I’m sure everyone hopes to spend the next blissful weeks having fun and forgetting about school. As an IB student, I’m definitely excited to have a break, but unlike previous years, a new outlook on stress means I’m not desperately looking to get away from schoolwork.
Why is this different? I found the relief that comes from the feeling of “escaping” stress isn’t actually that relaxing. Many times in quarter one, I’d finish long days just to immediately scroll on my phone. After tests, I stopped feeling proud to get an A, only relieved it was over. The avoidance mindset I adopted increased my overall anxiety and made problems worse. Weekends weren’t an opportunity to rest and catch up. Instead, they became two guilt-ridden days to bury my head in the sand. I focused neither on relaxing, nor on being proactive, and the effort of doing nothing was as exhausting to me as finishing any big project.
Caught in a demoralizing cycle of procrastination and intense work periods, I questioned why I took on my course load. Then, an idea from a TED Talk we watched in my Future Focus class stuck out to me, reframing the way I looked at my predicament.
The TED Talk was called How to Make Stress Your Friend. I know. It sounds absurd. Stress rarely ever feels like a positive experience. However, in this talk, psychologist Kelly McGonigal outlined how our natural resilience to stress can be harnessed when we choose to embrace it.
Viewing stress as beneficial not only motivates you to complete your work, but changes your body’s physical response to stress. It mitigates its harmful impacts. If you can actively choose to sit with the feeling, to see it as the body’s way of helping you rise to face challenges, a vital player in your accomplishments, then the body creates a physiological response resembling what’s seen in moments of courage. With this mindset, you can actively create both courage and resilience within yourself.
I wouldn’t say I feel fully comfortable with all the responsibilities on my agenda. However, I have since realized that stress is not the worst thing in the world, and I am perfectly capable of handling it.
