Six Activities to Help Your Middle School Students De-stress

Like many of us right now, middle school students are likely dealing with stress. School begins soon where middle school students are tasked with learning to juggle multiple teachers, are managing the growing complexities of their relationships, and face growing pressure to fit in with their peers, along with the dynamics of living and learning during a pandemic. Help your middle schoolers cope with these six easy activities that can easily be adapted for classroom or online teaching.

1. Help stressed middle schoolers feel at ease by helping them realize the uncomfortable feelings they may have about the transition to middle school are normal, and they’re not alone in their feelings. This intervention explains how.
   
   
2. Regardless of age, one of the oldest and most used methods to reduce stress is meditation. This 5-minute guided meditation is designed for middle school students to help them prepare for class. 
   
   
3. Don’t feel like you have the time or the space for stress relieving activities? This varied list of relaxation exercises has an activity to fit any time constraint or space issue. 
   
   
4. Relieving stress doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, sometimes it’s as simple as breathing. 
   
   
5. Putting pen to paper is a tried and true method for stress relief that also happens to align with teaching standards. Explore how journaling can reduce stress.
   
   
6. It’s no secret that many students enjoy socializing. With a few tweaks, guidelines, and expectations put into place, socializing becomes peer sharing, and stress levels are reduced.