Stress

"It's not the stress that kills us. It's our reaction to it." -Hans Selye


Sometimes there are moments where it seems like there are never enough hours in the day. There are moments where you have to decide whether you have to skip a meal, a workout, a few hours of sleep or more to do the work that needs to be done. And then there are moments where you stretch yourself so thin, you feel like no what how hard you work, how much time you put in, you're always falling behind.


School is hard. College is harder. Majoring in chemistry in college is rough (not to underscore how hard other majors are, but if you've ever taken organic chemistry, you would sympathize). Today was one of those days where I would myself, knee deep in a lab report that needed to be turned in at a specific time. I had completed it and submitted with 5 minutes to spare. But at what cost? I was unable to do the prelab for the lab that was starting right after the turn in deadline. So here I am, using what was supposed to be my lab time to instead write about how stress has consumed me more than ever. From the time I woke up, 7:30am to that turn-in deadline 2:00pm, it has been non stop. Test-taking over a topic I haven't had enough time to properly digest, lectures over a math concept I know little about, a quick 15 minute lunch because minutes are precious, and a coffee in hand as I walk out of the dining hall and straight to the library. Three hard hours of preparing a lab report that could make the difference between an A and a B in the class pass by. And the stress mounts and mounts.


My mind flickers to the possibility of having to forego taking the 30 minutes to write my prelab in order to have the best lab report I can write with the limited amount of time given. And then it becomes a reality. I start suppressing the urge to cry and the physical symptoms that come with it, runny nose, watery eyes, cracked voice. But of course as I had to explain to my TA why I couldn't participate in lab, it began to show. I quickly made my exit and quietly teared up on my way back to the library to rest my head in one of the carrels before I had to once again resume completing time-sensitive coursework in a few hours.


I was looking up stress quotes and I stumbled onto one from Hans Selye, an Austrian endocrinologist who studied stressors. I thought it was a very smart quote because it is true. The reason I broke and cried today was because I chose to react in such a manner. I let myself be weak for a moment and it took over. I am normally not a crier but sometimes and stress of schoolwork is enough to make it happen. In a way, it helps release some of the tension and anxiety that had built up. I guess it is a good thing because it means that I care about my studies and I genuinely want to do well in all my classes. But sometimes it becomes too much. Falling behind is like a slippery slope. Once you miss a step, it becomes progressively harder to regain your footing.


I figure I should leave this on a positive note because I don't want to feel sad after writing this and I don't want anyone to feel sad reading this. I will say that I have emailed one of my professors to arrange a meeting outside office hours that I'm hoping will become the first of many regular visits. I have begun writing my prelab to prepare for the day that make up labs are held. I have recovered my little anxiety episode. So things are getting better.


Lastly, I was looking at an article on ways to reduce stress and I copied down a few that stuck out to me.

-Write about it.

-Take a nap

-Exercise/Yoga

-Breathe.


Keeping a gratitude/happiness journal and write down things that you are grateful for for things that made you happy. I've been thinking about doing this and combining it with typography and quotes.

xx