I still laugh when the cartoon characters clumsily fall or humorously hit each other upside the head — and I consider it one of my most valuable traits when I start to feel overwhelmed with my life.
When you’re in your 20s and you can still laugh at the small things (that usually aren’t even that funny) in the midst of stress, in spite of unfortunate situations or even just during a mundane day, I think you have something worth sustaining.
Over the years, I’ve found that stress management is a primary topic of interest for college students. There are valuable tips that work for managing stress. Getting enough sleep, talking to a close friend, exercising, eating healthfully and consulting a psychologist or counselor are just a few common suggestions that I sincerely believe can help with stress management.
However, over time, I realized that I wasn’t really interested in managing my stress as a college student — I was interested in figuring out how to not have it in the first place. Anxious thoughts, headaches and sleepless nights were sinister symptoms of stress that I simply wasn’t interested in encountering or taking the time to manage.
Ultimately, I think preventing stress is a smarter strategy. Instead of waiting to take action until stress has already arrived, go ahead and put stress in its place: out of your reach.
For me, putting stress in its place looks like having the assurance that everything is going to be OK and being free to laugh at (almost) anything and everything that merits even a hint of humor in the meantime.
When you take your college life seriously, but not too seriously, you’re able to see it for what it’s really worth. It’s certainly worth your time, energy and hard work — but it’s not worth driving yourself to the brink of unhealthiness.
Know your limits. Respect those limits. And don’t underestimate the power of a good attitude.
In a practical sense, you can respect your mental, emotional and physical limits by preparing for deadlines and major commitments ahead of time. Giving yourself the opportunity to be flexible in your daily life releases the pressure to make every day more productive than the last. Consequently, stress doesn’t have the motive to rear its ugly head.
In a not-so-practical sense, you can let yourself laugh often. I think the concept of laughter being good medicine holds truth that we don’t fully understand. It just works. Keeping your perspective healthy, upbeat and slightly humorous on a regular basis gives you a firm foothold that can enable you to withstand waves of stress that will inevitably attempt to crash into your life.
At the end of the day, it’s probably better to laugh too much than to not laugh enough. I don’t know about you, but I’d trade stress for looking like a fool laughing at a childish cartoon that isn’t even all that funny any day.
April Jaynes is a senior studying journalism and anthropology. Forward her some funny cartoon clips at aj188310@ohiou.edu.
