We all know that feeling. The feeling of dread, creeping over your body and pressing down on you. The seemingly abundant thoughts that keep coming at you with things you have to get done or will soon have to do. As a student, it can be overwhelming. Even when you’re able to get one thing out of the way, you get another assignment thrown at you. So if we can never truly get everything done, how are we supposed to get past this?

Stress and anxiety plague students all over the world. Everyone is, has, or will experience it at some point. As for me, I started experiencing stress around fifth grade. In the first week of school, I lost one of my math assignments and got behind trying to redo that, along with keeping up on all the new assignments we got. But even when I did catch up, I still found myself getting stressed out. That’s because for the rest of the year, I was constantly making sure that I stayed up to date on tests and homework. Even now, I struggle with trying to remember everything and keeping track of what I have to do. The truth is that no matter how behind or caught up you are, school is always going to be a source of anxiety. However, the good news is that no matter if you’re in fifth grade, college, or somewhere in between, there are ways to cope and greatly reduce school-related stress.

One difficult to identify form of verbal abuse is when someone makes public jokes about you at your expense. The feelings you could experience as a result of this are shame, humiliation, anger, and confusion. Humor is an effective mask should anyone choose to confront the inconsiderate behavior. They can always respond with, “I’m just kidding. Don’t take it so seriously.” Don’t let such a response fool you. Anyone who responds like this simply doesn’t want to be held accountable for the hurt that their words caused. A person who truly cares about you and knows how to love in a healthy way will always listen when you need to talk about something they said or did that hurt you. They’ll believe you. They don’t want to hurt you. A person engaged in verbal abuse on the other hand will often attempt to convince you that you’re wrong and that what they said wasn’t actually that bad (Gordon, 2022).

Because verbal abuse doesn’t leave any visible wounds or bruises, it can be easy to overlook or convince ourselves that it isn’t so bad. But it is. Some of the long term effects of verbal abuse include chronic stress, low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, PTSD, social isolation, and substance use (Gordon, 2022). If you think you might be experiencing verbal abuse from someone in your life, please reach out and talk about it. No one deserves to be verbally abused. Ever.

We all have that one spot that seems to be the collection point for clutter. It seems to be a universal rule: clutter begets clutter. Once one thing is set down, other items seem to land there and accumulate. 

If you're feeling the anxiety start to creep up because of some cluttered area that is taking over your space, giving yourself 10 minutes to tackle some of the clutter can be a physical way you can address your anxiety. You don’t have to do a massive overhaul of your space to feel the releasing effects of decluttering. The following are a few small spaces that you can address that can be done quickly or in small increments, but feel like they leave a big impact.

Therapists generally agree that to hold space for someone means to be completely present for someone, putting your focus on them to support them while they feel their emotions. There is no emphasis on problem solving or “fixing” in holding space. It is more about “being with” than anything else. If you’ve ever experienced good therapy, then you’ll know the value that can be found in having a safe space where you feel comfortable communicating whatever it is that you need, think, or feel. That space is created and “held” by someone, usually the therapist. But this is also an important skill for friends, parents, caretakers, medical professionals, and many others to learn.

Have you ever been in the middle of your own crisis when someone tried to lean on you for support or looked to you for their own guidance and emotional balance? If you’ve experienced this, then you know what the usual response is: a wide eyed, blank stare that essentially says: What?!? I can’t help you right now! I’m barely capable of helping myself! This is a far more common situation than you might imagine. For many, hardship and trials lead them to lean on anyone who happens to be close enough to grab, even if that person is up to their neck in their own problems. When this happens within families, it can lead to really explosive interactions!