The worst thing you can do in stressful situations is start to panic. You start to panic and then boom, suddenly your problems seem a whole lot worse than they actually are and you feel like the best thing to do is curl up in a ball and cry.
That’s totally illogical, but in your stress-riddled brain it seems very normal and logical. Absolutely the best and most productive thing to do, lying in a ball on your floor and wondering how it all went wrong.
Luckily there are ways to cope, although it’s best to get this stuff done early, before a crisis. That’s the whole reason I took a stress management course, because I did the maths and the primary equation was worrying. Going back to study as a mature-age student + me never being great with deadlines or essays + taking a notoriously hard subject + me being a total stress-head when the supermarket runs out out the specific size of milk I went in there to buy? All of it equals utter stress meltdown disaster. At least I saw it coming. They even do stress management courses for students, and they’re all totally chilled (as you’d hope) so you don’t get stressed while taking the stress course. You’d hope that the course to help you deal with stress doesn’t set a 3000-word essay on anxiety through the middle ages and mandate that it’s submitted on time, three days from then. That would be silly.
Good thing I took the course as well. Let me tell you, criminology does NOT pull any punches. It’s on essay after another and they take attendance at every single lecture, so you’d better not catch a cold or have your pet get sick.
Could’ve been worse. Stress management for students is now actually an issue that’s treated with some gravitas, rather than everyone being told to suck it up and write their 5000-words in three hours. Children never complained back in the day, apparently.