ALEX KUETER  / ASST. OPINION EDITOR

College is a really stressful time in young people’s lives. For many of us, we’re on our own for the first time. We need to cook all our own meals, do our own laundry, go to classes, maybe work a job and be the sole person responsible for our safety and well-being. Juggling these responsibilities can be enormously stressful for students, which is why the University invests in stress management options like TimelyCare, wellness programs and more. 

While   these   options   are great for significant stressful events, many  students  like myself struggle with daily stress from    all of the little things around us. But there are alternative ways of handling these difficulties. One way to escape and manage these daily stresses lies in childhood activities. 

Some of the small joys of my childhood included playing the Webkinz video game, watching the slightly creepy live action Barbie movies and  reading Young Adult (YA) books like “Harry Potter” and “The Hunger Games.” I’ve recently found myself going back to these things as my stress has increased during college life  and  noticed that being able to sit down, relax and go back to childhood through these things has been a very grounding and helpful experience. 

This idea isn’t new —many doctors and therapists believe that reconnecting to your inner child can help heal current and old traumas. In an article for the Cleveland Clinic, Psychologist Susan Albers explains the benefits of reconnecting with your past self. 

“Healing your inner child is about learning how to move forward, rediscovering what you need, recapturing what you’ve lost and reparenting your younger self  so you can heal from past experiences,” Albers said. 

There are numerous ways to heal your inner child, such as acknowledging your needs, returning to things you enjoyed as a child, journaling about your experiences  and much more. This idea of connecting to your youth  has  proved  to  be a valuable idea for  many people and is now recommended in several  different  types of therapy, such as cognitive behavioral therapy. Besides actual therapy, incorporating aspects of your childhood into your life can be beneficial in small ways to reduce stress. 

I recently re-downloaded the video game Webkinz. It is a free desktop game that allows you to take care of virtual pets you get online, and if you choose to, you can buy a stuffed animal to get additional pets inside the game. It’s a pretty simple program that has  you play various mini-games to keep your pets healthy and happy. 

Because it is a rather old game, Webkinz only has a few games or options to  play for free. For me, this small  amount of play is a  really good stress break that I’ve been able to incorporate into my days. Unlike scrolling through social media, there is a finite number of tasks you can do, which reins  in the lengths of study breaks by offering a natural stopping  point. Scrolling   for  hours on end can be bad for our mental health, but a few minutes of more structured activity is much more beneficial for me during a break. 

The nostalgia of playing a game I used to love every day has given me something to look forward to and also something to do in some of my down time. The game reminds me of youthful times without being too much of a distraction in my life now— the perfect dose of nostalgia.  

Another thing I recently re-visited was the old live-action Barbie movies. These were a pillar of my childhood, and I always looked forward to my Friday movie nights where I’d watch and rewatch them. 

While I forgot about these for a long time, rediscovering them recently has brought so much joy and entertainment to my life. While most have aged well, it is so fun to rewatch what I adored as a child because of how silly some shows and movies are. This peaceful entertainment doesn’t have a lot of hidden messages, calls for action or dramatic scenes. While these things are important to have in media, it’s nice to be able to take a break for a while and watch, for example, Barbie dance with her 11 sisters to unlock a magical world in the movies “Barbie” and the “12 Dancing Princesses.”

The silliness of some of the plots offers many opportunities to laugh and helps soothe my soul from the depressing world around us. While the animation can be kind of rough, turning my brain off for an hour or so is a nice break from everything else I have going on. 

The last aspect of childhood that I have recently gone back to is reading YA books. These vary from timeless classics such as  “Harry Potter,” to the newly revamped “Hunger Games” and the  “Divergent” series, which is slightly less good on an almost fully  developed   prefrontal cortex.  Many of  these books  are as   amazing as  ever, still capturing the magic of childhood and the world they were written in while taking the reader back into who they were when they first read it. 

I’ll never forget reading “Harry Potter” for the first time in elementary school, dreaming about a Hogwarts acceptance letter of my own.  Re-reading the books felt just as magical now as it did then. 

Re-reading “Divergent” on the other hand, had me laughing at what I once thought was the coolest  world  imaginable. Though there are a few plot holes, it was nice to remember how enthralled my younger self was with these styles of writing and how much they meant to me to experience. 

“The Hunger Games” is taking off  again with  the  release of  a new movie and book, but re-reading the original trilogy has been just as fun and engaging. 

These old books have brought me further in touch with who I was when I was younger and reconnected me with the things I loved. 

Many people see growing up and getting older as a loss or intentional moving on from childhood. While it is in some ways, you don’t just have to abandon the things that you used to love. In fact, revisiting many of your old hobbies can help return  you to your childhood feelings of calm and wonder on especially hard days. Lately when I’ve been stressed, instead of working myself up, I’ll open Webkinz or the “Hunger Games” and relax that way. I highly recommend giving this a try.

 Find the aspects of your childhood that you miss or remember fondly, and go back to them. It is uniquely healing to reconnect yourself in this way and may be  able  to help you too.

Revisiting childhood entertainment can actually benefit your mental health. 

Photo courtesy of @secret_gardens_with_jamie/Instagram

The views expressed in the editorial and op-ed sections are not necessarily those of  The USD Vista staff, the University of San Diego, or its student body.