Your agenda is filled with meetings; you still need to give money for clubs, a project is due tomorrow and you still need to get your college recommendation letter from your teacher. You start feeling tired and maybe a little ill…

Not only does stress cause you to feel worried and overwhelmed, it can harm you physically.

Stress is common around this point of your life. There are many factors that contribute to stress. College is nearing for many, homework is piling and your social life may be lacking. Worrying too much about these can harm your health and make you more susceptible to sickness.

Symptoms of Stress

One of the biggest symptoms of stress is losing sleep and feeling more tired than usual. Many students stay up late to finish homework and projects and others cannot sleep because they worry right before they try to sleep.

“I think it is preventing me from my potential height, and the lack of sleep makes me tired so I do not feel well during karate practice,” junior Tho Tran said.

Getting enough sleep is already difficult to many students and stress is a great factor to sleepless nights.

“Sleep is really important for learning and when you sleep, you reorganize you reorganize what you learned during the day,” school psychologist Anne Brosnan said.

A scary side-effect some experience is hair loss. If you are under a lot of stress then you may not be eating right, therefore not getting enough vitamins to sustain healthy hair.

Gaining weight is also common issue when dealing with stress. Usually during the school year students are given a lot of homework and do not worry too much about sitting down and eating a healthy meal. Most will want to buy something quick to eat.

Stress also hurts your mental health. You need a little stress to get things done, but not to the point where you are feeling anxious all the time and having outbursts of anger.

Feeling irritable is okay from time to time, but feeling annoyed all the time can mean that you need to do something in order to lower your stress level.

Stress weakens your immune system which causes you to susceptible to sickness.

Ways to lower stress

Exercising can be difficult to think of even adding to your busy life, but doing at least 30 minutes each day can be beneficial to your health.

Eating healthier can be helpful to controlling stress.

“Nutrition is really important too, because a lot of people don’t eat properly; nutrition contributes to your general sense of wellness and your alertness,”  Brosnan said.

To help eliminate stress is organizing your life. Every week set up a time to list everything you need to do. Have a calendar or planner with you and set up times to do those things. Make sure you give each activity a time period so you can plan other activities.

“I feel like, honestly, I don’t feel much stress because I learned to let it go. So that’s why I am more healthier mentally of my friends,” junior Rasel Abutaa said.

Yoga and meditation are simple ways to help cope with stress. The breathing techniques will help you calm down if you are going through a high-stress situation. Learning how to relax is vital during high school and other stressful situations. To learn yoga basics, attend Stress Less Week’s after school yoga session this week in the Clausen Hall.

“Think of the positives and not to get boggled down with everything negative but everyday,” Brosnan said. “Put aside a moment to say something they are thankful for, something good going on in their lives, or something they feel makes their life special.”

To help cope with stress, attend Stress Less Week from this week. Sessions will be held during Atom Time, lunch and after school. Students will have opportunities to voice their stress and deal with it through different activities.