Simple Solutions Have Great Impact by Ryley

Simple Solutions Have Great Impact by Ryley - September 2022 Scholarship Essay

“Never underestimate the pain of a person, because in all honesty, everyone is struggling, some people are better at hiding it than others.” -Unknown. Anxiety has been a part of my life for many years. Today, many people are surprised to learn that I have experienced and continue to live with anxiety due to the way I manage my stress. However, when I was younger I really struggled with anxiety. As a child, my anxiety affected me in many areas of my life such as school and dance. Through experiencing anxiety in these two areas of my life, I have learned many stress management tools, and if I could, I would share two of these tools, and say to my younger self one, just breathe, and two, use the 5 rule.
While I was in elementary school, I would wake up feeling sick to my stomach and tell my mom that I felt sick and needed to stay home. Of course I was not actually sick, or just pretending to be sick to get out of school like children in movies, I was just nervous for all the things that come from a regular school day. I was worried about the social aspect of school, as well as getting all of my assignments done. To many people, these things that come with elementary school might not seem like a big deal, even silly, but to me it was enough to make me ill. If I could go back and talk to the kid that was so nervous about a regular school day, I would tell my younger self to just breathe. According to an article by the Harvard Business Review, “Research shows that different emotions are associated with different forms of breathing, and so changing how we breathe can change how we feel.” Once I started taking a second to take three deep breaths when I feel overwhelmed by school assignments and social interactions, my ability to stay calm when I feel anxious has increased tremendously. This simple, three step tool has helped me to remain calm and ease the feeling of being overwhelmed, and would have helped me many times in elementary school.
I have been a competitive dancer ever since I was five years old. Dance competition days are long, tiring, and stressful. I have always been a perfectionist, and strive to do my best in all areas of my life. I was so concerned that I would not be able to dance my competition routines perfectly at competitions, and that caused my anxiety to make me sick. On dance competition days, I would be so nervous, that I would feel lightheaded the morning of a competition, get myself so worked up to the point that I would pass out and have an upset stomach in the car on the way to compete. If I could go back and talk to my younger self, I would tell her to remember something that I call ‘the five rule’. How the ‘five rule’ works is to ask the following question each time your anxiety causes you to stress about little things and events: ‘Is this going to matter in five minutes, five months, or five years?’. If the answer to this question is no, then repeat to yourself ‘do not spend more than five minutes worrying about this’. Oftentimes I found my anxieties were caused by situations, such as my dance competition years ago, that won’t even matter in a couple of years. Looking back now, I cannot even remember if I did perfect or not at my dance competitions, so it was silly to get so worked up about these competitions. Remembering ‘the five rule’ and having this mentality now has helped me to control my anxiety, and has also made dance competitions so much more enjoyable.
Learning to manage my stress and anxiety matters. It matters because without it, I would constantly be affected in school and dance. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, over 40 million adults in the U.S. have anxiety disorder. I have found ways to manage it. Through taking deep breaths and asking myself if ‘events will matter in five years’, I have learned to manage my anxiety, and life has become more enjoyable. As more people are experiencing anxiety, it is vital that we find tools to help these individuals, so that they can learn to enjoy life more. If I could go back and talk to my younger self, I would tell her that she is not alone in feeling this way, and there are ways to help individuals with anxiety, and it is often a very simple solution.