As the year comes to a close, I have felt nothing but joy. In fact, I haven’t felt very stressed at all. All I can think about is being able to go home, how happy I am to have completed my first year, and I’m eager to dive into my next year at SCU.
But how can I not feel stressed, especially with finals approaching?
To tell you I have to give you some background information. Back in high school, I took a positive psychology course which I mentioned earlier in my blog. This course taught me many strategies for knowing how to exhibit calmness in times of high angst and how to help others do the same.
When we particularly focused on the stress that is created by school, we watched a very intriguing TED Talk by a woman named Kelly McGonigal. I highly recommend watching this video for all 15 minutes. It has changed my view on stress and has made me an overall happier person.
For me, this video reshaped how stress affects me. I’m trying to make stress my friend and so far in college it’s actually been helping. So from my experience trying what Kelly McGonigal suggests, I have nothing but success to report.
I am so fortunate to have been showed this video. I know stress and anxiety are way too common and prevalent in colleges across the states, especially during finals week.
Instead of believing stress is bad for us and instead of trying to push it away as we cram for exams, we should be studying by using stress as the source of our energy. In the words of Kelly McGonigal:
I no longer want to get rid of your stress. I want to make you better at stress. – Kelly McGonigal
We should all rethink our ways of dealing with stress. I am a huge supporter of this idea of hers and believe everyone should become aware of it. We should all make stress our friend.
