Feeling stressed?

So as most of you know my life has been getting pretty hectic. I have three new sisters, my mom is a state senator now, I play volleyball for a competitive club team and I have a tournament every other weekend if not every weekend. My life is pretty stressful because of all of this. On top of everything, I have all of my homework, including the Revolutions project. I have a lot of good tips about ways to reduce stress or get rid of it completely.

One of my first tips is to make sure that you don’t work on one thing for a long time. I know that teachers are always telling you that you should space out work, and for a while, I ignored those tips like most of you probably do. I started pacing my work better. If I had a lot of math homework, for example, I made sure that I did half of the problems then worked on something completely different for at least 20-30 minutes. I then go back to my math and finish it up. When I do this, I end up actually finishing my work quicker than I would have, and I usually do it better than I would if I had done it all at once.

A tip for your home life, is that when you are having trouble with someone in your family or even if they are just stressing you out, then make sure that you find a way to separate yourself from them in a polite way. When I am really tired or just not in a great mood, if one of my sisters, new or old, starts to get on my nerves, I make sure that I let them know that I am really tired and I tell them I need a little bit of alone time. I usually go up to my room, just find a special space in my house, and read or play on my phone, listen to music, or maybe even just choose my clothes for the next day. I always make sure that what I am doing is not stressful at all. When I do get so stressed that I have to go up to my room for alone time I never do homework. If I try to do homework, it just gets me more and more stressed.

When your other commitments, besides school (or work for the adults who read this), get you stressed make sure that you plan your time well. Try to finish your homework before your activity if it is in the evening. If you can’t finish you homework before hand, try to make sure that you don’t spend a lot of extra time after your activity is over and try to get straight home. Also make sure that you use your advisory or study period well.

Also for me, at home since my mom has become a state senator she has been driving to Salem almost everyday. Seeing that Salem is about a hour away, she doesn’t get home until really late sometimes. Also since I have three new sisters, my dad has to spend a lot of time helping them get comfortable around the house and bring them to their activities and to school and all of that type of stuff. I definitely don’t get nearly as much attention as I used to and that makes me a little bit sad at times. I also don’t get as much help with my homework. This definitely stresses me. I always try to remember that I have had 13 years to spend time with my two parents and that I shouldn’t worry about it.

Well I have a lot more tips but if I typed up all of my tips, I would be here forever! I hope that my tips help a lot and that your stress level goes way down!

~Emma~

references:

http://www.cukierski.net/Stress-Zebra.gif

http://www.buzzle.com/img/articleImages/23717-40.jpg