learn to deal with stress in a more healthy manner

I really thought that not having any papers to write at the end of the semester would really help my stress level, but it hasn’t. That nasty old feeling has settled itself into the pit of my stomach once more. I think it wants to live there until I take me exams.

I can’t feel like this forever. It would give me an ulcer, so it’s imperative that I do something to decrease my stress level. Exercising helps a lot, so I’ll be headed to the gym shortly. However, that usually only helps temporarily. It will be enough to help me get through most of the day though.

What I need to learn to do next is to let myself take a break without feeling guilty for not working. Easier said than done…

has really really helped me work off a lot of my nervous energy. I’ve been exercising regularly for about six weeks now, and I definitely feel like I’ve been a bit calmer during the last six weeks. I’m definitely going to keep up with the exercising, but I need to work on identifying more strategies to help me better cope with stress and stressful situations.

Although that might be due to the fact that I’ve got too many essays to write. I’ve gone on in stress mode for too long. My stomach hurts, I’m exhausted mentally and physically, and I now have a nasty cold. I’m NOT dealing with stress in healthy manner.

So I started therapy for the anxiety/stress issues about a month ago. I now realize that I have a huge fear of failure, that I’m far too concerned of what other people think about me, and that I let all of this get to me to the point where it effects my concentration and well-being. Realizing this (and admitting it) was a huge step for me. I’m sure I’ve got lots of other stuff I need to realize about myself, but in the meantime I’ve got to learn to deal with my issues a little better. Easier said than done…

I am making a little progress though. Concentrating on schoolwork (or anything for that matter) has been incredibly difficult for me lately. When I’m reading and especially when I’m writing a paper, I worry that my classmates and professors will think I’m stupid and/or not grad school material. This really screws with me when I’m trying to write a paper. Last week my therapist told me to put up some aspirations around the house and in my books to keep me motivated. At the time I thought this seemed like the stupidest and corniest thing I had ever heard of, but she’s the therapist, not me. I taped up an affirmation on my bathroom mirror and I repeat affirmations to myself (i.e. I am intelligent, I can do this, etc) whenever I feel my concentration starting to wane—and it really helped! I was able to finish my reading and a homework assignment in a fairly timely manner with a minimum of stress. Now my big hope is that this will carry over when I’m writing big papers. Those really freak me out.

Since summer school started last week, I’ve felt my stess level steadily and rapidly rising. The combination of summer school with my summer job is not going together well. As a result, I’ve been in a crappy mood all week, and I have a had a lot of trouble trying to destress. This is starting to really adversely affect my health, and I really worry about this.

But, I’ve not done any schoolwork since yesterday morning, and this is the best I’ve felt in a while. Now, I can’t leave off my school work forever, in fact I’ll need to get back to it tomorrow evening, but maybe when I sit down to read tomorrow evening I won’t be so on edge. I hate feeling like this.

I think procrastination is a big source of my stress. I’m trying to work on that, but I certainly can’t avoid stress altogether. It’s a fact of life, a big factor for me as I’m working on my doctorate right now. (However, even if I weren’t in grad school, I’d probably be stressed out about something else)

What I need to do is figure out the things that make me feel relaxed and do them when I’m feeling too stressed. Here’s what I have so far:
1. Exercising—it’s great (and healthy!) but as soon as I finish I start feeling stressed again. It is relaxing though.

2. Watching Star Trek. I’ve watched it for so long, and I’ve seen every episode a million times (of Next Generation at least) that to watch it now is comforting, kind of like reconnecting with an intimate and close part of myself. Now if only I could get every Star Trek show ever made on DVD. Then I’d be set. For now I’ll have to settle with having all of TNG on DVD. But one day…

Now, if I can make some marked improvement with my procrastination problem, I’ll be in pretty good shape. Speaking of that, I’m going to go off and read now for school. Writing about stress has actually made me kind of stressed.