When it comes to stress hacks, a student favorite is the ice challenge. When we experience intense stress, holding a melting ice cube can have a powerful calming effect. Then, once we’re feeling less upset, we’re able to make better choices about how to improve the stressful situation. It’s a distress tolerance technique sometimes shared on TikTok that originated from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), a type of cognitive behavioral therapy. The main goal of the ice challenge is just to cool down physically and mentally, so if you don’t have an ice cube handy, you can try drinking cold water, letting the car’s AC blow on your face, or going outside on a chilly day. We hope you find this technique as weirdly effective as we do!