Stress. It’s something that will be present all our lives, as we continue on to grad school or jobs, as we attempt to rear a family, as we try to make a little niche for ourselves somewhere out there in the “real” world. As college students, we can only begin to understand the full force of stress, complaining about due dates and exams and the inevitable stretch of time each month where we realize that we must rely on the kind hearts of our roommates until another check from our parents makes its way into our empty bank accounts.

We will always try and find new and effective ways to deal with our seemingly insurmountable stress levels. Eating is a classic example. What sounds better when you’re stressed than giving it all up and diving head first into some Phish Food or an entire pizza? Unfortunately, this kind of stress management is not only bad for your health, but also deadly for your stress levels. There’s also the exercise approach to stress – pushing your body to let it all out. However, if most of us were inclined to this sort of catharsis, we wouldn’t ever stress out about getting doughy or feeling like shit because we ate that entire fucking pizza.

However, perhaps the most effective and rewarding way to deal with stress is to take matters into your own hands – or place them into the hands of someone else. The ultimate release from stress is the orgasm.

Some of you might say that you’re too stressed out to even concentrate on pleasure. Too stressed to have an orgasm? I call shenanigans; there is always time for an orgasm. If you must get something done to clear your mind, use it as a reward. You will give yourself one orgasm for the thesis of your paper that is due in three hours. You’ve got eight minutes to spare; you would have spent them staring at the screen of your computer anyways, so why not put them to some good use?

The orgasm is an effective reality check. Oftentimes we can let our emotions get the best of us when we wind them up with schoolwork. We make mountains out of molehills, allowing the emotions to consume all of our free thought until we aren’t even attempting to remedy the situation but just find ourselves sitting around, still thinking. We lose sight of the fact that school really isn’t that important. You are important. Your family is important. Your friends are important. School is simply there – you can come and go whenever you please. It is a voluntary thing that has become, in most of our minds, mandatory. We are allowing schooling, something we will all most likely need but can get by without, to rule our lives and ruin the golden days of our youth. An orgasm reminds you of the simple things and that nothing is ever the end of the world, especially where school is concerned: Deadlines can be extended, and your TAs and professors are akin to those elves that made the shoes for that cobbler while he slept … I think. I think I just like to think of my TAs as elves anyway, you wily things.

Some of you may have already caught on to the ability of the orgasm to make things seem a little less heavy, and others may have realized it subconsciously. Perhaps this past month during finals you had multiple overpowering urges to experience multiple, overpowering orgasms – I know I did. If I had to make one more fucking study guide or catch up on my reading for one more class that I forgot to attend for half the quarter, I was going to cut someone. But, a phone call later and after sacrificing a half hour, I was ready to submit to the study gods with a secret, complacent smile.

Get off your ass – or stay on it, if you have some privacy – and make yourself feel better. Your situation is absurd: Weeping over your O-Chem textbook? Nothing should ever reduce you to that. You’re better than that, dammit, and I want so much more for you. So, make yourself come and remind yourself who you are. And then get back to it because if you fail school your parents are going to be so pissed off.

Daily Nexus sex columnist Nina Love Anthony prepares for any group study session with a backpack full of rubbers and a notebook crammed with new positions.