By: Austin Grimm

Society likes to acknowledge our desperate need for more mental health services, but very little action to address those needs actually occurs. I thought I would take the time to go around campus and ask people how they deal with their stress. Are the services that the University provides being used by people around campus? A surprising finding was that just by asking five people, each had their own different way of dealing with stress.

When asked what they do to deal with their stress, one participant said, “I listen to music because it helps me relax after a long and stressful day of schoolwork”. Music is a very powerful tool that affects the brain in positive ways. It is no surprise to see that some may use it as a way to reduce stress. Studies have shown that music releases dopamine which makes you feel good.

Another participant, interestingly, says they use sleep as a way to reduce stress. When asked to explain how sleeping relieves stress they said, “when I get stressed I go to sleep, when I wake up I know the stress is there, so I just go back to sleep”. I’m curious about following up to see how that works for her because stress is supposed to inhibit sleep, but if it works it works.

One method I can relate to is the use of video games in stress reduction. This participate said that he uses video games as a way to “escape from reality while hanging out with the boys because it has been proven that hanging out with the boys does, in fact, reduce the amount of stress one has”. Both him and another participant hang out with other friends as a way to reduce stress. Both videogames and hanging out with other friends are great ways to reduce stress and chill.

The final method that a different participant used was excerise. The participant said that he “felt better after a nice long workout at the gym”. Exercise is another very powerful stress reliever because endorphins are released as you workout drugging you into a much happier state.

Although I expected most of the methods discussed to be prevalent around campus, I was fascinated to see how people figure ways out to deal with stress. Self-care is one of the most important things that we can focus on, hopefully, every method is working out for us all.