Question of the Week: What is Your Favorite Way to De-stress?
With midterms passed and the fall term gaining speed, the stress in the air is thick. In the life of a high school student, especially at one of the nation’s elite boarding schools, it is difficult and almost impossible to not be stressed; trying to stay on top of health, happiness, school work, extracurriculars, sports, musical ensembles, and social life is mentally and physically draining. There are many ways, however, to tackle these copious amounts of stress, and the Choate student body answered with some unique de-stressing methods:
Ashley Wang ’19
I think the biggest thing, really, is hanging out with friends, not so much going to parties and stuff, but more so getting to be yourself and be supported by the people around you. I try to [destress] at least once every two to three days, but it doesn’t always end up happening, especially during the school week. But it does happen more often over the weekends, which is good. I think it’s just being distracted from all of the stuff that we have to do [that relaxes me], which sounds kind of pessimistic, but to put all of your effort into something that you truly enjoy.
Reeve Sobol ’19
Some of my favorite ways to de-stress are just hanging out with friends; Instagram is good, the Snapchat ‘Solve The Murder’ things, too. The one thing I do a lot is run in the mornings or in the afternoons when I have time, which is my favorite way to de-stress. So I’ll do that probably like two or three days a week. I find it relaxing because it’s something I do on my own time; I can make it as hard or as easy as I want to, and it hurts, so it’s distracting from whatever else is going on in my life. I recommend it; I mean, it’s pretty easy for anyone to try.
Aaron Xing ’19
I like to go biking when I’m stressed because it’s relaxing. Yeah, I’m always biking. I bike like once a week. I try to at least, depending on the weather. I like Saturday morning bikes.
Serena Sandweiss ’20
In really stressful situations, like during a test, I’ll count backwards from a hundred in my head, because I find that it really calms me down.
Jacqueline Zou ’20
My favorite way to de-stress is meditating or drawing. I personally like drawing, but I feel like using HeadSpace to meditate is actually kind of a good way to destress. It clears all of your thoughts from your head, and it just feels good. I do recommend people trying out HeadSpace, because the Choate library can give us a free subscription to HeadSpace. So just use whatever resources Choate gives you!
Will Robertson ’20
I normally de-stress by watching YouTube, and there’s two reasons for doing it, one of which I just learned the other week. It actually helps me a lot to just take like five minutes out of my busy schedule to remove myself from my current world. I think a scientific explanation for that, as per Intro to Psychology, is that, in reality, your body can only contain the anger hormones produced by your amygdala for no more than 90 seconds. The reason we stay mad for longer than 90 seconds is because we keep reminding ourselves on the thing that’s making us angry or stressed. If you take a hot sec to sort of separate yourself from the world and just choose to forget about that for a moment, it calms you down a lot.
Max Brown ’21
Typically, I de-stress by listening to music that calms me or puts me in a good mood. I use this everyday: when I’m studying, when I’m walking down the street — I’m nothing without my headphones. My mom listens to a lot of old school hip-hop, and I always have those memories of my mom and I listening to music in the car, and whenever I was sad, music would lift me up. So I just use this method when I have a big test coming up, or I have some problems going on in my own life. I would definitely recommend others try it, because music is the pathway to your inner emotions and your soul, and I believe that, in a way, music heals you during the day.
Tuleh Sonne ’20
I procrastinate; I push all my work to the last minute. I’m pretty stressed, so I don’t really know how to de-stress. I’ll read your article and find out.
