I’ve seen many friends fall through the cracks when standing on shaky grounds. Many people will turn to food to help comfort themselves and I’ve seen girls gain so many pounds just trying to cope with their lives. Some girls will isolate themselves and feel really down to the point where they may not have a lot of initiative to do anything. It’s scary what stress can do to some people. Thankfully there are many ways to prevent it. You just have to see it.

One of the best stress relievers that has been proven, that was actually recommended to me by my doctor was to simply exercise. If you really think about it, it makes sense. Say you are upset and extremely stressed about your boyfriend and its starting to interfere with your school work. The compiling of more things going wrong only adds more stress. To help, you can go to the gym or maybe just work out at home by going on the treadmill or hitting a punching bag. It gets all that frustration out of your body and I find that afterward it’s a lot easier to concentrate so you can catch up with your schooling right after.

There are also many other ways of coping with stress. I remember one of my friends was insanely stressed with a number of things and she just seemed so lost and didn’t know where to turn. She ended up confronting her boyfriend about it and he asked her to write a list of everything that was stressing her out and he told her to work on each thing one at a time. She ended up sorting everything out and his advice did help her out a lot.  It’s also very important to get enough rest when you are stressed out. It will only stress you out more if you have to deal with situations when you’re half asleep. 

The last tip I can give you guys is something that us girls are very familiar with. Talking. Talk to your friends about it or maybe speak to your school counselor. Many girls may be shy talking about their problems, although it is important to do it. It’s better to talk to a professional rather than a friend, it’s just safer because a professional has studied people for a long time and they have a lot more experience with other young women and their emotions. It’s important to deal with stress in a healthy way because if you don’t it could just end up stressing you out more. Like, if you chose to eat all your problems away, you would probably gain some weight which would most likely stress you out and make you feel bad. I understand it’s hard to deal with but coping with stress in a healthy way does help a lot, not only with stress but it will help your confidence and self-esteem. 

By Danielle J.