Being a young adult in America isn’t easy. Between school, jobs, bills, social engagements and personal health, balance is difficult to maintain. Personal health is typically the aspect that ends up suffering most out of all of these, one becoming too stressed out to function in a productive, healthy, happy way.

There are numerous ways that people deal with their stress. Some turn to their loved ones for support, some turn to art, some turn to vices, some to food. I myself am guilty of eating my feelings and stress, which in turn only stresses me out more.

I didn’t even realize at first what I was doing to myself. Due to my hectic work and school schedule, eating at weird times and in odd successions of food is normal for me, so I didn’t notice that it was getting out of hand. I was spending more money on McDonald's than real groceries, and at any sign of negative emotion—anxiety, depression, boredom—I sought solace in the fridge.

Only when I started to notice the effects did I understand what was happening. I was gaining weight, something I’ve struggled to maintain my whole life, and thus my self-esteem started to dip. My bank statement came back with purchase after purchase of junk food. I became agitated every time I entered my kitchen, unable to find anything satisfactory to eat and still feeling dissatisfied whenever I did make a food decision. It wasn’t the food’s fault though; it was my perception of the food that was the problem. I wasn’t hungry—I was trying to eat my feelings.

Once I got with the picture, I knew that I had to make a change. I couldn’t keep feeding my stress and harming my life like this. It’s a hard habit to break though. Not only did my body start to expect and want more food intake each day, but my schedule made it easier to choose unhealthy options. For example, I have an hour between class and work most days. It takes 20 minutes to drive from home to school, 20 from school to work, and 20 from home to work. So either I drive for 40 minutes to get healthy food from home before work and not have adequate time to ready myself for work, or I pick up McDonald's and only drive for 25 and have plenty of time to ready myself. For gas and time’s sake, I usually choose the latter.

There are so many ways to manage stress in a productive, healthy way though. My own first step to improving my stress management was to keep reminding myself that I have a stress management problem. So now, I have written on my hand “SEYF/S”, which stands for “Stop Eating Your Feelings/Stress.” Using an acronym keeps my struggle private from everyone around me, and the placement is in a place that I constantly see, thus always reminding me to practice healthy eating habits and to use productive stress management.

My second step is catching myself every time I go for some food. Why am I about to eat? Is my body actually hungry, or is it an emotion? Would having water or another drink work instead? If I am actually hungry and need food, what are all of my options? It’s easy to microwave taquitos or unwrap cookies, but it would be healthier to grab a fruit or make pasta. Instead of buying fast food for the fifth time this week, I need to prepare food for myself to take with me for that in-between hour, such as sandwiches or leftovers to microwave.

Step three is to find another channel for my stress. Common modes of stress relief include: exercise and/or spending time outdoors, engaging in an art or hobby, listening to music, engaging with loved ones, relaxing with a book or movie/TV show and getting adequate amounts of sleep. Personally, I am a sedentary, inside person, so I will try practicing all of these sans the first one. Not getting enough sleep is one of my stress-inducers right now, so getting more sleep is the one I’m working on hardest. Otherwise, I am mostly also trying to spend more time with my friends and work on my art with non-academic motives.

Hopefully these practices will help me function in a productive, healthy, happy way. In this part of life, when there are so many responsibilities to juggle and there never seems to be enough time or money to succeed at it all, it’s important to manage stress in the least harmful ways possible. Eating one's feelings, feeding that stress, is not one of those ways, and combating such a habit is hard. Improving one’s diet, and thus stress management, however, is worth the effort in order to live and thrive in this stage of life.