Stress: a feeling of emotional and physical tension. Stress: common in teenagers. Stress: our bodies reactions to a challenge and demand. How can we help you deal with it?

Many people in the high school environment experience stress. Whether you are a student or staff member, we all know high school can be stressful. Many of us, although we don’t like to admit it, don’t know how to deal with this feeling, or maybe we just don’t deal with it at all. We need to find healthier ways to deal with stress because we will experience stress for the rest of our lives.

Some problems that cause stress in high school students are work overload, social acceptance, relationships, college preparation, issues at home, and many more. At high school we are maturing and starting to discover the responsibilities of the real world. We are starting to find ourselves and what we want to do with the rest of our lives. These questions we ask ourselves can cause us to have a difficult reaction.

So how can we help ourselves deal with stress? How can we help each other?
One thing we can do is practice self care. Self care is common language among students, but does anyone know what it really means. Self care is putting yourself first. It is the act of taking care of one’s mental and physical well being. It is about being happy. A way to apply self care to stressful situations is finding a peaceful outlet. Some things you can do is:

Make time for yourself; take a bath, go shopping. Be okay with being alone.

Exercise. Exercising is a great way to clear your mind, along with keeping your body right.

Getting a good night’s sleep is necessary to decreasing stress. If your mind and body aren’t rested, then you won’t be at full energy to take on the day’s challenges.

Develop good eating habits. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, a meal which many people skip out on. It is what helps you get your energy for the rest of the day.

Entertain yourself. Whether it is painting a canvas in a glass room or opening to the first page of the longest book, find an outlet that helps you express yourself and give yourself a break.

Another thing you can do is communicate. reach out to friends or family and just talk. People don’t realize how many problems can be helped with just talking it out.

These practices might not seem effective, but they have had good results in lowering stress in the past. High school is a stressful time, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Please take care of your mental health and take out time to breath.