Papers due, tests in every subject, and projects being thrown at students left and right—welcome to the end of the quarter.

At this time of the year, debatably the scariest part of spooky season is the stress it causes among WS students.

As the work piles on, stress consumes us in what seems to be a never-ending pit. Vampires and ghosts don’t stand a chance against the haunting and terrifying fears SIS places over our lives.

All joking aside, stress is becoming a large issue at WS. There are some students who have had problems with their physical health which were directly related to the stress in their lives. This leads people to question their course loads and whether they overestimated the amount of time they had to complete assignments.

There has also been more focus on mental awareness through determining whether your stress can affect you to an extent where you want to consider making changes to eliminate certain origins of it in your life. This causes people to stress, about being stressed.

Needless to say, stress is a major contributor to the negative attitudes toward school for many students. It is also a normal response to the overwhelming workload students tend to face at the end of each quarter. Although it is normal and many of us manage to push through the all-encompassing end-of-the-quarter stresses, it doesn’t mean you need to persevere all on your own. WS offers a variety of resources you can utilize to help cope with stress.

One resource is your counselor. If the stress seems to be overwhelming you, your counselor is available to listen and offer suggestions to help you better manage your time.

Teachers are another means of assisting students in handling stress. If you need time set aside to work on a specific subject, many teachers are willing to offer up their classroom and time to help students better understand what they are teaching.

WS is also implementing a new program called Sources of Strength (SOS) to help all students promote a healthy mindset and build resilience to face issues that arise from stress.

Poet John Donne said it best, “No man is an island entire of itself.” Stress happens but it’s important to recognize the signs, so it starts to hurt you to an unhealthy extent, you can find ways to help you when you need them.