heavy workload stresses me out. i'm so depressed. everything goes wrong. i'm too tired and sleepy to think of anything. all i do is to gorge myself on chocolates, chips, and high-carb food, and it never seem to be enough. i feel very bad after eating all those stuff, but i can't stop myself. i've put on many pounds already. what can i do.

Phoebe, is there a school counsellor you can talk to? They could probably give you suggestions or courses to take on handling stress without using food. Please get some help for it now. Don't worry about weight loss for now, just focus on getting yourself better.

Do you do any physical activity? It can really help to calm your mind and keep you focussed.

I was once in your situation and it took me until the age of 43 to do something about it. I used food to solve everything but it didn't solve anything. I could eat until I wanted to throw up. I still had all the stress and all the problems and just got fatter and more miserable. Please don't let it get this far with you.

Karen

Please don't give up on yourself. Go for a walk. Send yourself some flowers.
Hide some money in a pocket of something you want to wear in the spring.
I am battling a depression, taking St. Johns Wort and working on enjoying my life more and worring about other poople and what they think less. I have had a hard time recently following the diet but I'm willing to keep trying.
Blessings
Joy

I can relate to that - when my workload gets too heavy, it stresses me too. And yes, my way of coping was to eat biscuits by the packet - so now I'm insulin resistant and was headed towards diabetes! Just something else to cope with.

Things I did:
Decided that good enough was good enough, everything didn't have to be perfect. There's a saying (Pareto principle) that you get the first 80% of a job done in the first 20% of the time and then it takes you the remaining 80% of the time to do the last 20% of the work. If it ain't life threatening, maybe 80% will do sometimes.

Talked to my boss about the fact that I was working so long I wasn't sleeping enough, let alone having a life and got some reallocation of my work. He wasn't odd about it either, which I was worried about. In fact, he was amazed how much I was doing and agreed it was too much.

Broke my work into bitesized chunks (30 minutes) and gave myself a break - make a coffee, walk to find someone rather than phone and then made myself take proper breaks and lunchtimes - went and sat with other folk for lunch instead of in front of my computer. It actually made me work better and faster while I was working.

Finally, like lots of the advice here, I got some exercise (walking for 30 mins a day) and kept off the booze, both of which made me sleep better when I did get to bed.

Incidentally, the more hassled you are, the more 'processing' your brain needs to do at night, so the more REM sleep and the less 'recuperative' sleep you do. So you wake up tired.
To break the cycle, you need to chill - see above!

Take care love, you owe it to yourself to sort this out. Everyone is very hot on 'work/life balance' these days, so I think you'll get a sympathetic hearing if you go and talk to someone.
Good luck, Jay

I don't know what location you are at. But this is the SAD season. Ask your counselor to have you evaluated for types of depression. It could just be stress and feeling overwhelmed or it could be something else. Good Luck. Try to get outside every day for a bit of fresh air.

i'm feeling better. i try to go out for a walk when i feel bad. it really helps. every morning i tell myself that it's gonna be a beautiful day, and i'll be in a good mood for the whole day. thanks a lot

hang in there, I'm glad to hear you are feeling better.

The walking sounds very helpful.

HEY....I should probably do that too!!!!