Many online resources list a wealth of helpful skills and tools for managing stress and overwhelm at school, such as this article from Wake Forest, School Stress Management: Tips and Strategies for Students of All Ages. These suggestions include recommendations on sleep, exercise, breathwork, music, nutrition, social groups, mindfulness, progressive muscle relaxation, and guided imagery. Incorporating strategies like these can be life-changing for navigating school stress and overwhelm.


At the same time, implementing many of these changes can feel like “add-ons” to an already busy schedule. The key barrier to incorporating them isn’t always better time management, a phrase that comes up frequently in student mental health discourse. Time management is important, but no amount of organization and scheduling can magically create time.


So, how might you curate a healthy relationship with stress and feeling overwhelmed? Here are a few ideas to try that might be supportive:


1. Triage


In a fantastic Ted Talk, ER Doctor Darria Long shares and reapplies the triage framework used in most Emergency Rooms. In medicine, war, and disaster situations, ‘triaging’ is a process that allows doctors to sort sick or injured people into groups. These groups are organized by need or benefit from immediate medical care or treatment. Cases are labelled by color, and each color aligns with a level of urgency. As a student, let’s say you use the colors black, red, orange, yellow, and green. Perhaps you assign them labels like this:


  • Black → cannot be completed

  • Red → urgent and needs to be completed now

  • Orange → needs to be completed today, maybe tomorrow

  • Yellow → can be completed tomorrow or later this week

  • Green → can be completed next week


Next, maybe on a Sunday as you prepare for the week ahead, you write out a list of day-to-day activities and tasks for the week. None are more important or valued than the other, so your list includes school work, extracurriculars, family, social time, appointments, nutrition, sleep, exercise, hydration, and anything else you’d like to include. Rather than adding new strategies on top of your school requirements, everything is braided together. Now, triage each item on your list with a color. For example, your triage might look something like this:*


  • Black

    • Attending office hours for homework help (conflicts with a class or test)

    • Picking up an extra shift after school (won’t have enough study time for my test on Thursday)

  • Red

    • Finish up my problem set due Monday afternoon

    • Finish my taxes due by midnight

  • Orange

    • Exercise

    • Nap

    • Call the dentist to schedule my check up

    • Homework due Tuesday

  • Yellow

    • Homework due Wednesday

    • Final studying for test on Thursday

    • Problem sets due Friday

    • Call my parents

    • Find a gift for my friend’s birthday this weekend

  • Green

    • Schedule something fun with a friend this week

    • Exam prep for next month


*Chances are, your yellow and green sections will be much longer than in this example, and you might like to organize them further by weekday!


Likely, you’ll have more on your list than in this example, but, instead of staring down fifteen items at once, you’re only looking at a few, and they're in order of which to do first. This way, you’ve removed the stressful time variable of “when” you’ll need to do everything because each task or activity is prioritized accordingly.



Importantly, know that your triaging will shift as you move through your day and week. As you finish your problem set and taxes, for example, exercise, naptime, calling the dentist, and homework may move into red. Perhaps you didn’t sleep as well the night before, so a nap moves to red while exercise stays orange. Similarly, maybe you know your homework due on Tuesday could take a bit longer, so it moves up to red. Or, perhaps it’s easy, so exercise can move up to red instead. Experiment with this process a little bit, and choose a pattern that works for you and your schedule!



2. In the weeds!


In restaurants, the call code for overwhelm is “in the weeds.” This is what a server says when they’re struggling to keep up with tasks, customers, and orders. Something to consider might be your own call code—something simple you could send to a select number of friends or family who also know it and what it means for them to receive it. When explaining this to them, you may also let them know how they could offer support when you use your code word. For example, perhaps you set up a process with a friend: when you text them your code word, they know to meet you after your third period math class and give you a hug. A system of support, like this, shouldn’t replace speaking about what you’re experiencing. It can, however, be a catalyst or gateway to sharing what you’re going through. Because you don’t have to ‘ask for help’ directly (you’re simply texting a single word), it removes extra steps and stress when you’re feeling overwhelmed. This technique might be especially helpful for you if you tend to turn inward or become nonverbal when you’re feeling stressed.



3. Communication


On the topic of communication, there is immense value in speaking up honestly and often. It might feel like you can only ask for help or extensions in a crisis situation, but this isn’t true. It’s 100% okay to ask for support or extensions that aren’t crisis related, such as, “I haven’t slept well and need some time to rest so I can hand in my best work. Could I have one extra day to finish my problem set?” Or “I haven’t been able to connect with my friends and family, and I need to lean on them right now. For the few hours this afternoon that I’d normally finish up my assignment, it would be helpful for me to connect with my family and friends so that I can finish my assignment as well as I know I’m capable of.”


The key here is being honest with yourself and others, not manipulative. Leaving something until the last minute without communicating is different from noticing, part way, why you’re procrastinating. Are you avoiding an assignment because it’s acutely uninteresting/boring or because you’re exhausted from something chronic happening at home? Never put your life and wellbeing second to school work, and always communicate—to the best of your ability—what you need, especially if it’s just a bit more time to ground yourself, regroup, and return to schoolwork healthy and rested. Sometimes, thirty extra minutes is all you need, and a few more hours or days to complete an assignment won’t be as disruptive as you think.


In the same vein, this applies to smaller periods of time, too. For example, you might ask for a few extra minutes on a test to use the washroom or do some breathing exercises part way through, if you find you’re feeling overwhelmed. If class feels overstimulating, maybe you ask to go for a walk or close your eyes at your desk and listen to calming music for ten minutes.


Vitally, part of communication also includes communication with yourself. Pay attention to how your body feels across school situations—while writing tests, in the classroom, doing homework at home or in a third space, during lunch break, or during sports, for example. When does overwhelm tend to take shape? When might you need support with stress the most? You can ask your body questions—it will respond in the language of fatigue, aches, hunger, fear, or panic, for example. Learning their language will help you maintain a conversation with your mind and body, and further communicate what they say to your family, friends, coaches, teachers, co-workers, and more.


4. Change your mindset: walking with rather than coping or overcoming


Lastly, to frame what we’ve discussed, much of the dialogue around student mental health help and navigating stress at school is labelled ‘coping’ or ‘overcoming.’ Stress and overwhelm aren’t necessarily things you can overcome or conquer—as much as you might like to! Rather, they’re another part of life that we learn to walk with. Overwhelm and high levels of stress shouldn’t be states we accept as always present, but they will likely come in cycles and seasons, just like nature. That’s completely normal. When we speak about tools to navigate stress and overwhelm, we’re really speaking about tools to greet them when they knock on the door—not to get rid of them forever. As a student, this is a great time to learn how to open the door gently. Many of the tools above, if implemented now, will become habits that support you as you prepare for what comes next academically, adulthood, and beyond.