Who isn’t stressed out this semester? Whether due to next week’s final exams, last week’s snowfall or the pressure to succeed at this college thing, I would presume the majority of us are stressed out due to mounting pressures. There are more than enough reasons for students to get tense.

Not to mention the holiday season is in motion, so if you haven’t received a long list of what that special someone wants by Dec. 25, you’ll have a lot of last-minute shopping on your hands. This will obviously make you a bit tense.

“Tension is often the first signal of acute stress,” according to a WebMD.com article. “Tense muscles are tight and feel ‘hard’ to the touch. A tense mind makes you feel jumpy, irritable and unable to concentrate.”

So, if you’re having a tough time writing an eight-page paper due by, uh, yesterday, and you can’t seem to focus without checking your MySpace, Facebook, AIM or Yahoo Messenger and update your fantasy football roster, you might actually be suffering from acute stress.

Other common symptoms noted by WebMD include rapid heartbeat, headache, stiff neck, backache, rapid breathing, sweating and sweaty palms, upset stomach, nausea or diarrhea. Stress can also affect your mood. Other symptoms, including irritability, self-doubt and feeling exhausted all the time, may also occur ­— feelings you probably don’t want during finals week.

Can this stress actually be a good thing?

“We may talk about cutting the stress from our lives,” writes Jane Weaver in an MSNBC.com article. “But we need those precious, powerful fight-or-flight hormones our bodies produce when we’re about to be hit by a car or when confronted with an unexpected, needed-it-yesterday deadline at work.”

Weaver mentioned a moderate amount of stress can actually help people accomplish their tasks, as it provides energy.

“Good stress is the type of emotional challenge where a person feels in control and provides some sense of accomplishment. Far from being something we need to eliminate from our lives, good stress stimulates us.”

Judging from Weaver’s article, stress can actually be helpful. But there are still ways to relieve the stress if you start to get too much of a “good” thing. According to WebMD, you should listen to music, play with a pet, laugh or even cry, among other things.

If this week or next is stressful for you, try to turn a negative into a positive. Use stress as fuel for you to pull through these last days of the fall semester and the holiday season. Good luck.

Joey Baskerville is an opinion columnist for the Northern Star.