5 Hints to Handle Stress

Raise your hand if you have ever been personally victimised by stress and anxiety? For some odd reason people feel the need to hide the fact they feel stressed or worried or anxious maybe not to worry other people about it or maybe they just don’t want to burden anyone with their feelings?

And that’s cool, I totally understand that.

But for some reason, people feeling like they can’t express their emotions; it can end up with people feel like they can’t cope and then they explode. I know I have been there several times!

It’s been three weeks since I started my last year in University and let’s just say it’s been torture. I’m already exhausted and I can feel my concentration levels already going down. Each reading task is difficult, the work load feels extreme and all I want to do is be cooped up in my bedroom watching Dexter on Netflix and eating Ben & Jerrys.

I’ve recently felt that at the moment I’m wearing this feeble mask which is slowly peeling off. I’m getting irritable on the most irrelevant shit possible. I get overly panicked over the tiniest thing (the other day I got panicked over the idea I lost my textbook which turned out it was in my bedroom). My housemates and my University friends are probably feeling fed up with me because my moods are so up and down.

But do you know what’s great? Is that knowing I’m not the only person feeling like this. Even though my friends won’t vocalise it simple phrases such as ‘I couldn’t sleep last night’ or ‘I couldn’t concentrate on that reading…’  or ‘I’m done with uni already’. Has strangely reassured me. (I am normal and not alone.)

It’s really difficult to make yourself feel motivated, it’s a struggle to get out of bed especially when it’s getting so cold!

But do you know what keep me going? In 5 years this won’t matter.

That piece of coursework you are worrying about? Yeah You will probably stress and stress over it and you will absolutely nail it.

Everything will fall in to place and sorry to say that staying in bed doesn’t just make it happen but acknowledging that you are feeling stressed and worried and coming up with some sort of strategy for it can help.

I’m sure whatever year you’re in, whether you are doing GCSE, A-Levels , 1st /2nd  Year of uni you want to do well. But sometimes it’s difficult to prioritise your work and then everything else such your social life just seems almost impossible to fit in?

Well I’m going to hopefully give you a few hints on how to manage your work load and stress management.

H I N T  O N E : P R I O R I T I S I N G  Y O U R  T I M E

I can’t remember the name of this table, but since I learnt that I found it extremely useful to see what I need to get done and what things were silly that I was stressing about. The idea is to get A done straight away and drop D ASAP but it frees your mind.

H I N T  T W O: S L E E P

This sounds like such an obvious one doesn’t it? And if you’re like me who struggles to get in to a good sleeping pattern and cannot fall asleep for ages. My suggestion is to go to bed at the same time every night, even if you don’t necessarily fall asleep straight away. Put something on, turn away from your laptop because the light bright will keep you up and move your alarm far away from your bed so when it goes off you will get up on time, slowly you will fall asleep earlier!

H I N T  T H R E E:  C R Y

Yup, you’ve got that right! Cry. Crying is a natural stress reliever and sometimes we need to just let it out. Whether it’s for an hour or for 10 minutes. It’s totally okay to cry! Just don’t let it consume you and bring down everyone around you when they could be feeling low too.

 
H I N T  F O U R:  B E  P R O D U C T I V E

It is okay to throw yourself a pity party once in a while, heck once/twice a week if you need it! But don’t let yourself fall in the trap where you don’t physically do anything all day. At least go for a walk for 10 minutes. Staying in bed doing nothing doesn’t help anyone, especially yourself. I find going for a walk clears my head. But if you give yourself small realistic goals of what you want to do in that week, when you complete it you feel like you’ve achieved something.

H I N T  F I V E:  L E T  I T  G O

Ok don’t get me wrong, you aren’t exactly cured but sometimes writing things down which are stressing you out like your jackass of your boyfriend (I mean how dare he like her picture?) or just coursework or someone in work or just life in general. Sometimes writing it down and letting it all out on a piece of paper and then ripping it up is strangely satisfying. However, sometimes simply going to the gym or colouring can make you feel relieved temporarily.

I hope that helps anyone who is struggling right now, please comment any of your tips to handle stress xo  

What did I do Monday Night?

My teacher once said that we as human beings post photos of exciting things that we do on social media because we want to appear like we have exciting lives. We don’t capture the mundane things in life.
Why would we want too? My Monday nights would usually consist of doing university work, watching Netflix and eating chocolate (probably what I will be doing next week) but last night, I went to see ‘The Hunna’ (HUN-na).

Honestly, I don’t do anything exhilarating and the last time I went to a gig before this was 18 months ago which I’m pretty sure 15-year-old Hannah would be very  disappointed with…

So I thought why not blog about it? I’m no musical expert, I have no idea what an ‘Accelerando’ is or what ‘Allego’ means so I couldn’t explain why ‘The Hunna’ is pleasing to hear and Why they are addictive. 

Previously. I actually read an article the other day about how some random person was suspicious about 'The Hunna' being a cult because of  how rapid they became popular...

 I mean seriously who are they and how have they become such a sensation in such a fast amount of time?

 With such little amount of songs out there?

How are they that good?

I mean, Their fan based grew increasingly after they toured with the ‘Coasts’ and now they are taking over Spotify(that has to be suspicious right?) 

 So how have they done this?

 Oh I don’t know, maybe by hard work?

 Maybe by having good promotional team?

And just maybe it’s because their music is that damn good?

 …#

Who knows?

But it’s safe to say that the Hunna isn’t a cult.

(I hope)

So who are the Hunna?

Some of you may be reading this and thinking ‘That’s all great and all but who the bloody hell are they?’. Well the Hunna are a four-piece indie rock band who was formed by Ryan Potter (Lead Vocals and Guitar) and Daniel Dorney (Lead Guitarist). With then Jack Metcalfe who is a ‘monster of a drummer’ and Jermaine Angin who plays on Bass. According to other bloggers, they are extremely humble and friendly.  If you haven’t listened to them already, then you should because Potter’s husky voice is enough to get you addicted.

The Venue:

So I went to see ‘The Hunna’ at Thekla in Bristol. (Those of you who are reading this and live in Bristol and are a student have not been to Thekla before on a Thursday, what are you doing? What is your life? Buy One Get One Free on Drinks and not to mention that they actually play good music). Thekla is a cargo ship which is just chilling by the Harbour although once your inside you don’t actually realise it’s a ship until you end out in the smoking area. There are usually two different rooms you can go too ‘the upstairs’ and ‘the down stairs’ however It’s pretty dark inside but the sound is incredible, but my ears wasn't ringing that much after the gig which is always a positive thing.

You get a stamp when you are 18+ even though the bartender probs thought I was 14

What I wore:

Anyone who has been in a crowd knows how hot and sweaty it gets; wearing simple jeans would have just been too hot. So I wore my ‘Keya Cami Cross Over Dress’ from Boutique of Molly. And  of course I paired them with converses, you have to wear comfortable shoes! However, this dress was the last one but if you click on the link and use the Code HANN20 then you will get 20% off any item….
and that's pretty cool...

It was the last one (sorry-ish) but who says you can't rock a dress at a gig eh?

The Crowd:

Have you ever been to a gig/show where people are just standing there bored shitless or just bobbing their heads slightly and you are just standing there like ‘uhhh’? Well sorry to disappoint you but this didn’t happen at the Hunna.
 Everyone and I mean literally everyone was so in to it, it just made the atmosphere amazing.
 The crowd’s reaction was immense, from jumping around to everyone getting their phones out to use as lights as torches.
What was pleasing to see was how much the band were loving the audience’s reaction; even though they must have been knackered it was like everyone who was jumping around and singing along with them made them feel like they needed to keep going.
It was the fuel they needed to satisfy their hunger.
It was such an intense feeling being in the crowd when everyone you were surrounded by knew all the lyrics to each song and you could tell that some of the lyrics hit home for some people.
 At one point, Ryan Potter wore one of his fans hat, he took it right off him and owned it!
 It was truly a spiritual feeling when each fan would sing and dance to a song. When 'She's Casual' came on, most girls sat on some guys shoulders being swayed along (sadly not me) but it was nice to be a part of a crowd which we're not dicks and was considerate of other people.
  And what was so amazing was at the end, the Hunna actually wanted to hangout with fans; they offered to smoke and chill (trust me if I didn't have to have get up at 7 am that morning I would of happily have done that) and just wanted to let their fans know that they appreciated them, which you don't really see that now!

So overall, everyone should go see the Hunna or at least listen to them.

The Beauty Myth: Why I Wear Make- Up

Being a feminist; one question which is constantly recurring is that ‘why do you wear make – up?’. Considering I go against other social norms such as not shaving my legs (*expects comments about how it’s gross*) so why do I follow this particular social convention?

Don’t get me wrong, as a child I have always been exposed to make-up. However, my mum wasn’t the type to wear heavily make – up.  Actually she’s never really wore foundation unless it was a rare occasion such as a wedding. But when it came down to it, she only really wore eye-shadow and mascara and eventually that’s where I started.

I remember it now, being 11 putting bright pink eye-shadow on the lids looking awful because I read in some magazine like ‘girl code’ or something like that telling me that the pink would make my eyes pop. I wasn’t alone in this transformation; I swear most girls wore bad colour eye-shadow at the age of 11/12.

In all honesty, my mum wouldn’t me wear foundation because of how bad it was for your skin. But what happens at the age of 12? You start to spot and all you want to do is cover it. School girls and boys could be mean and taking the mic out of spots then; well at the time it hurt. I mean now it’s laughable.

It’s extremely frustrating now when you see 13-year-old girls being able to do make-up better than you. Remember when you wore foundations 5 shades darker than you needed too and paying about £3 for a squeeze tube? Yes, me too, I remember buying my first foundation and being excited because I could finally cover my spots!

And that was it, make-up started being about hiding my imperfections instead of it being about the beauty that was already there but just being enhanced. I really wasn’t comfortable with walking around natural.

Once again, don’t get me wrong I still had days where I didn’t wear make- up I didn’t feel confident without my ‘warrior mask’ on so I was able to face the outside world.

But a month ago something changed… 

I m p e t i g o

As you can see by the photos, having these marks on my face is definitely not pleasing to look at. Hand on heart, I could say that I’d rather have 6 huge spots on the end of nose than having Impetigo again. But it was a learning curve. The amount of people who asked me ‘What was wrong with my face?’ taught me it really wasn’t the worse thing in the world people looking at my face with no make - up on. Don’t get me wrong these we’re hideous and I had a lot of negative comments.

Actually, when I was out before I made a speech about how I had impetigo on my face and that’s what it was. I answered questions for them before they even asked:

‘Before you ask what’s on my face, I have impetigo. It’s an infection but no it’s not an STI. It is contagious but now I started antibiotics so you won’t get it, but it’s probably best to avoid skin to skin contact. No, this doesn’t mean I have poor hygiene I just didn’t clean out my wound properly. This doesn’t mean I do not shower… Are there any questions? No, OK. Good.’

But one of my friends came later and eventually asked me what was on my face, meaning no harm but after a few drinks, I do become emotional and then ranted about how I wish people would stop asking me what it was…

Now you make look at my face there and think ‘Why didn’t you just use make – up?’ to cover it up. But putting foundation/powder on would have made it spread over my face even more. I even had to chuck my real technique foundation brush out (Sob). And not being able to wear foundation or powder made me feel lazy about doing things such as my eyebrows and my eye make-up.

I can’t explain why, but for some reason I just didn’t care. I actually got use to people asking me what was on my face, no-one said anything about my eyebrows being fuller or my face looking fat or ask me why I don’t wear eyeliner.

In reality, no-one gave a shit about the fact that my face being make-up less. ‘Why would they?’. The only thing people really cared about was the thing on my face. So, not wearing make-up became such a routine. That when it first cleared up, I didn’t even put any on.

So, to answer people’s question ‘for being such a feminist, why do you wear make – up?’ One) Being a feminist really doesn’t mean that I have to go against every social convention ever… Two) because I bloody well want too – as sad as it sounds, it’s actually quite therapeutic putting on make-up, it is sometimes really satisfying when you completed your eyeliner or draw your eyebrows on like you’ve achieved something. Don’t get me wrong, I do think that society was the reason I started wearing make – up but why I continue now is for my own personal enjoyment not because of ‘social pressures’.