【推荐1】For most kids, back-to-school time is usually bitter-sweet. The bitter part is saying goodbye to carefree, unscheduled summer days. The sweet part is saying hello to a new school year and school friends.

This exciting time is filled with smells of new books, paper and pencils. Children might wear a new set of clothes. And, of course, there are the first-day-of-school pictures that parents share with family and friends.

However, going back to school can also be a stressful time for children and families. Every kid must make the transition from easy summer life to routines, schedules and homework. Families will have financial concerns. Parents often need to pay school fees or to buy new school clothes, sports equipment, musical instruments and school supplies.

Back-to-school stress is different for different ages. Younger children may feel scared to leave their families. Making new friends and dealing with bullying can also cause stress for them. Older students may be stressed about their appearances, grades and getting into a good college.

However, parents, teachers and children can all help to make the transition back to school easier. Mary Anne Aidala, an award-winning teacher, advises parents to focus on the basics — let kids get enough sleep, eat healthy foods, and turn off electronics before bedtime.

Lori Bambina has been a teacher for 22 years. She teaches first grade in NY now. According to her, routines and knowing what a teacher wants in the classroom help to reduce stress in kids. So, she focuses on the class routine during the start of the new school year. “Well, for the students, I have my classroom set up with a very clear system. So, I will introduce the system. Then I will revisit the system because at this young age they enjoy routines. And that routine is very comforting and will not cause them stress if they know exactly where things are located and what type of behavior is expected of them.”

【推荐2】Scholars and researchers have tried to discover what personality characteristics go along with success in intercultural experiences. Their findings have often been unclear or incomplete. But three characteristics stand out in their reports: patience, a sense of humour, and the awareness of being unclear.

Patience, of course, is the ability to keep calm even when things do not go as one wants them to, or hopes they will, or has been sure they will. Impatience sometimes brings improvements in relations with other people, but usually it does not.

A person with a sense of humour is less likely to take things too seriously and more ready to see the humour in her own reactions. The value of a sense of humour really needs to be paid more attention to.

“The awareness of being unclear” is a more difficult concept than patience or a sense of humour. Foreigners often find themselves in situations that are unclear to the newcomers. That is, they do not know what is happening in the situation. Perhaps they do not understand the local language well enough, or they do not know how some system or organisation works, or they can’t be sure of different people’s roles in what is going on. “It’s like I just got here from the moon,” a Chinese graduate student who newly arrived in the United States said. “Things are just so different here.”

【推荐3】Stress is a word we hear a lot these days. People have stressful jobs; they feel stressed while studying for exams; even family life can be stressful. Stress can cause headaches and lack of sleep. Research has shown that it is one of the main causes of heart disease. None of us can completely avoid stress. Everyone experiences it.

In ancient times, stress served a different purpose. It kept us alive. When a caveman was walking along and was suddenly faced with a lion, the stress he experienced would make him run away faster than he could usually run. Stress is the state our bodies experience when we need to react to difficult or dangerous situations. While stress saved us back then, and it is still very helpful in difficult situations, we need a break from stress every now and again.

Luckily, there are ways to relax and deal with stress and it seems that music might be our number one cure. A recent worldwide study showed that listening to music is what most people do to relax and reduce stress. The study was based on interviews with 1,000 people in 30 countries and 56% said that listening to music was the best way to relax. Watching TV, at 53%, was the next most popular way of reducing stress followed by taking a shower or bath at 49%. It is not really surprising that listening to music is such a popular way of relaxing. It is cheap and widely available on radio, TV and the Internet.

Of course, musical tastes differ from person to person. Sam might love listening to loud heavy metal music to relax after a hard day’s work, but his neighbour—a fan of Mozart—might find hearing his music extremely stressful. “Sam needs an iPod”, you might be thinking and you are probably right. Mobile music players can provide music privately whenever and wherever it is needed. We could even call them the stress fighters of the 21st century. So the next time you feel stressed, take a deep breath, put on your earphones and relax.