Welcome, ladies and gentlemen of Edina High School, to the second month of the school year. And let me be the first to congratulate you all because you have made it this far without spontaneously combusting. Now you may think I’m being facetious, but I am 100% serious in that making it through school with a level head is no small feat.

In my opinion, the stress of school is enough to make anyone go mad. Did you know that according to the 2002 World Mental Health Survey, the average high school student had the same level of anxiety as an average psychiatric patient in the 1950s? And that survey was taken 12 years ago! Imagine how much more stress has been added since then.

I don’t know what it is about junior year that got me, but from day one I was stressed beyond belief. Whether it was about my ACT score not being high enough, my classes not being rigorous enough, if I could possibly fit in another extracurricular to jack my resume…

And then the shining light of realization shone down upon me, the angels starting singing, and I heard a voice reminiscent of Morgan Freeman say, “Relax, you are not your GPA”.

I think many students here at EHS as well as high schools everywhere, feel the excruciating need to excel in everything in order to get into a good college in order to get a good job in order to be successful in order to get married in order to have 2.5 children in a white picketed yard. *pause for breath*  However, if you are too stressed to even breathe, how are you possibly going to be successful. I think for me, realizing that I was not a robot with perfect test scores was just the thing I needed in order to not explode under the pressure.

So, overly stressed students, take a breather. If you know the material, take a break, and be confident in your knowledge. If you already have a super packed day, one more extracurricular that you don’t love isn’t going to sway the Harvard Board of Admissions. If you worked your butt off on that AP U.S. History assignment, and didn’t get 100%, thats life, and it’s not going to end anytime soon.

Tip #003: Don’t let stress get you down. You are not your test score. Go take a nap.