If there's one thing the people I'm close with know about me, it's that I tend to get stressed out very easily. I have this bad habit of overthinking situations that may not be that important. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who struggles with this because we're all human, and from time to time we all get stressed out.

For a long period of time I struggled with handling my stress. There would be times where I felt like I was in this continuous cycle where I would let my stress get to me. As a result, I would shut myself out from people who were more than willing to help and bottle up my emotions; at times my emotions would get the best of me and I would become very sensitive. I'm not saying that being sensitive is a bad thing, but with my personality type it's not very normal for me to suddenly break down and start crying.

It's interesting that now that as I get older and take on new challenges I find myself in more stressful situations. This may sound cliche, but it's all apart of growing up. Obviously I'm still at the stage of "growing up", but I'm slowly able to learn more about myself and what stress relievers work best for me. The tips I'm going to share today may not work for you as we are all different. However, I hope that some of the things I share help you find your own stress relievers.

My first stress reliever is music. Music is such a powerful medium, the amount of emotion and passion found within music is empowering. We all have our own taste of music. I find that I enjoy listening to almost any genre. There are days where I enjoy listening to R&B music, other days I'm jamming out to rap music in the car with my brother, other times I'm obsessing over a new pop song, and other times I'm chilling to some EDM or house music. Depending on my mood I listen to different genres.

As of lately I've been listening to a lot of chill house music. One song I want to recommend people to listen to when they're feeling stressed out and want to relax is Joey Pecoraro's "Tired Boy." This song is an instrumental, but it does an amazing job with putting my mind at ease when things start to get crazy.

My next stress reliever is what I call a "social media detox." Essentially what I do is log out of all my social media platforms, put away my phone, and try to focus on relaxing or doing my work. I don't know if any of you have noticed, but I do this very often (this is the main reason why I don't frequently update my Instagram or Tumblr). Doing this social media detox is probably one of my favourite ways to de-stress because instead of being concerned with what everyone else is doing, I'm able to focus on myself and my goals.

Another step in my form of the "social media detox" is being able to de-clutter my social media feed. This means getting rid of pictures I may not like anymore or unfollowing/ removing people I may not know or talk to anymore. Some may say this is kind of an extreme thing to do, but after I de-cluttered my social media outlets I felt very refreshed. I hope that everyone understands that you don't really owe anyone anything on social media. Carrying things that may weigh you down don't have to be around. Sometimes you need to take matters into your own hands and get rid of those things because realistically no one else is going to do it for you.

The final thing I do to de-stress is journaling. This is the newest thing I have been trying out and I absolutely love it. As an individual, I struggle a lot with talking to someone about how I'm feeling when I'm stressed out; almost every time I've tried this I end up crying. I don't want to cry. I understand that crying isn't a bad thing, but majority of the things I may end up crying about are fixable. Journaling is my solution to this problem I've been struggling with. There's something about just writing about my exact feelings is therapeutic. I journal almost everyday, writing about anything that's on my mind. There are times where I just doodle and draw in my journal because I don't feel like physically writing about my feelings. There are also times where I write the most random things. What I'm implying here is that a journal doesn't have to be strictly be used just for your emotions, it can be used for essentially anything.

I hope that this post helps you get through your own stress. I understand that sometimes things add up and they feel very hard to overcome. Just remember that things will pass; it may be a long or short process, but eventually it will pass. So hang in there and don't hesitate to take a breather!