Five Ways to Fight a Stress Headache: Student Edition

We all know the feeling. It's 5 pm the day before a paper's due, and you have that little ache starting just behind your eyes. So you take some aspirin and hope it'll go away. By 9 pm, the ache has grown into full-blown pain, and your pain reliever isn't even touching it. All you want to do is close your eyes and sleep until you can't sleep anymore, but you still have four pages of your paper to write.

This, my friend, is a stress headache, student edition. Like all stress headaches, it's caused by tension and pressure, particularly the pressure of a fast approaching deadline. Often it can lead to a vicious cycle: impending deadline leads to stress, which gives you a headache, which makes it hard to concentrate, which makes you worry that you'll miss the deadline, which causes stress, which worsens your headache, which... You get the idea. It's not a pleasant experience.

But it doesn't have to mean you're doomed to misery and a late paper (or a failed test). Here are some tricks I've used to stop the cycle and get things back on track.

Leave the library

Seriously, unless you have an amazingly peaceful library, get out of there. Overhead fluorescent lights are death to headache sufferers, and being surrounded by other stressed people doesn't do you any good either. If it's early enough, you can annoy the local coffee shop by monopolizing a table. If your roommate's asleep, try turning on a desk lamp and working in your room. If it's warm out and your campus isn't dangerous at night, find a bench under a streetlight. Be creative. If you really have nowhere else to go, try upper floors and remote corners in the library to find a spot with minimal distractions.

Have a cup of tea

The jury is still out on whether or not caffeine is helpful in getting rid of a headache, but I can testify that the mere presence of a hot, soothing drink will help immensely. Try closing your eyes and breathing in the steam for a minute or two. An herbal tea will give you a bit of aromatherapy as well.

Distract yourself

It's good to get your thoughts away from work for a while. But be careful here - don't google "headache paper due" or something like that and sit there feeling sorry for yourself for half an hour. Do something that's completely unrelated, but that requires some mental energy, like working a crossword or some sort of puzzle game. This will keep exhaustion from taking over and hopefully allow you to completely forget about what you're working on for a while. Of course, this can backfire, so set an alarm on your cell phone to remind you to go back to work.

Take a walk

A stroll around the block will put some physical distance between you and your work, allowing you a bit of mental breathing room while also giving you some new stimulation. Plus, physical activity will stimulate mood-improving endorphins. It may not sound too appealing to your exhausted self at first, but give it a try. I think you'll be surprised at the effectiveness of this strategy.

Last resort: take a nap

This is the most time-consuming strategy, so it's one I only use when I'm really desperate. It usually stops the headache cycle, but it also stops my work momentum cold. Then when I wake up, I find it very difficult to get going again. So be warned: sleeping will remove your headache better than anything else, but it's difficult to manage when you're working on deadline.

So take heart, my friend: your headache doesn't have to be debilitating. It's more than possible to get past it and finish your work, especially if you stop reading advice articles on-line and take an actual break. So put No. 3 into action right now, and go find yourself a crossword puzzle.