Handling Pressure

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What do people do to deal with pressure?

I work part-time and go to school full-time. My university and major are very demanding. Some of my professors, and people at work, seem to have put some inexplicable faith in me to achieve. Everyone wants more! I'm not cracking or anything, but I don't sleep much and paranoia creeps in to make things worse. You all understand obsessive nature, so that just makes things 100 times worse.

How do you deal with pressure and stress? I just need way to relax and re-energize for an hour a day, or something. Right now I'm at it 14/7.

I'm looking forward to some of the answers others give.

For myself, I either plow through it or break down completely. Recently I broke down--I sat around for hours crying with my mind pretty much locked, just thinking about different ways to commit suicide, and how impossible everything was. I just couldn't see beyond my problems. That happens about twice a year on average.

Other times, I manage to keep my head. Then I just make a list of things to do and do them. It all depends on my mindset. If I can believe that this is just a period that I have to pull myself through, then I can do it. But if I'm depressed and everything seems hopeless, and I keep thinking "I fail at everything I've ever tried", then that's when I can't do it.

Oh, and I do take time outs when I need them--it's no use spinning your wheels. But like I said, if you're mired in depression, it may not help, you won't be able to relax when all the problems are still spinning in your head.
Continual loss of sleep also makes things worse, although it won't seem like it at the time.

Oh, you were looking for specific things, weren't you?

Try these:

-sleep!
-sit down and eat good food
-exercise... swimming or relaxing walks are my faves.

I wouldn't count on things like watching TV, surfing the net, reading, etc. Those things are more of an escape--your brain is still working, just on different things. It's better if you can do something where your brain has a chance to rest, to kind of organize itself.