With the end of the school year slowly (but surely) coming to an end, stress is at an all-time high, at least in my world. I’ve got my Humanities project (that includes gallery night, my presentation and actually finishing the project), AP exams, finals, and making sure I don’t fail math. I’ve tried everything in an attempt to ease my stress, but recently I gave up and accepted the stress into my life. Here are a few ways I’ve embraced my stress:

1. Sleep­: First thing’s first, completely disregard sleeping. Being an insomniac, it’s pretty easy for me. Force yourself to stay up ridiculously late way past the point of basic sanity to try and finish your work. It’s a terrible idea to sleep because if you do, it could ruin your chances of getting sleep debt, and sleep debt is amazing because you then get granted one more thing to stress about!

2. Diet: One of the most stressful things to deal with is ensuring you are eating a balanced diet. I end up eating whatever can be heated in the microwave quick and easy. Also make sure that employees of Dunkin’ Donuts or Starbucks, whatever you prefer, know you by heart because you need that caffeine in order to help with tip #1.

3. Exercise­: Sitting in the same spot for hours on end is a fantastic way of ensuring you avoid any of the positive effects that physical activity can have on your mental health. You have to be very careful though because even a 10­ minute walk can start bringing stress levels down, which can really suck when you’re trying to break into new levels of frustration.

4. Hobbies­: It’s a very good, I mean, terrible idea to try out different things until you find something which relieves your stress. A lot of people find having a new hobby will give them a new outlook. So to ensure that won’t happen to me, I made my school work my hobby. In happier times, I love writing. But now, the majority of the time I spend writing, I’m actually squeezing any enjoyment I could have had from it right out of my life. The result? You got it: stress!