I met with my therapist last week regarding some anxiety I’m having about going back to school. It’s nothing serious, just my regular run-of-the-mill terror about all the awful hairstyles I’m going to have to endure once the bell rings on the first day of school.

It happens every school year. My otherwise stylish class gets infiltrated with a handful of kids who look like they get their hair done each morning by free-range chickens. I mean, I know most kids don’t spend three hours every morning in the stylist’s chair as I do, but come on! How am I expected to learn in an environment like that, with all that frizz and bed head and uninspired shag?

My therapist insists that it would be inappropriate for me to ambush makeover these kids during recess, which was my idea for a quick solve. Instead, he gave me a mindfulness exercise to do instead. Every time I panic about one of my classmates arriving at school looking like Bob Dylan, I should visualize them with the hairstyle they were meant to have.

At first I was skeptical, but I’ve been practicing for days and it really works.

For example, when Amalfi shows up with his Tribute to a Bird’s Nest, I can picture him with a sleek look, taming his thick hair with some medium-hold styling mousse and a simple brush…

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…and my blood pressure immediately goes down.

And when Grenadine undoubtedly arrives with her staticky fly-aways rising up, up, up as if in revolt, I will imagine the soothing pattern of an inside-out French braid sprayed with a little leave-in conditioner…

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…and I will once again be able to focus on my times tables.

I don’t have to fear Peregrine’s stick-straight hair constantly falling in her face, I just have to visualize those tresses treated with some soft-hold styling cream and wrapped into a simple top knot bun…

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…and I can breathe again.

When Pabst arrives each morning, having spent an entire night molding his hair against his pillow, I will picture that bed head being dampened and finger-combed with medium-hold styling gel to create a dapper yet playful daytime look….

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…and my panic attack subsides.

And finally, when a humid day comes along and Concordia walks in sporting a frizz ball with a mind of its own, all I have to do is envision treating those curls with some super hydrating conditioner and letting them air-dry with just a quarter-sized dab of soft-hold styling cream applied with soft scrunches.

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…and all is right again in the world. Well, my world anyway.