Managing Stress Scientifically with Dominik Klavon

Dominik Klavon is one of the busiest seniors I know. Balancing AP and IB courses while being the varsity captain of the hockey team is hard work in itself however Dominik does all of that while also being in the top 0.8 percent of Rocket League players. Most high schoolers would cringe at the thought of having a schedule half as full as his.

So how does he manage his stress?

A very busy day in the life

To get a better sense of Dominik’s schedule I asked him to recite what a normal day looks like during hockey season.

• Dominik’s day starts before the break of dawn at 3:50 am.

“Sometimes I like to sleep in till 4 because it looks better than 3 on the clock,” he adds.

• He then picks up some of his teammates and goes to the ice rink where he’ll spend from 5 to 7 at practice, thirty minutes to take a shower, then onto school at 7:45 am.

Most people would take the rest of the day to recuperate after having hockey so early in the morning but not Dominik.

• He gets home at 2:45 to work on homework and scholarship essays.

By now my head is spinning at the thought of doing his routine for a day let alone the four months of hockey season, yet he continues…

• Dinner at 6 and then train for Rocket League till around 9:30.

How many hours of sleep is that?

“Five or six,” he responds so casually it made me realize that some people don’t turn into zombies after not sleeping for at least eight hours a night. I hope you can feel my astonishment through the screen.

A stress-free list backed up by science

Stress is a chemical response to our environment where our brain releases the hormone cortisol, because it’s a chemical response there are scientific ways to decrease it and you most likely do some of them. But it’s always nice to know what else you can do to help battle stress day-to-day.

Spoiler alert: bottling up all your stress until you cry while listening to Lorde’s hit album Melodrama at 2 am is not on there.

Outlets for stress

Fortunately, there are outlets that help you manage your stress.

Detox

I like many students find it difficult to imagine not starting the day by aimlessly scrolling through Instagram or responding to streaks on Snapchat. Normally this is how I deal with my stress before school but I never took the time to realize how much background stress it was giving me.

Dominik took the plunge so many people try to take but can’t, he gave up social media.

“It’s like I am no longer tunneled into something, I’m more aware… I don’t have to worry if I sent a blank screen to anyone.”

Dominik describes social media as being tunneled into one topic. The algorithms are so perfect that it knows what to feed but you will never be full.

I found this out the hard way when I liked a Minecraft post on Instagram and a day later my feed looked like Captainsparklez’s home page, yet I continued to browse social media compliant in what I was being fed. I’m a sheep to Mark Zuckerberg’s algorithm, and it’s stressful.

Cutting out Social media is a great way to decrease stress and to work through your problems instead of using it to avoid them.

Creativity

Creativity is the perfect outlet for a busy schedule.

Dominik has figured out a perfect strategy to satisfy both his creative and schedule needs. He spends his time streaming and editing videos.

Editing may seem tedious but to Dominik, it is one big creative problem to solve.

Finding the perfect background music for his video is the same as a painter trying to figure out what splash of color would make their painting stand out.

Finding creativity in what you like is a good way to keep stress away, not everyone is an artist and that is ok. I find that learning an instrument keeps my creative needs satisfied. I would love to be an artist that can draw in beautiful detail. Alas, I can only draw stick-men and blob clouds.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is hard to get right. It’s easy to avoid introspection because we are so used to avoiding ourselves. Taking the time to assess where you are in life will greatly decrease your stress. It’s easy to spiral when you have nothing to latch onto, take time out of your day to think about what is most important to you.

Meditation is hard for me. I live in a house with three birds, it sounds like Jurassic park for a majority of the day, but I find that taking time out of my day while cooking or while I’m cleaning up makes a big difference.

Taking a glance at his schedule it’s easy to see Dominik doesn’t have much free time for meditation, so his time of peace is the three minutes before dinner is served.

Taking time for introspection doesn’t always need to be a “soul journey” it can be quick. Find a YouTube video and follow it.

Distractions

I understand Introspection isn’t for everyone and can lead to extra stress if you’re prone to overthinking.

The way Dominik gets his mind off his stress is streaming.

Dominik describes the feeling of streaming to what it feels like to become engulfed by a book. Talking to other people and focusing on a game helps get his focus off his stressors by getting into “the zone” of streaming.

Pretending like you are in front of an audience when you play video games even if you aren’t streaming makes gaming so much more enjoyable. I imagine the ghost in my room get quite confused when I tell them, “clip that!” When I do good in a gaming round. But it helps keep my mind occupied so as to not overthink, I’ll Ouiji board them an apology later.

Distractions from your stress are good to use in moderation. Distractions won’t solve your stress but they are a good way to not let yourself get overstressed.

Sleep

“It [lack of sleep] seeps into everything not a single thing is untouched.”

Lack of sleep is a universally terrible experience and with his packed schedule, it seems that Dominik can never seem to catch up. The average teen should sleep for at least 9 hours a night.

Lack of sleep not only makes you more irritable but also lowers your performance during the day only adding to your stress.

As a person who tries to get as much sleep as I can in the day, I tend to take it for granted. Dominik talks with such admiration towards sleep it’s clear to see how much a good night of sleep improved both his mental and physical health.

“It’s like everything is better”

Dominik if you’re reading this please get some sleep.

Exercise

Being in hockey Dominik is constantly moving throughout the day,

I don’t work out that often which is made apparent by my struggle to keep a steady breath after going upstairs. After talking to Dominik I now see that exercise has more benefits than keeping you from feeling like you’re about to pass out after a flight of stairs.

“Exercise is a way to get your stress out without bottling it up.”

After interviewing Dominik I went home and did some exercise and I felt great, I wrote this interview out, finished homework, and made dinner all without feeling the need for a nap. My mind cleared up and it was nice being able to work off my stress from the first half of my day.

Pets

“Imagine this: I am running around my room like a madwoman trying to find all the supplies I need for my online test. I’m a hurricane, tearing apart my room just outside the view of my camera. I am fully absorbed in my stress.

Then my dog barks.

Instantly I am drawn out of my head, I am in a room and I have time, take a breath and calm down.”

Dominik waited patiently for me to tell him my story as a segway into talking about how pets help decrease stress.

“So how does having a dog in the room help you with stress?”

He describes having a dog around him as a way to realize that there is more out there than just him and his stress.

Having pets around you is a good way to keep yourself from becoming engulfed in stress, it lets you know that life goes on no matter what the outcome of your worries are.

On top of the mental factor that animals keep you grounded they also scientifically reduce stress. When you pet your animals it produces the stress-fighting hormone Oxytocin. So go out there and pet every animal you can!

Disclaimer: Don’t pet the animals you see outside, you may get a release of oxytocin but you can also get rabies.

What I have learned about managing stress

So how does Dominik do it all without caving under stress?

“I don’t; there are definitely days and times where the stress is too much and I overreact or make decisions I regret, but at the end of the day it’s how you act after you calm down that really matters.”

I have spent the last almost 2 thousand words writing about how amazing Dominik is at managing stress wondering how he manages to not let it get to him but as I write this last bit I realize that we all have stress. If your schedule is full to the brim or if you spend your time on the couch, stress is around us and it’s our decision on how to control it.

No one person’s stress is above others I was astonished by how hard Dominik works and found myself comparing. But that was never meant to be the takeaway, the takeaway is to understand your stressors and how to release them.

Read a book, drink some water, go get some rest.

I would like to give Dominik Klavon a big Thank You for letting me interview him. I didn’t realize how much I would learn about myself in the process.