okay so this semester has been particularly stressful, its been so bad, that it's been effecting my studying/learning things. What i've started to do is completely block it out by saying: "okay your being your own worst enemy, that stress doesn't want you to succeed it's trying to throw you off your game, stick to the game plan and get err done" (laugh if you must) Im just wondering if it's healthy to ignore stress like this, or will it come back to bite me in the rear after

how the hell do i get this to show on the recent tab on the home page smh.

I'm not totally sure I understand your situation. Your semester is stressful, so you block out your stress, so you're not stressed? Does it help you to get work done? I really don't see what's wrong with that, haha. I wish I was able to reassure myself like that.

But there are way, way unhealthier ways of dealing with stress....

I think you should trust your instincts- if you feel this stress is a problem then you should confront it and not ignore it in attempt to study more. I have the same issue, I struggle with anxiety and try to ignore it but I find it doesn't help me at all. I can't stand it when friends/family/other people tell me "just don't think about it" or "you're worrying too much." This works for some situations, but I think most stress is not going to just go away on its own.

I have no idea what the source is of the stress, but you said you were really stressed this semester in particular? If your learning/studying is being affected I assume some of it has to do with your courses? Maybe they're harder this semester?

The obvious advice is that if you have concerns about your courses you should talk to your profs or TAs. That has helped me in the past- even if all I do is ask them to look at it a test/assignments and for their feedback on how I can improve next time. Mac has an academic skills page here: http://csd.mcmaster.ca/academic/onlineresources.html . I find it helps me to review some of those sometimes on essay writing, studying, time management, etc. I think it's normal for a lot of students to not understand the expectations of the university or their courses, and that can add to a lot more stress. People panic over what's going to be on a test, how they're going to do on an assignments, but as long as you understand HOW you should study for the class and HOW you're going to be marked in the class you shouldn't need to stress too much about it. It helps to look for patterns in your classes, how they test you, how they mark assignments, etc.

If your stress isn't really academic related, then I would still say to find some way to figure out what exactly is stressing you out and how to deal with it. I find my perfectionist tendencies(in uni, and everything in general) stress me out so I'm trying to change that.... but then I beat myself up because I feel like I'm failing at not being a perfectionist! haha, obviously that's really backwards and not accomplishing anything. So obviously worrying about it TOO much won't help. Honestly I think some of the expectations of uni are a little unrealistic, there really isn't much you can do to control stress in university.

Originally Posted by EmilySusie

I think you should trust your instincts- if you feel this stress is a problem then you should confront it and not ignore it in attempt to study more. I have the same issue, I struggle with anxiety and try to ignore it but I find it doesn't help me at all. I can't stand it when friends/family/other people tell me "just don't think about it" or "you're worrying too much." This works for some situations, but I think most stress is not going to just go away on its own.

I have no idea what the source is of the stress, but you said you were really stressed this semester in particular? If your learning/studying is being affected I assume some of it has to do with your courses? Maybe they're harder this semester?

The obvious advice is that if you have concerns about your courses you should talk to your profs or TAs. That has helped me in the past- even if all I do is ask them to look at it a test/assignments and for their feedback on how I can improve next time. Mac has an academic skills page here: http://csd.mcmaster.ca/academic/onlineresources.html . I find it helps me to review some of those sometimes on essay writing, studying, time management, etc. I think it's normal for a lot of students to not understand the expectations of the university or their courses, and that can add to a lot more stress. People panic over what's going to be on a test, how they're going to do on an assignments, but as long as you understand HOW you should study for the class and HOW you're going to be marked in the class you shouldn't need to stress too much about it. It helps to look for patterns in your classes, how they test you, how they mark assignments, etc.

If your stress isn't really academic related, then I would still say to find some way to figure out what exactly is stressing you out and how to deal with it. I find my perfectionist tendencies(in uni, and everything in general) stress me out so I'm trying to change that.... but then I beat myself up because I feel like I'm failing at not being a perfectionist! haha, obviously that's really backwards and not accomplishing anything. So obviously worrying about it TOO much won't help. Honestly I think some of the expectations of uni are a little unrealistic, there really isn't much you can do to control stress in university.

tests and failing them(your right harder semester), and not being able to start my own life b/c of failing is what was causing my stress. Last week i constantly had these thoughts and i couldn't do any work even though i so badly wanted to succeed(less work done = more stress btw) so I remember this situation last summer where I worked and there were some employees/managers that tried to mess with your head, and i would block them out b/c i knew they were trying to throw me off my game, now i substitute this logic that my OWN head is trying to throw me off my game and doesn't want me to succeed so i completely block it out, it seems to be doing the trick as of now.

recently non-academic stuff caused me to feel anxious as well (what I'd rather not say), and after panicking for a couple hours I applied the same logic and i felt OKAY.

now i know this may not be the most healthy thing to do, but failing is NOT AN OPTION and dealing with my problems just cause me more stress, basically i block everything out, do the work, and go wow i really got a lot of shit done, awesome, stress gone.....kind of.

and it really helps to post it on macinsiders, it feels therapeutic