By Paige – 17 years old
Anxiety is a bigger issue in High School than people usually think. However, when you’re a high school student, it makes perfect sense. There is an immense responsibility to keep your grades up above all else. There’s pressure from family, friends and teachers to be perfect. But the truth is, “perfect” doesn’t exist, and although we’ve been taught “nobody’s perfect”, we still tend to obsess over this powerful word and find ourselves striving for that unreachable goal. Because of this, it is completely understandable why you yourself may be feeling anxious. However, there are many things you can do to help prevent anxiety.
One way you can stop anxiety is to control your thoughts. Our thoughts have a lot of power in the battle against anxiety, and they usually end up working against us when we assume the worst of a situation. Countless times people find themselves panicking over something they don’t even know to be true yet. For example, if a teacher wants to talk to us we tend to assume it’s because we’re failing their class and they’re giving us ten detentions. To live in this constant state of worry can be taxing. If your mind starts to go to this place, put it on a different path. Put the situation into context and try to think about it from an objective point of view. Just because you think something, doesn’t mean it’s true, thoughts aren’t fact. It’s not easy, but you have the power to put your train of thought on the right track.
Another way to prevent anxiety is by making sure you take care of your personal needs before any other obligations you may have. People always say that school comes first, but in order to do the best you can at school you have to put yourself first. Not having time to take care of yourself, can fuel anxiety. To prevent this from happening keep yourself as your primary concern. It’s not selfish to put yourself first; it’s necessary to maintain a happy and healthy lifestyle.
What can be most worrisome about anxiety is that it can come at any time, or it can be held constant. If you’re feeling anxious, it’s also important to come up with simple tricks to help keep yourself calm. Taking several deep breaths may be all it takes, but if not there are many other things you can do. Below are some specific and simple suggestions that others have found helpful in coping with anxiety.
- Taking a bath/shower
- Using a stress ball
- Listening to music
- Exercising (as simple as walking)
- Putting a wet paper towel on your forehead
- Braiding hair
- Painting nails
- Reading
- Baking
- Writing/journaling
- Talking (chatting with a friend or family member about something other than what is causing your anxiety)
- Drinking a hot beverage (some teas have antioxidants that are known to reduce stress)
- **Coffee often makes people anxious, so try to avoid it
- Drawing/painting
- Knitting
- Simply getting fresh air
Everyone has or will struggle with anxiety at some point in their life, and everyone has their own coping mechanisms. You’re not alone, High School can be an anxious place and it’s hard to think of it as anything else. However, if you try to not assume the worst of every situation, remember your personal needs, and find tricks that can help you in the moment, hopefully you can reduce your anxiety and maybe even get rid of it.
Its harder than it may seem.
Yeah I totally get it. Anxiety is rough. I found that when I keep practicing these techniques to help ease my anxiety. It didn’t make it go away completely, but it gave me hope that it can get better.
This really helped me, great suggestions, thanks paige!
This helps a lot! Let me share this
I use a stress ball and color and it helps exspecialy when I’m having like a anxiety attack or something.
But I don’t know any way to help ease my test anxiety when I have a test or my social anxiety. Any ideas anyone?
Hi Shyann, I also have extreme test anxiety and what I find helps is if you can think of the test as if it’s any other class assignment. Try to push the nagging thoughts out of your head and replace them with things such as “I got this” and pretend like it’s just a homework assignment that you’re completing in class.
As for social anxiety, it’s a tough one but make sure to remind yourself that you have a right to be there like anyone else. Social anxiety is kind of like being trapped behind a mirror where it seems like everything is magnified and embarrassing. Imagine the mirror turning into a door, open it and step outside for a while. It might drain you but you’ll feel proud of what you did and hopefully you can learn ways to reduce the anxiety over time.
Last year was my first year in high school and I was I had never felt so stressed. I was new to the school and on top of it I have very severe anxiety which made my year so much more difficult. I recently started a blog though that has really helped me get my feelings out (noexceptionsblog.blogspot.com)
Thank you so much for this! Very Helpful!
This is a great blog! I feel like I know a lot more about anxiety and how it can be controlled. Many teens who struggle with anxiety will find this blog very helpful when it comes accepting themselves.
Hi Paige! Thank you for touching on the many aspects of anxiety, particularly the role that society has on inducing individuals, especially girls and women, to strive for perfection. I would have found this information to be particularly helpful while I was in high school, as I recall feeling particularly anxious about my performance in school. For instance, your example about a teacher asking to talk to you and assuming that it was because of failing or getting into trouble was an unfortunate reality for me and many other students. However, I agree that there are many ways to reduce anxiety. I find breathing to be helpful. But, I do agree that when given the chance to engage in a distraction, listening to music or having a conversation with family or friends is extremely helpful as well. On a final note, I would like to speak directly to the young women in high school and to encourage you to have fun, to make mistakes, and to learn from these decisions. It may seem a bit cliche, but mistakes allow you to find what you truly enjoy and can help you to realize that perfection is not happiness.
OMG, Finding this helped me so much thanks paige for helping me let’s get a good start for 2019
Katie