Stressed Out? Go on a Stress Walk

Hey guys!

I've been noticing that I'm getting stressed out or sort of feeling compressed recently what with college work, the daily commute and trying to stay balanced.

One thing that I've been doing to get out of the house, out of my room and away from zoning out to Netflix or YouTube is going out for a walk, or as I've been saying, a stress walk.

The weather now is not majorly cold or rainy so getting out in the fresh air really is great therapy. I prefer going out during the night after my day is over and the evening joggers, dog walkers and playing kids have retired into their homes for the night. There's something so calming about being the only one walking down a street-lamped path breathing in the cold night's air.

Sometimes I listen to music and sometimes I'll take out my earphones and listen to what's happening around me. But more often than not I'll have a podcast on the go to keep me company for an hour or so while I have some me time. As I've said before I'm obsessed with Katie Dalebout and the Wellness Wonderland podcast and I dip into You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes or Food Psych with Christy Harrison. All of these podcasts are so interesting, insightful and entertaining so it's like you're having a nice long conversation with someone while you walk. Or if you want sometimes calling up a friend to go with you can be an awesome way to catch up and put the phones away for a bit.

So yeah going on nice long walks has been my go-to tool for dealing with stress and anxiety at the moment, let me know how some of your own go-to tips and tricks for when you start feeling overwhelmed or like the world is going to come down on you full force!

Coming Clean. Making Changes.

There's no doubt that not a single person in the world that flies through life effortlessly. Life is hard and not perfect, there's no denying it. Everyone from your mother to the person sitting beside you on the bus will have to deal with the brick walls that come up in life.

But for some people life gets even harder. Not only do they have to deal with the stressful ordeal that is life but for some completely unfair happenstance they have one more layer of complexity to peel through. They have to deal with mental health issues.

For me that's anxiety, depression and disordered eating. For anyone dealing with mental health issues you are not just experiencing one emotion, it's a roller coaster. On the bad days you can go from down to sad to angry to hopeless to deep depression. It really takes a toll on the body and the complexity of what you're going through makes it hard for your loved ones to understand and help.

Of course the fact that I studied away from home, a bus, train and plane ride away from my support group made it particularly difficult for me to cope. I was living in uni halls constantly surrounded by a 'party' and 'drinking' culture that I wasn't able to interact with. I'm not against having a fun night out but a few times a week was too much for me, it wasn't worth the tired, groggy state the morning after and the anxiety over how much alcohol I had consumed.

The anxiety had so much power over me I'd panic when I'd run into other people in the flat and isolated myself off in my room for a large portion of the year. After bad nights I wouldn't be able to attend lectures or focus or study when it came to exams. Even when I came home to visit for a precious weekend the joy of being home was always overshadowed by the thought of going back to uni on the Sunday.

Over all this year has been incredibly tough for me and I've gone through a lot of it alone. I wasn't enjoying my life and hadn't been truly happy in months. For this reason I've decided to drop out of uni once again and move back to Ireland to start another course in Dublin. Third times the charm as they say!

While I didn't enjoy my time abroad at all that's not to say the people I met weren't lovely people who I'll miss seeing or that I didn't like my university. In fact it's an absolutely top class university and I'll be disappointed to have to leave my wonderful course and the classmates.

But here's to another fresh start. Let's hope I can settle in and start living life to the full.