High school and young adulthood is a hard time in most everybody’s lives. Stress is a natural phenomenon that occurs involuntarily. Lots of the stress that high schoolers go through us due to schoolwork and the looming shadow of adulthood duties. Relieving stress is very very important, and while there are countless ways to do it, some of them aren’t healthy. Having healthy coping methods is an important skill set to possess. What are some healthy stress coping mechanisms?

Writing to Relieve Stress

According to health.harvard.edu, writing about your emotions, aka “expressive writing”, may help in the process of stress relief. According to this same study, writing to relieve stress, like most coping mechanisms, will not work for everyone. It is shown to work less effectively in people with major-depression-disorder or PTSD. In one early study, Dr. Pennebaker asked 46 college students to write about traumatic events. According to this study, those 46 students visited the campus health center less often and took pain relievers less frequently than those who wrote about non-traumatic things or didn’t write at all.

Exercising for Stress Relief

According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, 7 out of 10 adults experience stress. According to an online poll by the AADAA, 14% of people cope with stress through physical exercise. The physical benefits of exercise have been known for a long time. Regulating body weight and improving your strength can help fight disease and other illnesses. Being healthy in itself can help to reduce stress, as you aren’t dealing with making up work from sick days and such. Exercise also releases endorphins, a chemical in the brain that acts as a natural painkiller, and this can help to reduce stress as well.

Art for Stress Relief

Another popular way to relieve stress is by being creative in artistic ways. Through art you are able to express countless of feelings and emotions through hundreds of different mediums, from drawing to painting to sculpting, and countless other methods. Art can help distract the artist from the world, and in a similar way to writing, it is healthy to express feelings about traumatic events through art. By making art of your feelings, you are creating something that other people may be able to relate to as well.

I cannot reiterate how important it is to be able to relieve stress in healthy ways. There are countless more ways to relieve stress than the ways that I mentioned. Some ways work better for other people, and you may find that none of these ways are ideal for you. If you explore the different ways to relieve stress, you’ll surely find a way that suits you.