The Article below was published in Vol. 136, Issue 3 of the Lake Forest College Stentor on November 13, 2020.
Lake Forest College Health and Wellness Center Staff
I am sitting down to write this in anticipation of where you are now. By the time you are reading this, Election Day will be over and we will all be adjusting to some new idea of the future. Whether your candidate wins or loses, or if you even know what’s next, you will be (I already am) exhausted with politics, exhausted with the news, exhausted with social media, and exhausted with those who disagree with you. Election Day will be over, but these conversations will not be. Frankly, you will be burnt out on politics. We’ll also be nearing finals and I wouldn’t be shocked if you’re burnt out on this remote semester with, as one student described it “all of the bad parts of school and none of the good.” With all this on your plate, (and I didn’t even mention the pandemic) the Health and Wellness Center wants to offer some advice for decreasing your stress even as the world keeps stressing you out.
This involves following through on the emotional, physical response you have to stress, rather than focusing on stopping the things that are stressing you out and out of your control. Emily and Amelia Nagoski discuss this process in detail in their new book, Burnout, but I just want to highlight the basics here. When something stressful happens, our bodies respond. Our heart rates and blood pressure increase, our digestion slows down, our immune responses change. These changes can persist even after the stressor is gone: I know I’ve felt my heart racing and been unable to sleep even after I know the results of an exam I was dreading (and even if I did better than expected). Addressing the stress itself involves doing things with our bodies to essentially tell them that it’s ok to switch from DANGER MODE to recovery. Some things that work: deep breathing, exercise, laughter, positive social interactions, physical affection, crying your heart out, and creative expression. These are worth scheduling into your day and I hope you realize the opportunity here—a Lake Forest office is telling you to schedule 15 minutes of funny TikToks into your day, no guilt! Try different things and see what works for you.
Sometimes what works means what makes things 5 percent better. Realistically, with so much stress right now, five minutes of breathing, a good run, sketching in a journal, laughing at cats on YouTube for half an hour, won’t make you feel all better. Sometimes the best we can do is just notice if anything has changed. If it has, keep scheduling that activity. The effects of stress are cumulative, but so are our attempts to cope. And if 5 or 10 percent better isn’t cutting it, please reach out to the Health and Wellness Center. We will do what we can to help find you more support.
Things right now are hard. This is official permission to take care of yourself.
