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Believe it or not, food can help with stress! Now, I know what you're thinking, "Certain foods don't help with stress, all food helps with stress! When I eat, I feel better!" Yes, that's very true, I feel better when I eat too. But like I mentioned in an earlier post, a few types of food can a make a small difference in your stress levels! A small difference won't do that much, but any difference helps a lot! So, Ma'am is here to let you know what foods are good for stress!
Now, we are kids and teens so eating vegetables might not be one of our favorite pastimes, but there are a significant number of veggies that are good for stress. For example, avocados, carrots, spinach, and asparagus, as well as many other can make a difference in your stress life. Consuming foods with high vitamin C, like oranges and blueberries, can reduce stress and boost your immune system. Both green and black tea have certain acids in them that provides a soothing, calming effect on those eating or drinking them. Now, when I say the next one, it's important to take this lightly. Dark chocolate with high concentrations of cacao has positive effects on stress levels. But, I don't mean, eat as much chocolate as humanly possible because it has to be dark chocolate. Because eating too much chocolate might be good for your mental health, not your physical health. I mentioned in an earlier post the thing about the pistachios but I thought it might be nice to have a longer article talking about some other foods. Thank you for taking the time to read this, don't forget to add comments if I missed something! Regards, Ma'am Ma'am is back to help you with your stress and anxiety. Specifically, social anxiety. So the title of this post is asking about what social anxiety is, we recently took a survey on stress at school and the results showed that a majority of people were feeling overwhelming worried and self-conscious about everyday social situations. And that's what social anxiety is! So look at that, we've already answered one of our questions! It's also referred to as social phobia, but since we are middle school students just like you, we don't know everything about everything. So, we consulted several websites to help create a better way to help you deal with social anxiety. Personally, I too suffer from social anxiety, so feeling uneasy in social situations is something I know a bit about. But, dealing with it? I'm not very good at that, I tend to gravitate towards dogs and away from people. But, I think that if I help you, I can probably help me too. So, I consulted PsychCentral and ThisWayUp to try and figure out the best ways to deal with social phobia. The most important ideas in my research were these. Work with a therapist- Some people, including myself, have a difficult time speaking to a person in person, or even on the phone. But, what people don't realize is that therapists are really, really good at not judging you. And I guess telling someone you don't know your life story might be even more stressful than internalizing it. But, it's always worth a shot if you're willing and have the money. The second idea we have for you is, to create objective goals. Now, you're probably thinking, "What does that mean?" Well, creating objective goals means to have a behavioral goal in social situations. For example, if you're working in a group project, you could set a goal of making three comments over the course of the conversation. That way, you can step by step become more comfortable with speaking to people. Another idea is to keep a rational outlook, if you have a give a speech for NJHS or Student council or you're going to be on the news, you might be thinking you're going to fail. But if you've given speeches before and they haven't sucked than that's not a rational outlook. Stay calm and think rationally, you definitely won't succeed if you don't believe you can! There are several other ways to deal with social anxiety and social phobia that weren't mentioned here because this article dragged on but use the internet to find ways to cope that will work for you. Here's a link to a website that has a lot of helpful information, https://thiswayup.org.au/how-do-you-feel/shy/#what-is You can copy and paste it into a tab and browse through some of there information on social phobia! And don't forget to click where it says comments to let us know how we're doing! Regards, Ma'am Stress in school is a big deal, between homework and exam pressure. Whether, it's your parents pushing you to bring up your grades or your teachers giving you the look about your less-than-average test scores, stress can really hurt us all. So here are some big tips on how to deal with stress and anxiety in school!
For starters, take some time for self care. Eat some healthy food, B vitamins are are an important part of a healthy diet and can help reduce stress. Fun Fact: Pistachios we're found to have a role in lowering stress levels! So, go home and eat some pistachios! Another way to lower stress with self care is to sleep more. The minds of teenagers aged 13-17 shut down slower than adults and young children, so you might find yourself awake at 11PM. And that's not good. You might be thinking that your seven or eight hours is enough but it's important that teenagers get eight and half to nine and a half hours every night. And finally, take some down time. Now, I don't mean skip your homework and watch Netflix for six hours (even though I'd love to do that). What I mean is take some time, and hour or so, away from your homework. And once you start, make sure to not rush everything and try not to think about how much you have to do. Take self care one step at a time. Another idea on how to deal with stress in school, is to take assignments one step at a time. The absolute worst way to relieve stress is to wait to complete a big project until the day before it's due. And truthfully, I'm one to talk. I procrastinate and procrastinate and procrastinate, but I'm trying to do better. Working on projects and work ahead of time can help break down the stress and stop it from clouding around your head. The best thing to do is to work on your homework and then take a short break to prevent stress build up. All stress is created by stressful thinking, so there are lots of ways to calm your mind before you get back to work! :) And finally, keep yourself balanced during exam time. No one can work for 24 hours straight, so it's important to take fifteen minutes every once and a while to bring you back to you. Go grab a glass of lemonade and put your feet in the pool to clear your head before heading back to your studies. There is no way to counterbalance stress unless you take some time to clear your head. Remember, you are beautiful like a coral and corals die from stress. What might corals be stressed about you ask? Current events. Remember to comment by clicking the words below that say "comments" or email us if you have any questions or concerns! Regards Ma'am |