Stress is no secret to students. They hear its hiss with each assignment posted, feel its cold skin after turning in each test, and know the taste of its venom when standards are not met. But to keep this poison in their veins is certain academic death, so how do they cleanse themselves? Some turn to exercise, others to journaling, some find relief in art.
Freshman Zack Carpenter, majoring in management information systems, will color occasionally to reduce his stress levels. Usually, he sleeps to help loosen the grip the stress holds.
Coloring allows a simple focus on a stress free, organized activity. The recent boom in adult coloring books has demonstrated the very real effect of coloring carrying the power to reduce stress.
Another Wright State freshman mechanical engineering major, Douglas J. Schlagheck, becomes worried and stressed by friends and grades.
In order to help ease this, he listens to music and solves puzzles. Both activities that involve a basic focus and attentiveness that distract the mind from everyday stressors, like, for Schlagheck, the people who surround us and accomplishments both academically and extracurricularly that we wish to acquire.
College is a particularly stressful period as it is such a transformative era in a young adult's life.
Stress is a very relative feeling, although everyone experiences some form of it. This may be the first situation where one is living away from home, many students must balance classes, homework and a job simultaneously.
Several students are parents, many struggle with internal mental and physical issues; a plethora of stressors influence young adults during this time. Art has the capacity to counter these stressful influences.
Adult coloring books may be the most convenient path of stress relief in the form of art, however pottery, painting, baking, and writing and many more all have the power to be an outlet. Find your anti-venom to battle the serpent that spits stress.
