as they wanted to clean the surfaces that people touch the most.
My friends aren't that worried about the coronavirus either and make jokes about it all the time. No one really cares that much but they do realize that they could possibly get it. My family did care during the first few cases that were reported but now they don't care as much.
In this article, they did an adequate job at describing the various differences between worry, stress, and anxiety. I have dealt with all three of these things in my lifetime and they can be pretty difficult to cope with if you do not know how to handle them. Worrying about the future does not a single bit of good for somebody, because that worry could turn into anxiety and spiral down a worse path. That is why it is very important for people to have mental check ups and understand that there are plenty of resources and ways to handle anxiety, worry, and stress. The simple acts of recognizing sensory triggers around the room can bring one back down to earth, and breathing also helps. As we live in a more anxious generation, it’s important to distinguish differences between these three things to eliminate stigmas of worse mental illnesses and self diagnosis, too.
I think that I experience stress everyday, whether it’s about an assignment or trying to make plans with friends and hoping they won’t call 1 hour before and say that they suddenly can’t do it. When I lived in Raleigh for the first two years of middle school I had constant anxiety and stress, I had no real friends and my grades were terrible, I had to get out of that area. When I moved to this town, all of that worry stayed back at Raleigh and did not follow. I now make straight A’s most of the time and have a whole network of friends and good classmates. My tip for trying to get rid of stress, anxiety, or worry is to sit down and relax, maybe take a nap and think about the exciting or good things to come instead of just focusing on the bad things at hand, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.
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@Mason Buckner
As I grew up i had to move around a lot also. Stress and anxiety were always something that caused my grades to slip. I think once your comfortable in where you are and once you make some friends that support you then some of that stress and anxiety goes away which benefits grades.
I feel that all three effect me almost everyday. I’m a senior in high school and in a few months a lot is going to change and I have to make some pretty big decisions. I think this article However gave me good advice into what exactly I’m feeling. Change is hard but this article gave me good tools to stand up to my worries, stresses and anxiety and embrace change instead of shying away and constantly getting in my head.
I experience anxiety all the time mainly because of school. I procrastinate a lot so that regularly feeds into y anxiety. I worry a lot about upcoming events and projects so much I don't how I'm still together. My school closed just yesterday for events related to COVID-19. I personally am not worried about the coronavirus, but many of my peers are. My community is definitely worried as all the disinfecting products are sold out across town.
@Malak My family and nearly everyone around me is treating coronavirus like the black plague and it's creating an unnecessary vibe of stress in the air. Personally I'm not too concerned with it.
I don't worry a whole lot, and when I do it's about my next cross country/track race. I don't worry about schoolwork and the only time I stress about it is when I'm trying to do my homework while the teachers collecting it.
When I start worrying about my future and whatever, I just tell myself that it's not something that should be concerning me now and to relax and focus on the present.