Chicken Soup for the Unsinkable Soul (VI)

Stressed is just desserts spelled backwards.

-Brain Luke Seaward

I first saw this saying at a little boutique store carved into a piece of wood meant to hang on a wall. Seeing it again in this Chicken Soup book still gave me the same feeling of almost instantaneous de-stressing. I'm not exactly sure why but thinking about stressors as nothing more than yummy desserts makes stress appear less vile and more friendly. Stress, of course, surrounds our lives daily and is necessary for our survival, but in today's times stress overwhelms the vase majority of the population. In a world that moves faster and faster each day, the number of stressors present only multiplies.

An important cure to stress is numbing some of those stressors by creating happiness elsewhere. For example, desserts always help to calm you down and provide a short time away from the rush of things. Actually, I recently read an article that talked about one way of relieving stress is to give/receive a hug or kiss everyday from someone. Even if you're just hugging your dog. Hugs and kisses are proven stress-relievers just like chocolate.

This school year in particular has been extremely stressful. With the Senior Project, college aps, scholarship competitions, AP classes, family and friends, and lacrosse, finding time for myself has become a rare thing indeed. Then there's deciding on my future while trying to maintain my present life. Wow! Keeping up with everything would be difficult for even the most organized person, let alone a seventeen-year-old girl. However, I find that leaving out a little time each day to de-stress always helps keep me sane. Anything from eating a piece of chocolate to hugging a friend to taking a leisurely bath helps tone down the intensity of life's stressors. By the end of the day, I have accomplished a few tasks and added on about twenty. But no matter. After all, "stressed is just desserts spelled backwards."