Submitted by Imaan from Hinsdale Central High School in Illinois.
For myself, this is a question I keep asking. I don't whether I feel happy, anxious, tired or stressed. But constantly, whatever the feeling is, it's in my head. I think there is no certain way someone should feel about all of this. The fact that it is even happening is something no one would ever have thought of, and not in a good way. My feelings have been all over the place the last couple of weeks so I wanted to share what I do to calm myself down and remember we are all in this together.
When I feel stressed, with all the schoolwork and other daily activities sometimes I get really annoyed and emotional fast. I try to be calm and do something I know will relax me. Sometimes we just need a break to let ourselves breathe after staring at our screens. Normally what I do is I go into my backyard with my soccer ball and shoot on my goal. But sometimes this doesn't work so I try to take a walk and clear my mind, so when I'm ready I can come back in and work.
Overwhelmed is a feeling I have been experiencing more and more as the year has been progressing. To cope with this I use the same strategies as I do for when I'm stressed. However, for me overwhelmed is a worse type of stress. Overwhelmed to me means I stare at my computer as if it will do something. So when this happens I like to pace myself when working. I'll do an assignment and after I will give myself a break. This allows me to get work down but also not make my head hurt.
Recently, I have been missing my friends a lot. Loneliness is striking a lot of people during this time. Isolated with your family isn't always the best thing for us. I have been trying to reach out to all my friends and see how they are doing. I especially have been missing my friends that I wasn't close enough to actually talk to outside of school. So, I have been texting some people every now and then and asking them how they are, including friends from other schools. This helped me because I reconnected with some of them and it probably feels good knowing people are thinking about you.
Currently, in some situations, I have felt relieved or even happy but then I think about the rest of the world and how so many people are suffering. I don't think it is a bad thing to feel these ways because we can't help it. However, I do think it is important to stay on top of what is happening so we are not clueless about the news. For me, in some cases, I have felt guilty about being excited to be home or happy that I can see my family.
I know this time can be stressful so I hope some of these tips that I use can help. To whoever reading this, I hope you and your family are safe.
Imaan :)