What is it that makes you feel down some­times, or per­haps more times than usual these days? Although col­lege can be one of the most fun expe­ri­ences of your life­time, it can also be one of the most chal­leng­ing. Now, you have prob­a­bly heard of that before, but if you really think about it, such obsta­cles or even lack of obsta­cles can altar your mood. You’re also at a unique place in this time of your life as a stu­dent in this reces­sion. This is quite a chal­leng­ing time for all of us, but within these times, lays many oppor­tu­ni­ties that can allow our­selves to seize the con­trol of the tools avail­able for our suc­cess. You lit­er­ally have the world and such a vast amount of infor­ma­tion at your fin­ger­tips. You can find out about any­thing within a click of a but­ton. And yet, with all this avail­able to us, with all these resources we can uti­lize for our own per­sonal devel­op­ment and the net­work of peo­ple and peers we can eas­ily reach out to, for some rea­son we still may feel the weigh of the world on our shoul­ders. So really, what is the root of such down days? And how can we bounce back on track?

First thing’s first, take a step back and revert your­self to some­thing you enjoy doing. What­ever your out­let is, take advan­tage of it. (Just to clar­ify this does not include out­lets of any­thing harm­ful to your health!) In one of my expe­ri­ences, one day I sunk into a bad mood. I knew it was about a self-evaluation of my per­for­mance in a work assign­ment I was doing, and I knew I could do it bet­ter. But for some rea­son, I just was not deliv­er­ing the best of my abil­i­ties to the project. So, I left and went for a run. I love run­ning. Dur­ing the run I focused on just how good it is to have the abil­ity to run, thought about how minute my bad mood really was and started to feel bet­ter just from doing some­thing about it indi­rectly, instead of sulk­ing in the dis­par­ity of the moment.

We can con­fide in things that help us see our poten­tial to step out of that neg­a­tive place. And it could be as sim­ple as step­ping out­side and going for a walk, lis­ten­ing to your favorite music, or shout­ing into your pil­low (then laugh­ing about it because your room mate was in the same room!). My cur­rent out­let is that I call some­one to vent. I usu­ally call my best friend to tell her even the most minis­cule silly things that bugged me. Talk­ing it out is def­i­nitely a great way to feel bet­ter, and in other ways it can make such a bad mood seem com­i­cal and ridicu­lously funny. And most of our really bad moods are derived from a big pile of minor bad moods that just built up. It’s good to vent even the lit­tlest things that irk us.

Of course there are many ways to deal with such phases in our lives, but keep in mind that at the end of the day where you are right now as a col­lege stu­dent is where oth­ers want to be. So many yearn for such an edu­ca­tion and oppor­tu­nity. Many yearn to have that choice. To remem­ber that helps all of us to be aware of what goes on around the world, espe­cially now, and for such a place to be we should con­sider our­selves lucky. With this I hope it helps you to under­stand the poten­tial you have as a stu­dent. Bad days will come, and it’s ok to embrace that painful feel­ing not mat­ter how big or small it may be. But it is the way in which you han­dle it that deter­mines the out­come, and that is def­i­nitely in your con­trol. So don’t worry about what you can’t con­trol, and be happy about all the good things you have in your life that will help you get through the rough roads!