2 stressed 2 b blessed

I'm not going to tell you that college shouldn't be stressful. I won't say that you should try to find ways to never be stressed- that's just not realistic. I was never totally stress-free during college, and I don't expect you to be (unless you're literally taking one class and doing NOTHING else). But, what I will say, is that there are ways for you to take tiny little breaks from the anxiety. This is what worked for me, and I hope it works for you too!

1. Get off campus

If you have a car or any other mode of transportation available to you, sometimes taking a little break and going to a drive, or even hanging out in a local park, can really refresh you. I used to have a cool bridge near my school that I loved driving over when I got stressed out. College can feel like a bubble, and sometimes there's no way for you to relax unless you go outside of the bubble.

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2. Get the squad together

If you're like me, you find it hard to relax on your own. If I'm not hanging out with others, and I'm also not doing any work, I often feel like I'm wasting my time. What helps me in situations like this is to get some friends together to do something fun together and make them FORCE me to ignore my responsibilities. That's the only way I'll actually do it.

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3. Pamper yourself

One of my favorite things to do when I'm stressed is paint my nails. I paint them at least once a week, because I get really anxious about having any chip in the polish. I know, a bit extreme. BUT, the point is that when I paint my nails, it makes me feel better about myself because I feel like I'm accomplishing something that will better my life, even if it isn't my actual work. Find what it is that makes you feel good- it could be a face mask, washing your hair, shaving, or even doing your makeup.

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4. Block your time off

I'm really schedule-oriented, so blocking my time off helps to hold me accountable for my tasks. Sometimes, if you're just a big ball of stress (or a workaholic), you need to make relaxation, or self-care, an actual task. I'll schedule in my time to relax and my time to get work done. That way, when I'm relaxing, I don't have a little voice in my head yelling at me for wasting time; what the schedule says goes!

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5. Clean, clean, clean

This may be very niche, and maybe you don't really consider chores to be relaxation. But, for some of us, it can be! I'll often clean off "that chair" (the chair we all have that we throw everything on), organize my closet, and catch up on some other things like vacuuming that I didn't have time to do during the week. This makes me feel like I'm being productive, because it's something relatively easy to knock off the to-do list.

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What helps you unwind? Let us know in the comments!