Stress is a common worry among college students around the world. Whether you are a freshman or a senior, you feel stress once in a while before tests, homework, or class. It's quite normal to feel this way and I know I have been stressed before. But thankfully I have a few methods that I would like to share with you all today!
One way I soothe my stress is by playing my
Gibson Les Paul guitar. I've been playing guitar for a good portion of my life now and it's really nice to sit down and jam along to a nice tune that I've been listening to like
"Whale & Wasp" by Alice in Chains, an instrumental track that makes me feel calm whenever I play the song. Without my Gibson guitar, I don't think I'd play or sound as good as I do with it. It's just so much fun physically playing my favorite songs on guitar and making it feel like I'm in the band playing it live. I highly recommend learning an instrument, there are hundreds of videos that can teach you to play if you want to avoid getting a teacher. It's a great skill to have and a great way to show off to your friends too.
Another way I deviate from stress is by listening to my record player. Listening to music off
Spotify is a great tool to use but I usually prefer listening to physical media since it gets me to listen to songs I probably wouldn't listen to. For example, I have
Sublime's self-titled album with me, and before I owned the vinyl, I only knew of their most popular song, Santeria, off the album. But once I listened to the vinyl, I was able to listen to so many more songs that I wouldn't probably have chosen before. Plus it's also cool having the vinyl and displaying it in my dorm room for everyone to see and ask about. Having vinyl is also good because if you can't sit still while doing homework, you can work for 20 minutes and once the side is over, you can take a quick break to switch sides or change albums and relax for a moment before working again. I find it so nice to be able to do that.
I also like to relieve my stress from school by reading books. I going to be honest, I hated reading growing up because in middle school, they chose some of the most grim and boring books known to man. There were a few good books but they're overshadowed by the numerous amount of bad ones. But in college, I needed something to fill my time so I picked up reading. The most recent book I've been reading is called "
House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski. It's a psychological horror book with a lot of confusion but I don't want to spoil it so check it out. Another series I've been reading is called "
Berserk" which is a Japanese manga series I learned about during my time in Japan and it's got some of the best visuals and storytelling I've seen and I highly recommend it even if you don't think visual novels are good, it's so much more than that.
Here's another way to relieve stress, playing video games! More specifically single-player video games. You might be asking, Tim, why not multiplayer video games? Because a majority of them are so stressful playing and just unfun at some points. Single-player video games are much easier to just sit down and enjoy. A game I absolutely love playing is Metal Gear Solid, it's an action-espionage game with some great storytelling and I think it's one of the best games ever made. Nothing beats sneaking around an enemy base and stopping terrorists like Metal Gear. Being able to sit down on the couch, in a chair and just play games for a bit to relieve that stress built up is nice since it kind of makes you escape for a bit and feel like you're in the game.
I also release stress by watching sports like baseball! Baseball I think is the most interesting sport to watch today. Baseball has the most amount of games played in a season by a landslide. In football, for example, teams play 17 games a season, Baseball on the other hand, teams play 162 games a season which is mind-boggling to think about. Baseball is also a sport where you have to know how to play two positions instead of having a designated offense and defense, a player has to play both during the game, with exceptions for pitchers and designated hitters. I thought for a while baseball was uninteresting but recently I just can't stop watching it, it's so good and if you don't watch baseball, I recommend watching it, especially since there's
Shohei Ohtani, the highest-paid athlete in any sport, he truly is a spectacle to watch. At the time of writing this, he currently has 47 home runs and 48 stolen bases on track to have the first ever 50-50 season which he'll hopefully obtain by the end of the season which has 12 games left.
Speaking of watching things, another stress reliever I've found is watching movies! I love movies, especially since my major is Media Production. Watching movies on
Amazon Prime Video with videos on-demand and at a theater really help me relieve my stress because there's just so many movies out there to watch. Whether you're looking for more comedic movies like "Office Space" or "Naked Gun" or something more intense like "Whiplash" or "Fight Club" there's something out there for everyone to watch and relax to. Movies are something that we try to bring into our own lives and make them apart of our own characters because you feel a connection to them.
You can't enjoy a movie without some food too. Which leads to my next stress reliever, cooking. I enjoy cooking a lot, I like to say that it always tastes better when you're the one who makes it. I myself have a lot of cooking experience from working at Chick-fil-A, Jersey Mike's, and most recently Hearthly Burger which is a local burger joint back home. I always am trying to cook better and improve because sometimes you just want to stay home and watch movies or TV and not go anywhere. Using my
Mitsumoto cutting knife, I'm able to cut ingredients up with precision and ease. Besides that smell of cooking food is so nice and calms me down a lot knowing that I'm about to eat some of the best food I've had. Cooking is a fun stress reliever, especially if you like eating food.
On the topic of making things, I also like to make mixed drinks. I know I know, what is a college student without drinking. But being able to create drinks to drink is fun, especially when doing tricks with the shaker before pouring out a pina colada. Drinking loosens you up and helps you relax after a stressful week. Friday after class and either cracking open a nice
Asahi beer or pouring out a blackberry whiskey lemonade using
Blackened Whiskey helps you relax and relieve that stress with a rocking taste for your mouth to enjoy.
When I was studying abroad in Japan, one of the ways I learned to relieve stress was karaoke! Getting a bunch of friends and going out to karaoke on a Friday or Saturday is one of the most enjoyable ways to spend a night. I don't think I've ever had a night at karaoke where I wasn't having a blast singing my favorite songs off-key or in a funny voice. It's just a great way to kick off a weekend and just have a grand time with friends and seeing each other's taste in music.
Key Phrases: Stress relief ideas for students, music to calm your stress, cook your stress away
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