Dealing with stress and anxiety

[Miscellaneous]

Wikipedia reference

Anyway, I’m sure this is a topic most of you can relate to.


My story on “stress”: I am currently 15 as I write this. All my life I have never ~really had too many problems with stress. I ran in the Welsh and English Schools athletics sprints, although neither of those really brought about what I’m feeling around now.

I would like to pin-point my problems on my exams (GCSEs), I have already sat 5, Chemistry, Maths, Physics, Biology, English Language, early getting an A* in all of them. Despite this, I cannot remember revising ever. I’m of above average intelligence, but I am far from a workaholic. The prospect of exams I have to really bog down to revise for scares me, as does the prospect of learning all the work. These exams really scare me at the moment. What frustrates me is that everyone expects me to do so well, it’s almost analogous to my sports day, in which I was expected to win everything. With these exams, I feel like I cannot win, merely do what is expected of me. I have also no experience whatsoever in revising. (Any help here on how you revise would be helpful - spider diagrams? Pictures? Reading and copying?)

Yet I think it would be wrong to simply categorise everything on exams, if I just had exams I could concentrate on those. But I also have orchestral auditions, speech, Duke of Edinburgh, tennis tournaments and required standards of athletics to reach all before January. There are also more personal problems, such as my parent’s constant bickering my dog catching cancer, girls constantly being a pain, and my friends doing their best to help me to “have a laugh”.

For the first time, I honestly feel overworked and as if I cannot accomplish everything. I have too many things to do, and it is so hard to find the willpower to go on, when there's the easy way out. I am forever writing notes on my hands to remember to bring in this slip, or go to pick up my sister, or to ring my music teacher at 5 O’clock. I simply have found I cannot cope with everything. Faced with what I see as impossible, I have succumb to the idle approach, I barely do anything required, instead slipping onto YouTube, or other places where all my troubles disappear. I also can’t sleep, as I am annoyed at myself for slacking, which means I get more tired, and can do even less work. I’m starting to notice signs of stress, even in the way I think, which really scares me. (Scared leads to stressed ahhh). I have always been a more anxious and on-edge person, despite my best efforts to stay cool, but I find this to be massively exaggerated now. I snap at people, I fall asleep at odd hours, I get extended headaches, I find it hard to even talk to people now.

I don’t want to shift the blame, but I do feel as though without my constant worrying, I would better combat these problems.

So, Smogon, how do you deal with stress? As I am yet to find anything that really works for me.

 

[whistle]

get into a routine. the worst thing you can do when there is a lot on your plate is to take the idle approach. your third to last paragraph (last long one) basically describes what happened to me for part of last year and it is literally the portion of my life that I regret the most. I know this is cliche but get out of that habit as soon as you can.

it seems like you have a list of things you need to accomplish (although it also seems long and very intimidating), which means you can make some sort of schedule. I find that extremely detailed schedules never work out, because if a homework assignment takes an hour longer then everything after that gets pushed back. instead, something along the lines of "go to the library after dinner until 1 am every night" or "finish x homework on Monday, y homework on Tuesday, practice z instrument/sport on Wednesday and Friday" works pretty well. this includes a sleep schedule as well, I know this is something that parents say a lot that everyone thinks is false, but from personal experience I won't ever doubt the value of a proper sleep schedule. this doesn't mean you need exactly 8 hours (or 7 according to a new study), but it means you can't sleep 3 hours at night then nap for 4 hours during the day or whatever. that fucks up your concentration in classes and schoolwork as well as any sort of schedule you had planned.

in terms of actually revising, go over old quizzes/tests/problem sets or read over your book with a paper and pencil to take down useful information. how you revise really should depend on the class and what you're revising for, and I'm not too familiar with the British/English school system or GCSEs... honestly, the biggest benefit to my study habits has been getting into a consistent schedule of setting aside blocks of time in my day solely for studying.

if you realize that no matter how organized or motivated you are, there aren't enough hours in the day to do everything you want to do, you may have to drop something. juggling top academic and athletic performance is pretty hard already and if you want to add speech and orchestra, it may be "too much". I don't want to tell you to do this, since it should be a decision you make after thinking about what your different activities mean to you as well as talking to friends/family. but I think lots of people don't even consider this path, when sometimes it may be necessary.

good luck and if any of this actually helped, feel free to ask more questions

 

[November Blue]

Talk to your parents.

They love you, they're there to help you ect.

If you talk to them, they might be able to help you clear your plate a little. Exams are probably your top priority, so maybe you can convince them to put your sport/music/responsibilities on hold for a while.

One thing at a time, right?

 

[Miscellaneous]

^

Firstly, thank you for your answer.

The main thing is, I do have a routine, I never actually take the outright idle approach. The problem I have is more along the lines of my attitude, how I feel about what I'm doing. I am yet to actually reach a point of not being able to do everything, however I get more and more stressed and tired about anything now. Basically I am very close to "giving up", having said that I've done almost all my work for today (at 6pm), I only need to transpose a few sheets of music, then pick up my sister. Perhaps it's better defined as a lack of motivation, which is worsened by stress. I think I really need a new attitude, even typing this out I feel stupid. Currently, it's analogous to auto-pilot. Also, your point on sleep is definitely valid: it's the most noticable difference by far. My main problem with sleep is on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when I don't get home until 11, and then have "3 hours of homework", which I usually do in 90mins or so. If I don't do my work when I get home, I fuck up my whole rountine until Sunday afternoon. I usually save Sunday afternoon for meeting up with friends. My actual "sleeping" hours is probably close to 6, which is just awful I admit.

Realisitically, I should not be too worried about exams. I'm starting to try and concise my notes, the worst thing about GCSEs really is that they are so mind-numbingly dull. If I don't enjoy it, it's hard to learn. What I'm ~more worried about is Science A level (for people 2 years above me), my teacher is shocking, and isn't paid to teach me. She just covers her own lessons and gives me some booklets. Unfortunately, such is my timetable that I cannot stop my A levels, or I would be wasting 10 hours a week, and any universities can see the scores I get in these exams, even if I re-sit later. Basically it's self-taught, and I worry about whether I'm doing/learning it right. Thanks for the advice, I'm thinking of getting some past exams, or concising my notes as much as possible.

(sort of answering JT too): As for dropping: some people were extremely disappointed when I stopped doing football last June. I sat all those exams early because it was impossible to fit in everything. My "extras" are sort-of necessary, as universities and colleges now want pupils with good all-round abilities. The difference I feel now, is that things like music are no longer fun, but more "work", which is detrimental to how I approach doing them mentally. Again, it's not actually impossible to do, not for me. That I know, it's just finding ways of slowing down, calming down and even things like going to sleep, which I find extremely difficult. People have warned me that I'm stressed, but I have had no help whatsoever. I find the biggest problem are what I do other than work and extra, for example I basically came into school half-dressed, then spent the entire morning feeling dizzy. All the help I got was "ring your parents", which is completely pointless considering they were ~4 hours away at the time.

Talk to your parents.

They love you, they're there to help you ect.

My parents are in a difficult situation, which is why I have less free time. I would like to spend more time with friends, particularly my recent -ex, who's also going through a rough time. I am hoping that this is temporary, as I should have finished most of my exams by the end of Jan. However, again I feel like my life is hugely weighted towards the present, and how well I deal with it. I'm worried about not doing as well as I can, and I think it's this worry that turns into a vicious circle of stress. I've only really recently accepted this, because previously I blamed it on my own incompitence, but looking up "stress symptoms" seems to define how I am right now.

Other than sleeping, can anyone else suggest anything? I was considering changing my diet, or if anything somewhat varying my routine so that I have to think more, improvise etc. I think that would bring more of a sense of control.

Finally: I would like this discussion to be less focused on myself, more on stress generally, although I welcome any help. I'd be more than happy to share some more experiences.

 

[Objection]

My "extras" are sort-of necessary, as universities and colleges now want pupils with good all-round abilities.

At this point, I think you've done enough "extras" for them to look good in your personal statement. I myself only had one "extra" to put down and I got into my first choice, which, while not one of the premier universities, is still a fairly high-ranking one. My point is, "extras" don't count for as much as you might think, and at this point you can probably drop one or two of them (or maybe all of them) without any major backlash.

 

[eden]

um don't use extras for uni,etc use them because you need a sport/activity to relax? I play cricket on the weekends at a resonably good club level and go to practive on Sat/Sun. hasn't stopped me from studying. But with music,etc its just a bit too much. Hell even my dad (who has a job) practices with us on the weekends.When a extra becomes work then just drop. You're not enjoying it anymore which is THE REAL point of extras.

 

[Alan]

i just ignore stress to be honest. most of the stuff people stress out about i.e. tests and stuff arent worth stressing over. especially tests. either you know it or you dont, if you stress over a test, odds are you are probably the latter. then again it took me until like halfway through my junior year in high school to realize this.

also what Master Sunny-EX said, do stuff for fun, not for colleges.

 

[RaRe555]

Around August-September of this year, things got a little complicated for me. This was the time of the year school work gets the heaviest, even though I'm not sure why. I was also receiving guitar lessons twice a week, and got into this dancing group a little before that. My dancing rehearsals were pretty much daily (except for sundays) after school, which started at 1 pm and ends at 6:10 pm, and they ended until about 9 pm, and we had them in the mornings sometimes as well, but they were for my school's dance group, one that I stupidly agreed to form part of; these usually ended up taking most, if not all, of my mornings. My family was giving me a rough time too: my grandfather got confirmed prostate cancer and my aunt has psychological problems.

All of that summed up made me feel like it was too much to handle. Maybe it felt like that because I wasn't used to having most of my time taken up by things I had to do. Maybe I was a little overwhelmed. I don't really know, but the problem of feeling like you can't keep up with everything was there, and I think it's a little like what you're feeling right now.

What I did to try to motivate myself was to set myself time goals. For example, let's say today's Wednesday, and the school group has to perform on Saturday, so I'm gonna have rehearsal every morning, plus the usual nightly ones. What I would do then was think: "Okay, once Saturday's done, this'll all be over and I'm gonna go back to normal" and kept repeating it to convince myself. Even if I knew that wasn't true and that there would be more presentations, it helped a lot to know this bit of stress would end soon. I know your problem's on a bigger scale, but try to think of it in small bits, dealing with every bit as it comes.

Hope I helped ^^.