I’ve spent seventeen years planning and dreaming about my future. So has almost everyone else in the world. But nothing is scarier than having to actually decide what you want. And planning your entire life when you are seventeen is impossible. There are so many options for what you can do after high school, like college, trade school, going straight into the workforce, and many more. But making such a huge decision and having so many options on top doing school work, sports, and other extracurriculars, can cause lots of stress. I asked students at Palmer High School what they do to cope with the stress of senior year, and how they balance everything.
“Everyone says junior year is the most stressful, but for me, senior year has been SO much worse,” Salome Lloyd, a senior at Palmer said. She is a full time student as well as being a part of the climbing club, working, volunteering, and being a part of NHS. The past few months she has been juggling all of those things as well as touring, researching, and applying to colleges. I asked her what helps her get all of these things done and not go crazy, “I just have to find time for things that I really enjoy to help me cope with the stress”
She wakes up at 6:30am everyday, and has school from 7:30-3 and then goes to either climbing, where she has been preparing for competition season, or she goes to work. She gets home by dinner time most nights, then has homework, and works on college applications and at some points has NHS service projects to work on, and volunteering to do. By the time she’s done with all of her responsibilities, it’s late. But she doesn’t always go to sleep after this. “I don’t want to spend the whole day stressed, and then go to sleep stressed.”
It’s important to do things that calm you down when you have lots on your plate. Otherwise the stress will become too much to handle. For some students, including Salome, that can mean doing something creative. Whether it is drawing with a pencil and paper, digital art, or painting, most of her nights are spent compressing with a craft. “I’ve been working on this one painting a lot lately, ” she said when I asked her what kinds of art she does. I saw it in her room during our interview. It’s on her desk propped up on an easel. It’s a still life of some bottles on a kitchen counter. It’s very good.
For other students that means doing something active. Such as making time to work out, or playing a sport that you love. One student I interviewed at Palmer said that no matter how busy they are or how bad the weather is, they go on a run every single evening. “I put my headphones on and, like, turn off my brain.” There’s lots of way students use physical activity to reduce stress, and its one of the most common ways of doing so.
Some students turn to technology to calm them down. Almost all of the students I interviewed said that listening to music their favorite way to relax and rejuvenate. Students also play video games, or watch TV shows and movies. And some even create their own through game design, photography, video production, etc.
With so much going on in their lives, and so many big changes being made, and huge decisions, the senior class at Palmer has found the importance of taking the time they need for self care, and each individual student has found the method that works best for them.
