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explain? The scary thing is that stress can lower your defenses in almost every way. It can lead to fatigue, sickness, and emotional problems just to name a few. | could go into lengthy detail telling you what stress has done to me but it would just be the same old stories that you have all heard and probably experienced before.

We have two choices. We can let stress harm our lives or we can conquer it. Thereare many ways that we can do this andagain you've probably heard of many of them. But have you honestly ever tried them? Sure maybe one day last week you decided to take a break from school but what did you do? Havea bath? Walk the dog? Exercise? Relax in front of the T.V.? Or did you worry the whole time about all the work that you had to do?

Worrying brings on stress even when we are relaxing. It is conscious stress that we can conquer. We have to learn to say “I deserve a break and the work can wait another hour”. | am in no way saying that you should forget about your responsibilities, but you have to recognise when you need time out for yourself.

Tip # |: Listen to your feelings and your body and use common sense. You know that your professor is not going to kill you because your paper is a day late. If it means sacrificing something else, like your peace of mind and the health of your body, don’t do it. Put it into perspective -- ten years from now what is it going to matter that you typed your paper on the day it was due instead of the day before?

A lot of the things that stress us out can be avoided. Last week! got my car towed from the University. Yes, | think the parking situation sucks, but it was my fault for being late and not having the time to park in the lower parking lot. | parked in the first empty space | saw and it happened to not bea parking spot. Surprise! Just because there wasa car there before does not mean that it was legal for me to park there. Anyhow, my point is that if | had planned to

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Stress:

e Silent Killer

By Rebecca Moore

leave my house earlier | would have been able to park in the lower parking lot, walk up to class and be on time, and not get my car towed. | was so frustrated with myself and | let it get to me. Instead | should have just recognised the mistake and gotten on with my day. If | had managed my time better | would have not had any problems. Obviously we can not plan everything, but if you plan ahead then you probably would have enough time to type your paper and go out for a beer afterwards, or get a legal parking spot!

Tip # 2: Organise! Yes we all hate this word, but try prioritising your work and other commitments (this applies to finances as well). Buy one of those annoying organizers that you see inallthe A+ students’ bags. Schedule your days, weeks and months - ahead of time. Mark the most important things with an A, less important things witha B, and so on. When you look at your organiser you'll be reminded that your marks (and tuition fees!) are more important than going to the pub and it'll be easier to resist the temptation. You will be sure of what you have to

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do, when, and you can actually schedule in your party and relaxation time too. And for parents, scheduling will help you work around your children’s schedules so that you can get as much time with them as possible. You'll be surprised to discover that yes, there are actually enough hours in the day.

Tip # 3: Pick the hours of the day that you are most productive and schedule your work for those hours. What is the point of working hardat night when you aren't getting anywhere and you could be with your friends or family? You'll find that you’ll get twice as much work done in your productive hours than you would any other time of the day, whether its at 3am, 10am, or 2pm. Just do it!

Often we feel tired just because of stress and we don’t realise that stress is the cause. It is unconsciously affecting our lives. In this case we have to recognise what the stressor is. Many students feel sick and tired of being in school around this time of the year. Why? Thestress of trying to get everything done makes us lose sight of our goals. Or because we don’t have any

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concrete goals yet. If you are really unhap; doing your school work ask yourself why y: are here. Because you want to become engineer, writer, or pianist? Or because y don’t know what you want to do yet, but, y want to continue to learn so you can figure o what you're destined to be.

Tip # 4: What ever the reason is th you are here don’t ever lose sight of it becau it can provide you with great motivation wh you are down.

I'll finish off with another tip that | strong believe in but | have a hard time making it priority. Exercise - apart from sex - is the be stress reliever around. Exercise is better th sex in some ways though, because you can it alone and you only have to satisfy yourse | know not everyone likes to exerci rigorously, but you don’t have to sweat bucke to reap the rewards of activity. All you ne to do is spend a half an hour/day, three days week, to go for a walk, swim, skate, have snowball fight, play basketball with your frien or just play with your kids. You'll find yoursé more relaxed, healthy, and you'll even | better and feel better about yourself! F those of us who do like to sweat -go to it! the best way to vent frustrations. If you’ never had a really hard work out head to field house and try it out, you never know J‘ may love it.

Tip # 5: Schedule in some exercise evé week. You can't let this slide. For me it always been one of the first things crossed my schedule, but this year | made it a prior! and | have been more successful at exercis regularly. This may work for you.

Don't eliminate all the stress in your i We need it to motivate us and remind us we have a puropose here in our stressful complex, but intriguing, world,

These are by no means fool proof ways get rid of stress in your life. They are helpful if you committ yourself to changi" few things in your life. Do something f yourself for a change.