For many students, coming to college and moving away can be very challenging. Adapting to a new routine each day, encountering different people, and of course harder academic work can cause some headaches for you. It is almost half way through the first semester here at Penn State,and everyday I hear either a friend or classmate, or myself complaining about the amount of work that they have to due. Oh, and the stress that it causes them. Stress can be defined as “Your body’s way of responding to a threat”, practically speaking. There are two separate and distinctive attributes while dealing with stress, while stress is the affects on your body, there is something called a stressor. A stressor is something that causes you to have this stress, for example a math test or a first date can be a stressor.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/145855.php
We learned that stress is your body’s was of responding to a threat but what happens when a person experiences stress? Well one can look at stress in two opposite ways, positive or negative. Clearly we all know that stress affects one more on the negative side than the positive side. With a person that is dealing with stress, one would experience a rise in blood pressure and heart rate, as well as a lack of sleep or even tense muscles.
Those are the physical effects of what stress can do to you, those may even be what you consider symptoms of stress. There are others that include biting your nails or chest pain. Many college students experience stress during their tenures studying at the university, the statistics support it as well. 75% of people experience anxiety by the age of 22. Not just any simple headache, but an anxiety attack. 80% of people claim that they have experienced stress during college. That means for every 10 people, 8 of them are being affected negatively in some instance. The worst of all the statistics, 9% of students have considered suicide in the past year.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/do-the-right-thing/201206/dealing-the-stress-others
There is some sort of positive reward of stress, in some sick way. While if you overcome it and make it through, you will be stronger mentally and also resilient. There are many ways that you can deal with stress. The best thing to do is to talk to someone about it, whether it be a friend, a professor, or a councilor even. Talking helps with stress tremendously. One way to deal with stress is through medicine, doctors offer “stress relief” or antidepressants although there are some problems with them.
Stress is common. Stress is natural, you will overcome whatever you are going through and you will come out a stronger person. It is the choices one makes each day that affects the stress or sometimes you cannot control it. Stress is inevitable but be strong, folks.
Sources
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/145855.php
https://www.adaa.org/finding-help/helping-others/college-students/facts
This is a very prevalent topic like you said. After reading your article I was left with the question, how can I relieve myself of this stress you were talking about? I decided to research this and found a great article. The article stated that there are several ways to relieve stress. The easiest one, and most applicable one was to take a deep breathe. It clears you head, and allows yourself to calm down. The other method I found to be the most helpful is to just laugh. Laughing lowers the amount of the stress hormone, cortisol, in your body. The less of that hormone, the less stressed someone will be (http://www.webmd.com/balance/guide/blissing-out-10-relaxation-techniques-reduce-stress-spot?page=2). The articles states another eight ways in which someone can reduce stress, and I recommend checking it out. The only thing I would say is that if your blog included stress relieving exercises in the first place, it would have been that much better. Either way, it got me thinking, and in the end it lead to me find out how to relieve my stress!
I think stress is an interesting topic that resonates with almost everybody involved with this blog. You made some interesting claims in your post, but had no experimental evidence backing any sort of hypothesis. For example, this experiment explores the correlations between time management, stress, and academic performance. College student stress is actually a very hot topic and many studies can be found rather easily regarding this issue. I think a post about experimental findings involving stress reduction techniques would be very enlightening. Also, I am not sure that stress is inevitable! You cannot work to prevent something that is inevitable.
You’re post and video were so eye-opening. Who knew that just a change of view point can affect the whole stress outlook overall and even be beneficial to your body’s health. I know from experience trying to reduce or stop the stress right there in its tracks never works and honestly usually males it worse. Shared the video with my whole family because I found this so helpful. Awesome post! On top of this new mindset, I know yoga and meditation also help a ton.
Here is an example if you wanted to check it out:
Ahh good old stress. I’m going through a bit right now myself. I was surprised when you said stress can benefit us. I had never thought about it like but it’s definitely good to hear it has some benefit. Since you got me thinking about stress benefits, I found a good article online that talks about 5 benefits of stress. http://news.health.com/2014/08/18/5-weird-ways-stress-can-actually-be-good-for-you/ . Two of the ways are actually the ones you mentioned. Stress also seems to motivate you, enhance child development and increase immunity in the short term. I always used to only think about the negative benefits of stress but your blog has me thinking a little differently now. Another article I found has some other benefits that weren’t listed in the other one. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-whyte-md-mph/stress-good_b_5582961.html .
It seems as if stress might improve your immune system, help get you going and even make your life a little more interesting. Stress is a crazy thing and I’m glad to now know that it is not all negative. Solid post Michael!
I think that I have definitely been feeling more stressed out since I have been here, and it was interesting to see what has been the cause of some of stress. Though I agree that stress is a problem I don’t think that it is necessarily an inevitable one. I think that small amounts of stress are normal but feeling overwhelmed constantly can be avoided. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America had a lot of helpful tips to successfully manage anxiety and stress. They can be found here: https://www.adaa.org/tips-manage-anxiety-and-stress