If you’re anything like me, if tomorrow isn’t the due-date, today isn’t the do-date. As it stands, I’m writing this the period before it’s due. I know there’s a word for it, but I’ll look it up later.

  Anyway, maybe you’re not like me; maybe you do all your work as soon as it’s assigned. If that’s the case, you might as well just stop; you don’t need to read this. But if you are like me, if you procrastinate too, then you get the stress. You get the feeling of your life falling apart, and you’re just sitting there, sipping your coffee while everything is on fire. If you’re in that burning boat with me, I have some important information for you.

  Chances are if you’re stressed because of impending deadlines and due dates, your stress falls into the toxic category. There are three types of stress, according to the Center for the Developing Child at Harvard University: Positive stress, tolerable stress, and toxic stress.  Let’s take a look at the different types.

  Positive stress is your basic asking-someone-out or giving-a-presentation type of stress; it’s the basic butterflies-in-your-stomach type of nerves, and as the name implies, positive stress is pretty good for you. It helps you learn how to deal with anxiety.

  Tolerable stress is a little worse and usually longer-lasting; it tends to come from losing a loved one or some type of serious injury. Typically, you get time to relax and recover to get over this tolerable stress.

  The last type of stress comes from strong, often, and prolonged struggles. Usually, this stress doesn’t come with any time or help to recover from it, which causes it to affect learning and focusing abilities in school and the ability to build trusting, supportive relationships. Even worse, the longer someone is exposed to toxic stress, the higher a risk there is of developing depression, anxiety, or addiction, as well as physical health problems later in life such as heart disease and liver ailments.

  So those are your different types of stress. The jittery nerves stress, the big change stress, and the prolonged stress. Maybe you find yourself fitting into one of those categories, maybe even in the toxic stress category? If so, maybe it’s time to put down the coffee and start putting out the flames. Get started on that homework and beat those deadlines before they beat you. As for me, I’m headed to my next class; at least I turned this in before the deadline.