--Original published at Nadia's Blog

Stress never seems to be beneficial to humans however it is a natural response to a situation that threatens one’s sense of well-being. For each individual stress could be caused by something different, it could be something acute, that is time limited or something that is chronic and will extend over a large amount of time. Either way, stress can be handled in many different ways, and there are many techniques that individuals may use to cope with their stress.

In 2012, Womens Health wrote an article pertaining towards Women and how they can better handle their stress. They interviewed 435 people and asked them about their daily stressors and how they have been affecting their mood and if they had any obvious physical symptoms. The individuals with more stress, reported that they had more headaches, stomach problems, anxiety and decreased productivity. The article recommends to “break a sweat”, which allows an individual’s heart rate to increase and sends glucose to all parts of the body.  This advice correlates to a coping strategy we discussed in class, exercise.  It has been shown that there are physical and psychological benefits to exercising consistently. The article also mentions being solution-oriented will better allow an individual to accomplish a large task more easily. It is recommended to make a list with multiple steps and cross them off as you go. This is similar to problem focused learning which is more common for men to do. This allows them to aim their focus on the stressor itself and not let their emotions play a role. Similarly the article mentions getting a massage will activate the parasympathetic nervous system and your adrenal glands will cut back on releases stress hormones and boost production of feel-good neurotransmitters.  This method is similar to the mental vacation strategy, where you are able to picture yourself in a place where you feel calm and this allows you to not focus on being stressed in that moment.  The strategies recommended in this article are most likely beneficial to many individuals and directly correlate with the information we have discussed in class.

In an article published by Everyday Health, Dennis Thompson Jr. discusses different strategies to cope with stress for men. One of the most important methods discussed was solving the cause of your stressor. This way the stress can be relieved and not continue to build up. This idea is consistent with the problem focused coping strategy, where typically men focus on the stressor itself instead of focusing on their emotions. Another strategy was to meditate for around 15-20 minutes a day allowing yourself to clear your mind. This is similar to the MBSR (mindfulness based stress reduction), which focuses on the observer self and allows an individual to become aware, accept themselves and stay in the present.  One interesting point the article makes is to reward yourself for accomplishing a goal. This almost acts as an incentive and motivates someone to continue working towards your goal, and will most likely benefit many individuals.

An article written for Best Colleges, focused on a student’s guide to handling stress. Primarily students not only have the daily stressors of homework and assignments, but the social pressures and work responsibilities as well.  The author recommends that students set realistic goals for themselves and to not spread themselves too thin. Often times students are not able to manage their time well, or have too many things going on at once, which can ultimately lead to constant stress. This method could act as an maladaptive strategy because it will be able to decrease the stress but could also restrict you from doing everything you would want to do. For instance you may not be able to play a sport, have time to hang out with your friends and do well in school.  However, this is a very useful strategy and will most definitely reduce the stress in most students lives. Another way to reduce stress is to eat healthier, because your body can better handle stress when you are as healthy as you can possibly be. This is a very effective method to handle stress because it will overall make you a healthier person and it is shown that individuals who eat healthier have more energy. This is similar to how self-indulgence can be problematic, a lot of times people will binge-eat and avoid doing something to compensate for stress, which can lead to other problems. However, if you are able to restrict yourself and maintain a healthy diet, this will combat the temptation to binge eat in stressful situations.

https://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/stress-managementhttps://www.everydayhealth.com/family-health/mens-health/combat-stress.aspxhttps://www.bestcolleges.com/resources/balancing-stress/

--Original published at Site Title

Stress is an inevitable factor that plays a role in everyone’s life in some way or another. Although having some minimal amounts of stress is actually a healthy part of our lives, having too much stress can severely affect our overall physical and mental health in many negative ways. Often times when people live a busier lifestyle, they are more prone to struggle with high stress levels. This is simply because they have more people to deal with, more commitments, less time, etc. Three groups of people in particular that live extremely busy lives include college students, athletes, and parents. While there are many stress managing tactics that can be used to alleviate stress in general, no matter where it originates, more often than not it can greatly help to have stress relieving tactics that are directed specifically at your lifestyle. In order to identify and compare some of these tactics for college students, athletes, and parents, I found three different articles that are directed at these specific groups of people.

As we all know, being a college student is extremely stressful. The workload is seemingly never ending, most all of us are away from our families, we fall short on getting enough sleep, it seems like there is never enough time in the day, and the list goes on. I found an article from the University of Michigan that provided some tips that are specifically directed towards college students for managing their stress levels. These tips include having good time management skills, creating a goal-setting worksheet, avoiding procrastination, getting regular exercise, maintaining healthy sleeping habits, taking part in mindful meditation, limiting / eliminating the use of stimulants such as caffeine, pacing yourself by taking breaks, keeping a journal to jot down your feelings and emotions, holding realistic expectations for yourself, planning leisure activities to break up your schedule, recognizing your role in controlling your own thoughts (try to be positive and optimistic), attempt to find humor in things within your life, and try to set a specific goal for yourself (The University of Michigan, 2016). I believe that all of these are very helpful and effective tips. Not only have I found these to be true from my own personal experience, but also because most of these things align with exactly what our textbook says along with what we discussed in class. http://campusmindworks.org/students/self_care/managing_stress.asp

Athletes are another group of individuals that often have to face a lot of stress, as many of us can relate to. When you’re on an athletic team, your performance directly affects your team, therefore you are likely under a lot of pressure. I found an article that provides a few tips that can help athletes reduce their stress levels as much as possible. The first tip is to get an adequate amount of rest. This is especially important for athletes considering they expend more energy than people who do not participate in any organized sports or leisure physical activity. The next tip is to engage in activities that temporarily distract you from the pressures of your sport, followed by both managing your time and checking your attitude. The final tip that this article gives is to use the support systems that you have (Labs, Nova. 2017). These tips are all similar to, if not the same as the tips that were given in the first article. Therefore, I believe that they are all effective tips because they are the exact same stress relieving tactics that are mentioned in our book / what we have discussed in class. https://nova3labs.com/five-stress-management-tips-athletes/

While most of us, if not all of us, probably can’t directly relate to this during this time of our lives, I’m sure we can all imagine how stressful it is to be a parent. The third article I looked at provides tips for stress management that are directed towards parents. Being a parent means that you not only have to worry about your own life, but now someone else’s life is in your hands as well. The list of tips that were given in this article include simplifying your life as much as you possibly can (don’t sweat the small stuff), get enough sleep, don’t take things personally (sometimes kids say things they don’t really mean / understand), exercise, aim for imperfection, remember breathe in and breathe out (relax), get support (spouse, family, babysitter, etc.), leave time for things that you enjoy doing, and do one thing at a time (Stiffelman, Susan. 2012). Once again, the all of these tips are the same stress relieving tips that have been given to us by our book. Therefore, I know that they are accurate and reliable tips that can help with alleviating stress levels.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/04/nine-steps-to-stress-free-parenting_n_1403209.html

References

Labs, Nova. (2017). Five Stress Management Tips for Athletes. Retrieved from:

https://nova3labs.com/five-stress-management-tips-athletes/.

Myers, D. G., & DeWall, C. N. (2016). Exploring psychology (10th ed.). New York, US: Worth

Publishers.

Stiffelman, Susan. (2012). 9 Steps to Stress-Free Parenting. Retrieved from:   

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/04/nine-steps-to-stress-free-parenting_n_14032

09.html.

The University of Michigan. (2016). Managing Stress During College. Retrieved from:

http://campusmindworks.org/students/self_care/managing_stress.asp.

--Original published at JanellesCollegeBlog

We all experience stress throughout our lives. Depending on our different roles in life, we will experience and be able to deal with and manage stress differently. This is why for this spotlight blog post, I decided to look at three different websites that provided stress management tips for three different roles that some of us play here while at college: students (all of us), musicians, and athletes.

In the first article, the seven tips for managing stress as a college student include having a plan, having achievable objectives, spending time exercising and doing leisure activities, eating healthy, getting rest, communicating with loved ones, and enhancing social engagement. This connects to what we learned in class about stress management because we learned that exercise is a good way to release endorphins and make you feel better. Communicating with loved ones and enhancing social engagement also connects with the adaptive strategies that we learned of using social support and self disclosure. Social groups with friends and family are good to have to be able to confide in and get advice from. The article also mentions getting sleep which I believe would really help in resting and allowing the body to recuperate especially after so much cortisol being released in the body from stress. Finally, having a plan and having achievable objectives correlates with problem-focused coping. This strategy works at changing the stressor to decrease the stress that it adds. It focuses on the actual stressor while emotion-focused coping focuses on the emotions that come with the stressor.

In the second article, the article states six tips for managing stress as a musician. These include listing little tasks that need to be done, meditating, sleeping, staying active, limiting caffeine, and spending time on activities not related to work. Listing and crossing off little tasks that need to be done also incorporates problem-focused coping. Sleeping again allows the body to recuperate and staying active allows the body to release helpful chemicals and decrease the individuals risk of developing heart disease. Exercise, especially for musicians who often spend a good deal of time sitting, is important to make sure their body feels good and can be a good way to get away from stressors. Meditating connects to what we learned about Mindfulness-Based stress reduction (MBSR). This coping mechanism focuses on developing the “observer self” and staying in the present. This can help with managing stress and pain by realizing that pain only comes from anxiety from the past or future. MBSR is a good way to stay in the present and not worry or focus on what you cannot control because it is either in the past or future. Limiting caffeine especially 6 hours before bed will help an individual fall asleep. Also, caffeine can help boost the effects of stress hormones so they will only make the feelings of stress worse.

Finally, the third article talks about managing stress as an athlete. The five tips that this article stresses are getting enough sleep, practicing time management, maintaining a positive attitude, planning recreational activities, and creating a support system. As mentioned before, getting enough sleep is an extremely good way to help combat stress as long as sleeping does not become a self-indulgence and push stressors back thus causing more stress. Practicing time management is problem-focused coping, which is a good way to make sure that things get done. Maintaining a positive attitude can correlate to emotion-focused coping. This deals with the emotions behind stressors so if someone focuses on being happy and optimistic about the stressors, they will not experience more negative emotions that will cause stress and weaken the immune system, leaving the individual more likely to contract illnesses. Because athletes are already active, they need to focus more on scheduling time in for other positive recreational activities. As long as these recreational activities are not maladaptive like some self-indulgences, these activities can help individuals relax and get away from the stress that they have. Finally, creating a support system allows individuals who experience great amounts of stress to be able to have someone to turn to and a shoulder to cry on. This social support can provide an individual with more help and resources and someone to self-disclose to instead of just holding everything in.

These three websites all provided good coping strategies of stress for individuals in different situations. Most of them are adaptive in the right situations, although it depends on the individual trying to use them and the specific situation. Also, a person would need to be able to tell when a strategy turns from adaptive to maladaptive. For example, if someone takes a break to go for a walk, that can be adaptive until the walk becomes too long and they start avoiding their responsibilities.

College Students:

https://www.workitdaily.com/manage-stress-effectively-college-students/

Musicians:

https://www.musicindustryhowto.com/6-more-stress-beating-tips-for-musicians/

Athletes:

https://www.recruitingrealities.com/2012/09/25/5-stress-management-tips-for-student-athletes

--Original published at Brittany's Thoughts

Stress is something that affects everyone’s lives at one point or another. Whether the stress be from work, school, relationships or other activities such as clubs, it will still affect the person and can lead to undesirable side effects and feelings. Stress has to be managed, and there are many ways to manage that stress. Stress management varies from group to group and person to person, and what works for one person may not work for another.

Stress Management for Teens

Teens have to deal with a lot of different stress between school, a job if they have it, their friendships, and figuring out their futures. Transitioning between childhood dependence and adult independence while still living at home can be extremely difficult, especially with all the work that is put on teens. This can cause problems with illness, anxiety, withdrawal, and the creation of poor coping skills that could get teens into trouble.

An article by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry talked about methods that teenagers could use to cope with stress. They discussed what kinds of things could be stressors for teens, a few ways parents can help, and what teens can do to manage stress. They gave examples such as taking breaks from stressful situations, learning relaxation techniques, avoiding excessive caffeine intake, eating and exercising regularly, and learning to feel good enough about your work even when it is not “perfect.”

Most of these tips are some of the general stress management tips you hear. These tips can be effective depending on who you are and what your preferences are. While exercise might work for one, it may create more stress in another. Even the methods that involve changing the way you think and perceive your work and stress can be beneficial, but can be less successful because it is difficult to change the way you think. Relaxation techniques such as imagery have been shown to be quite beneficial, so that is one technique with a lot of backing to it for many people. Most of the techniques discussed could be considered adaptive strategies unless done too often to avoid a stressor. For example, if you do an activity and avoid a stressor until the last minute, that would be a maladaptive strategy. As long as the management is done without causing more problems, the management could be healthy and beneficial to teenagers.

https://www.aacap.org/aacap/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-Guide/Helping-Teenagers-With-Stress-066.aspx

Stress Management for College Students

Similarly to teenagers, college students have a lot of stress. The transition between living at home to living in a dorm where you are almost completely responsible of yourself is incredibly hard, and it can be very hard to deal with. The academic workload, a job, relationships and other activities such as clubs and ensembles can make college even more stressful than the transition does alone. This leads to very high levels of stress that can be very harmful for the persons experiencing the stress.

An article from the University of Michigan talks about the pros and cons of stress, symptoms of stress, and ways of reducing and managing stress. It said how stress can be a motivator and get you out of danger, but too much stress can bog you down and keep you from achieving what you need to achieve. In order to avoid being bogged down, you need to manage the stress before it gets worse. The article also brought up that increased stress can lead to mental health episodes in those with mental health disorders, which makes stress management even more important. They bring up techniques like not procrastinating over your academic work, taking time to just clear your mind, gaining better time-management skills, realizing your limits, and finding the humor in your life.

Some of the techniques varied from the tools for teenagers, but some remained the same. Again, management tools like working on time management can be harder to achieve but yield great rewards for stress management. The strategies could all be considered adaptive strategies unless you did procrastinate on your work, were stress eating or using coping mechanisms that do not work for the individual.

http://www.campusmindworks.org/students/self_care/managing_stress.asp

Stress Management for Working Mothers

Working mothers deal with a lot of stress from their work life and their home life. When one falls out of balance, the other will begin to follow and become more stressful as well. It is important for a working mom to manage her stress as well as her children’s’ stress to keep a happy, healthy balance in the home and the workplace.

An article by VeryWell Mind on working mothers displayed six techniques that a working mother can use to manage hers and her children’s’ stress. The first was plan ahead and staying organized, which could help limit last-minute stress from accidents with kids and streamlining your schedule. The second was setting boundaries, which was about saying no to tasks you cannot handle and focusing on tasks important to you and your success. The third was staying connected which was about spending time with your children in order to keep them feeling happy and loved while also doing some activities with them that could relieve yours and their stress. The fourth was taking care of yourself, which was taking time for yourself and trying to prevent burn-out. The fifth was enlisting help, which was about designating tasks to others, so you don’t have to do as much. The final tip was focusing on stress management, such as breathing exercises and re-framing techniques.

These methods were a little more specialized for the working mother than the methods mentioned in the other articles were. There were some like relaxation and taking time for yourself that were common across all the articles. Others dealt with both managing the mother’s and the child’s stress. This group deals with the child as well, so it’s important to have techniques to use with children as well as the mother. The techniques could be considered adaptive strategies since they do not have consequences, and can benefit both parties greatly.

https://www.verywellmind.com/working-moms-and-stress-relief-3145161

There are many ways for everyone to cope with stress. Even though the methods are not one-size-fits-all, people can find the methods that work for them and utilize them and prevent stress from consuming their lives.

--Original published at KatiesPerspectives

There are many different ways to destress, but not all methods of de-stressing work for everyone. In fact, if done incorrectly or by the wrong person – methods of de-stressing can actually lead to a much more stressful lifestyle. Stress can make is difficult to concentrate, increase worrying, cause tension and headaches, and even cause changes in your sleeping in eating habits. This is why it’s important to take a step back and evaluate the things you are doing to help de-stress to make sure they are not doing more harm than good.

Managing Stress During College:

Being a college student, you are forced into a whole new world of living alone and taking care of nearly everything yourself. For some, this could make for a much less stressful life, but for others it can be a troublesome and very difficult transition. Having the sort of freedom you have in college means that you have the opportunity to create both a life of ease, and a life of stress all for yourself. Throughout college, many students find that they start to develop new skills to help them balance the academic demands of college with the healthy living choices that must be made when living by yourself/with a roommate.

An article by the University of Michigan says that it’s important for college students to de-stress as stress can physically and mentally drag you down. While the article states that stress is a normal, natural part of life and being in college, there are many healthy ways that people cope with this sort of stress. One thing this article mentions as being helpful for college students when de-stressing, is exercise. While this can be a very useful and healthy way of dealing with stress and “blowing off steam,” per-say, some people see working out as something that is stressful in, and of itself. Personally, I really love going to the gym and physically putting in work, not only to maintain a healthy body, but a healthy mind. I find that the balance is important and exercising and running a couple times a weeks really helps keeping everything in check. While this might not be a problem-focused coping mechanism, it can be very helpful for people to have an outlet to blow off steam without having the cathartic reaction of lashing out. Overall, exercising could be potentially proactive, or retroactive for combatting stress, depending on how you look at it.

http://www.campusmindworks.org/students/self_care/managing_stress.asp

Managing Stress for Athletes

Although it is proven that a certain amount of stress can be very healthy for an athlete, there is a fine line between the stressors that help us focus and give us energy, and the stressors that can cause hormonal imbalances and the potential breakdown of the immune system. Oklahoma Sports and Fitness says, “Stress is like a spice. In the right portions, it enhances the flavor of the dish. Too little produces a bland, dull dish; and too much may choke you.” Some sports related factors that could play a vital role in increasing the stress of athletes is the physical and psychological demands, the life choices, and having pressure to always have a high standard of performance.

One of the main things that this website mentions is of upmost importance for athletes, is getting enough sleep. This is something that I think is very important for all people, especially physically active people. Getting enough sleep can play a vital role in how you perform on tests, in recitals, or (in this case) in games. While sleep is very important in the right amounts, playing Devil’s Advocate – too much sleep could be considered a maladaptive strategy of managing stress. While sleeping can help you decrease stress, sleeping in excess (more than 6, 7.5, or 9 hours a night) can cause excess problems that might actually decrease your ability to perform your sport to your fullest potential. This is a strategy that I think is necessary but must be carefully monitored each night as you are going into your athletic season.

http://www.oksportsandfitness.com/StressedAthlete.php

Managing Stress for Parents

Whether you are a stay-at-home parent of a working parent, parenting can be a very stressful and daunting task. Being constantly worried about who needs to be where, when, and with what science project and what lunchbox and how their getting there, I imaging, can be a scary thing to have to deal with every day. Constantly being worried or anxious can become an everyday, normal thing for a parent – but does it have to be? Researchers at the Child Development Institute don’t think so.

One of the points it makes on this website is that it can help reduce stress and make the whole day run much smoother if you got up 15 minutes earlier. By allowing this time to prepare yourself for what the day has to offer, you are actively assessing the stressor. This is called problem-focused coping. By actively combating things before they happen and allowing extra time, you are creating for yourself, somewhat of a leeway time for unexpected things that might happen throughout your day. Overall, this is a very productive way at looking at things and a great way to get things done while staying on top of stressful situations.

https://childdevelopmentinfo.com/family-living/stress/

Overall, there are very many things that one can do to help them combat the challenges of stress and the only way to find out what works best for you is to test the waters.