Top 5 Stress Relievers for First Year Law Firm Associates

Summary: How can you relieve stress as a first year law firm associate? Try any of these 5 stress relievers and feel your stress melt away.

5. Smoking. That’s right, “Smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em,” Grandpa always used to say, as he trudged up the Morro Castle’s gangway. Personally, I’m not a big fan, but who knows? Many people seem to enjoy it. Seriously, can it be denied that nothing seems more relaxing, refreshing or stress-relieving than inhaling the combustion byproducts of chemically soaked tobacco leaf, rolled tight, and heated past its flash point so that its incendiary end slowly creeps closer and closer to reward you with third-degree burns to your first and second fingers?

Pure relaxation.

And what better way to utilize those fingers? On the drive home? Of course not. Scratching out by hand that pesky motion to substitute as pro se counsel? Surely you jest. Shaking hands with that “oh-so-hopeful” 2L that is interviewing with your firm? How beneath you. However, when splayed across the firm-issued keyboard that is somehow connected to the fancy light box on your desk, these fingers can unleash the relaxing power of stress relief like nobody’s business.

4. The Internet. The Internet  is simply the gift that keeps on giving. As I understand it, e-mail depends on the Internet. If this is so, Al Gore deserves a hearty “thank you, creator” for the relaxation derived from turning a ridiculously concise 30-second phone call into a three-day e-mail exchange, complete with the requisite faux pas of forwarding the exchange to everyone in the office, if not the entire firm, at least twice.

3. Running. My buddy in Palo Alto likes what actually seems to be a pretty popular stress reliever: running. By this time, though, we’d all had a few drinks, and my other buddy (who proposed No. 2 and hates to run) threw him to the ground and started punching him, while buddy No. 3 (the smoker, who also hates to run) gave him some first-hand exposure to second-hand smoke. Running didn’t seem to be too stress-free that day.

2. Drinking.  As you might have guessed by now, stress reliever No. 2 is partaking of the beauty that is the fermentation process. In vino veritas. For better or worse (insert your own Tequila joke here), “the grape” (or “the barley,” “the potato,” “the grain,” etc.) is quite popular for erasing all sorts of stress whether you are a first-year associate, associate, mid-level associate, senior associate, supervisory senior associate, partner, etc.

1. Friends.  Make use of your friendships. Go grab some beers, play golf, go to the game or just hang out. I’ve found that just sitting around, playing some “Golden Tee” and drinking a few beers — not necessarily in that order — is the best stress relief imaginable. Until someone starts talking about running.

Image credits: AwesomeGIFS