The key to stress is perspective – Ellie Hewes
It is a time of the year when many people are known to be stressed. This may be due to many reasons, such as the biological factors of there being an absence of serotonin from the sunlight, or it could be due to the upcoming exams which are approaching at an even quicker rate than the year 11s and year 13s could ever imagine.
Being somebody who is particularly prone to stress (as many people will tell you), I wanted to share what personally helps me to destress. However, I do not want to make this Bubble article one which states all of the traditional coping mechanisms which one can carry out if they want to de-stress and which one has heard in abundance, such as going out for a walk, exercising, talking to somebody, etc. Even though these are proven to work, I personally do not always find them the most effective coping mechanisms and some other people may feel the same way. I ultimately believe that the key to destressing, is the word perspective and all of the connotations which stem off from the word too. If I put myself into the place I was in last year… year 11 mocks. I was extremely stressed and worried and many questions were constantly flying around my head, such as: What happens if I don’t get the grades I want in all of my subjects? What happens if I don’t manage to learn all of the poems set for the English literature exam? What’s more, what happens if the poem “Singh Song” comes up (which it did)? What happens if I let my teachers down? What happens if I get a red in my report? What happens if I do not have enough time to manage all of the revision for all of my subjects, etc, etc, etc?
However, all of these questions were a waste of my time and were irrational fears which are minute in comparison to the fears others are currently facing around the world. There are children in Africa dying of starvation, people fighting for their lives and for their family’s lives in war, people being diagnosed with terminal diseases, people having the haunting prospect daily that their home or school could be destroyed and with it, their parents, friends and siblings. The list of atrocities which the world and people are currently facing is no more than unbelievable. However, what is important to realise is that the “what ifs” that these people face, are certainly more worrying and devastating than the fears of mine which are, in comparison minute and somewhat unimportant in the grand scheme of things. This is what perspective means; it means being able to take yourself out of the life which you live and being able to place yourself and all of your worries into the bigger picture and context of the world in which we live today.
Nevertheless, before people start using this concept to say to their teachers that they haven’t done their prep because it doesn’t matter in the real scheme of things, I want to make it very clear that if you are using the concept for this purpose, you simply shouldn’t. I do not want to disregard the fact that prep and exams are still important, as are the grades you get at GCSEs and A-Levels through working hard and putting the effort in which will allow you to do your best. However, what I am saying is that if you get to the point where I got to last year where you feel somewhat overwhelmed by the “what ifs” (and I know there will be others in the schools at this very moment feeling the same as me), think about the bigger picture and ultimately, perspective.
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