I'll Just Yell it Out: Ways to manage stress

**SPOILERS**

So many ways to manage stress!

Stress hits us and manifests in so many ways- our eating habits, sleep, emotions, ability to gain pleasure from activities, ability to focus...

And we can manage the stress in different ways- sleeping, eating too much ice cream, becoming a couch potato, or just yelling it out.

Let’s take a look at a couple of anime characters who have handled stressful situations in different ways. I’m not going to call either a better or worse, or even a healthier or less-healthy option. We can only do what we think is best with the information we have at the time we make the decision.

I'll Just Ignore It

So we’ll start with Mieruko-chan. Mieruko is a high school student who suddenly starts seeing ghosts. What does she decide to do? She decides to try to ignore them and pretend they don’t exist. Goes to lengths of getting protective beads and blatantly ignoring these big blob ghosts staring her down and getting right in her face.

Kind of reminds me of ostriches burying their heads in the sand.* If we pretend it isn’t there, it goes away right?

Hmm.. not necessarily. But hey, it allows her to keep going about her day in a … fairly normal way. Maybe it’s better than being called a Chunibyo or some other social detriment.

I'll Make it My Identity

Remember when Eren in Attack on Titan gets injected with Zeke’s spinal fluid and becomes the Attack Titan? A few things could have happened. He could have rejected it, or kept it secret forever, or immediately started his rampage and we would have skipped several seasons and a lot of frustration waiting for the real last season/episode.

But he decides to use this new found power to help his people repair the walls, develop a plan for saving Paradis Island from the Marleyans. He shares his power and even seeks help to grow it and learn to control the Attack Titan.

Taking that challenge on head first! Was it his best choice? Who knows? He was exploited by the other scouts to a degree but was doing what he thought was best with the information he had. He gained a skill that made him stronger and more useful to his people.

I'll Just Yell it Out

We can't ignore the famed Dragonball series. What do the Saiyans do in response to literally anything? They yell and power up for 3 episodes until they are strong enough to take on the new foe. They use the stress of battle to grow and become stronger and stronger, always able to take on new challenges. They see the stress as a teacher or a guide to becoming stronger and better fighters.

Impacts of Stress

Stress hits us in a number of ways, and we can respond in just as many different ways. Coping skills, self-care, therapy to name a few. In anime, they always provide beautiful depictions of ways to respond to stress. There is always some sort of challenge that the main characters have to face, and the fun thing is, depending on the genre you gravitate toward, you'll always see a new way of handling the stress. Whether it be ignoring it, making it part of you, or viewing it as a way to level up.

What about you?

We can never really definitively say what we would do in hypothetical situations. But think about what you might do if an unexpected challenge were to suddenly attack you?

*Note that Ostriches don’t actually bury their heads to ignore or hide from something. It’s actually to check on their eggs. There’s your fun fact for the day!