Dealing with School Stress

SightTDW

I'll open by saying that I've been dealing with some amount of general anxiety for a while that I became more fully aware of in the last year. I think I've come a long way in dealing with and keeping my life moving forward without freezing up when the workload hits or, god forbid, social environments. It pops up here and there, especially on that social thing, but if nothing else I'm aware of the things that make me uncomfortable, and I'm more aware of when I am or am not able to handle it.

I'm a College Junior, I work twenty hours a week, and in the last couple of month's I've been consistently swamped. I'm lucky to get an hour or two a day to do anything for myself, and a couple of things hit me today. One, that I finally had clean socks after not having clean socks for a week since it took that long just to get the chance to do laundry, and two, my tongue is swollen.

In the last month or so my tongue has been getting some marks around the sides, some tenderness, and more recently some actual pain, and it hit me today that I've been grinding my teeth and biting the now swollen areas in my sleep. I've never had stress manifest physically like this, and its freaking me out just a little bit. On top of this, it feels like I've been getting sick with various ailments nearly every two or three weeks. I went through a flu, a cold, a symptom-less fever, and now a throat infection in the course of about two months. I'm starting to wonder if my entire immune system has toppled over.

I feel like this all has to be stress related, but there's only a couple of weeks left in the semester, and things are starting to wind down a little. I'm sure this will all wind down once I get some down time, but I wondered if anyone had any tips on dealing with this sort of thing.

ceres

When I get stressed like that I get hives in weird places, like my palms and soles and even the inside of my throat. The only thing that's ever really worked to make them go away is to take a day off. Seriously. You may need to put everything down for a day or two. You can try some benadryl or something, but your body is telling you something and it's probably better to listen to it if you can than try to figure out how to ignore it.

Pacificstar

When you work that much, your diet can really suffer. Stress is definitely a large part of it, but you need to make sure you're getting proper nutrition. Definitely start taking a multivitamin every day. It really does help.

cabsy

So - a year ago I had some small psoriasis patches (I didn't know what they were, but they were small) around my tailbone and stomach and on my scalp. Two 19 credit hour semesters and some personal stresses later, it turns out stress really exacerbates any sort of autoimmune disorder, and I have pencil eraser-to-dime size patches scattered over almost all of my body except my neck and my entire scalp is covered in thick itchy plaque. I have two much larger patches on my back that itch like some kind of hellspawn has settled there. I'm having to take methotrexate because it's resistant to topical medications and sunlight. If I didn't have insurance I'd be looking at ~$900 a month in prescriptions just to keep it from getting worse at this point. If I stop using the topicals I can count on parts of my skin either splitting open or developing plaque and cracking open within a week at most.

The moral of the story being, your body is giving you serious warnings that you are overstressing yourself. You really, really need to work on cutting SOMETHING back to reduce your stress. I know it isn't always possible to take fewer hours at work or whatever but it may behoove you to look into reducing your course load to closer to the minimum possible so that you aren't taxing yourself. Yeah it really, really fucking sucks to have to take maybe an extra semester or even a year to graduate but I tried to accelerate my graduation and instead nearly health-problemed myself into failing grades. I have a weekend to turn out three research term papers, one in turabian format and like hell if I've ever used that before. I mean jesus this week I even had a cancer scare because my doctor told me my armpit lymph nodes were somewhat swollen and I had to go in for a mammogram and ultrasound (thank god I'm fine) which just dialed up the stress even higher.

For the short term, you're really going to have to give yourself a break. Find stuff you can de-prioritize... maybe some homework you don't REALLY have to do or a section of homework you can afford to sacrifice the grade on. Some people have the kind of body that can deal with stress with no issues and some people don't and there isn't any shame or weakness in having the kind of body that will smack you in the nose with a newspaper and tell you to quit stressing yourself.

hsu

You're overloaded. Next semester, you need to take less classes or work less hours.

admanb

If you're grinding your teeth you should also see a dentist and get a mouthguard made. Those are the only teeth you get.

SightTDW

Thank you everyone. I'm very happy to realize that I can take tomorrow off as a quiet day with my girlfriend. It has to be much needed at this point, but I'm through the worst of things this semester. The last two weeks in particular have been brutal. As long as I can pace myself for the next couple of weeks through finals I think I'm clear of any binge studying, all nighters, paper gauntlets, or what-have-you.

Still, you've all given me a lot to think about for the next couple of semesters. They're all as packed as this one was; probably a bit more so, but there's already been talk in my workplace of having to cut my hours in half due to budget cuts. It doesn't leave me with much spending-money wise, but I think that's my best option regardless. I talked it out with my family and they're willing to help me out when it comes to paying for food and gas if I take the cut. That alone was a huge weight off of my shoulders. My job isn't especially stressful, and I really do like it, but I'm going to need more time at home for myself in the future. At least enough to keep up with laundry and make some meals for myself.

@Pacificstar‌ You absolutely called it. My diet has been atrocious for the last year. I work for my university, so I spend nearly all of my time there, and the way things have been timing out this year leaves me eating almost entirely on campus food, which is far from the healthiest. If I do end up elsewhere its usually fast food or close to it. I keep track of things calorie-wise, but I think I have an incredibly unhealthy diet right now. If nothing else, I'll try to get a multivitamin in each morning.

The real perk of working for the university is that they're very understanding when it comes to working around schoolwork. I was in a bit of personal debt recently, so I've been a little paranoid about the idea of losing pay. I'm out of the hole now, but not by a lot, and I think I'll be stable enough by the end of summer to safely cut out some hours. They might even let me put a few extra back in on the light weeks if I have nothing going on.

My dentist picked up on the early signs of the grinding last time I went in for a cleaning about a month ago and told me to come back if it kept up. My throat infection is close to clearing up, so I'll see if I can make an appointment for next week or the week after.

Pacificstar

I don't know if you're eating breakfast, but a healthy breakfast and a multivitamin made my days better when I was working 70+ hour weeks. The problem with getting into the grind is that you only think about how to get through the things you MUST DO. Now that you have a little perspective, I'm sure you'll be able to handle everything. Good Luck!

hsu

Lowering of work hours will help a lot.
But do you really need to take all those classes too?

My suggestion is to take the bare minimum you need to graduate.

Employers don't care that you took extra classes, only that you graduated and your GPA.
If you are trying for a double major, I'd tell you to stop, and pick one.
Academia types make it seem like double majors are impressive, but the workplace could care less.

If you really need all those classes to graduate, can you take a class or two during the summer, to lighten your fall/spring semester?

SightTDW

I'm getting better about at least eating something in the morning. I definitely need to take the time to take a little better care of myself.

I'm not trying to double major or anything nuts. I'm just having trouble balancing my work and a standard full classload. Four classes per semester, but now that I'm in the higher level classes I think its hitting me harder.

I'm through the thick of it for this semester, and I feel a thousand times better. That was the densest workload I've had to date. I was able to take the bulk of my Saturday to relax, and I think that's what saved me. I even got all of my laundry done. Just having clean pants to put on in the morning feels better.

The worry now is my teeth, since I still catch myself clenching them in my waking hours. I'll have to see my dentist fairly soon.

I'm legitimately looking forward to cutting five or ten work hours off of my schedule. I think the next year is going to go a bit smoother. Thanks again, all of you.