Two Paths To De-Stressing

By Lev Novak

So you’re stressed.

That makes sense. Everyone is or gets stressed. I prefer to call it “anxious” but whatever the synonym is, the actions are the same or similar. Worry, building suspense, and things to do that weigh on your mind and life. Problems, free-floating and unsolvable beyond you stack and add up.

I get it.

You have two choices, both equally potent in different times.

1. Calm Down

Calming down is what it means to let it go. It means to take a shower, have some tea, and understand your feelings and life more than the event. Are you making something into a bigger deal than it needs to be? Are you obsessed with worrying about unlikely outcomes and how terrible they’d be?

Calm down. That’s stress you don’t need, and it’s residual in nature. That’s the sort of thing that builds up but doesn’t actually relate to anything. That’s aimless stress that finds something silly to just glob on to and it stays with that. So fight that instinct and simply calm down.

Take a shower. Eat a snack. Go to the gym, go for a run, call home, cry it out, watch tv, laugh it out, do whatever it is to calm down and simply release and move on from the feeling. Because obsession doesn’t solve problems for you; it makes them.

Let yourself relax and see how much happier the experience can start to make you. At the very worst, it’s not like a showering and a cup of tea is going to make anything worse.

2. Turn Up

The other option, of course, is to turn up.

Listen: staying in the middle of your anxiety is the losing scenario here. So either calm down- my preferred method- or if that truly doesn’t work, get pumped. Dive head-first and angry into your problems. Full inbox? Coffee and DMX playlist. DESTROY it. Awkward apology you don’t want to make? GMAIL WITH A FOLLOW UP TEXT AND COFFEE INVITE.

You are going to massacre your problems now, because you can.

Look; facing your problems is never fun. Especially if they’re vague, stupid problems, facing them can turn into an obsession, which is why “calm down and move on” is such good advice. But sometimes it’s not the right advice. Sometimes you need to nuke the issue. You need to go to the doctor and know for sure you’re fine, or just send that double-text to the girl you’re not quite dating.

Those options might feel silly or intense or turned up, but so is life and so are you. Sometimes you need to do what you actually need to do, no matter what’s logical or makes sense. So go and do them.

Calm down or turn up. Either way is fine. Just don’t worry and stress in the middle, for your own sake.

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