The overall theme of the list is to remind students to enjoy themselves. Photo / Twitter, @lovelyyy_lina
The overall theme of the list is to remind students to enjoy themselves. Photo / Twitter, @lovelyyy_lina
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A psychology teacher's guide to coping with stress has gone viral after it was tweeted by one of his students.
Brett Phillips has become known among students for sharing the exhaustive list of 101 ways of keeping a level head each year at the start of the new school year.
And the list struck a chord with high school senior Alina Ramirez, from Oxnard, California, who posted it on Twitter.
High school senior Alina Ramirez tweeted her teacher's inspirational list. Photo / Twitter, @lovelyyy_lina
She has seen her post retweeted 24,000 times and liked 29,000 times.
The Rio Mesa High School teacher's list includes a mixture of practical behaviour like his first point, "get up 15 minutes earlier" and "prepare for the morning the night before", at number two.
But he also points out other things that make the day - and life - go a little easier including, avoid tight fitting clothes, don't rely on memory - write it down, make duplicate keys, say no more often and put air freshener in your car.
She told Buzzfeed, "He knows how stressed we are with school, sports, work and life in general so he gave us the paper to help us."
Many tips are about basic organisation including number 16: repair anything that doesn't work properly, make copies of important papers and break large tasks into bite-size portions.
The list was shared on Twitter by a student. Photo / Twitter, @lovelyyy_lina
The list includes planting a tree and taking a different route to walk. Photo / Twitter, @lovelyyy_lina
Other advice is about boosting feelings of positivity and wellbeing including, look up at the stars, learn to whistle a tune, read a poem, read a story curled up in bed and buy yourself flowers.
The overall theme of the list is to remind students to enjoy themselves and in one item he literally reminds them to smell the flowers.
Number 101 on the list is written in bigger type than the rest of the advice and reads, "freely praise other people".
And at the end he adds, "Relax, take each day at a time... you have the rest of your life to live".
Brett says that he's compiled the list over the years from textbooks, articles and "thinking of things that most people could do to live a less stressful life".
The teacher told MailOnline: "I have used the list for a Stress Plan Project I have my AP Psychology students do every year to start off the semester.
"They are asked to use some of the items from the list in their project and to help someone in their lives who they think could use less stress.
"I have been doing this project for over 15 years and this is the first time I had a student put it out on social media and the response has been quite surprising to me as well."
Alina was inundated with responses on Twitter, with people thanking her for sharing the list.
One user known only as @CalliesCoffee said: "Wow this is amazing, thank you. Therapists need to us your list as a set of coping skills.
But another Jeff Womack, sounded a note of caution. He wrote: "It's important to note that some can be perceived as anxiety-provoking (pick what works for you, not the whole list!)"
Sam Layendecker said: "Thank you, I really needed this".
Another user called Salanieta said, "Great teacher, great list. Sometimes it's the simple things in life".
One added: "useful and practical. Like it!"
While Buddha Bunnies wrote, "My favourite is 95, practice a monster smile".
