--Original published at Zachs College Blog

For the spotlight post this week, we had to choose three different websites addressed towards different audiences that explained different effective ways on dealing and coping with stress. For this post, I chose to examine different ways of coping with stress in high school students, college students, and people dealing with the stresses of work. We had to critique the three different websites and present our opinions on the affect each of these tips would be on a person and how potentially successful each of them could be.

The first website I examined provided tips for reducing stress for high school students. High school is a time where school becomes more intense and important, and many people are experiencing changes both mentally and physically. Stress is deemed evident in the high school years of many students who are experiencing both of these changes. The first tip stated by the website was to take breaks with your time. Taking breaks has actually been proven to be important for people to do so we can refuel and rest both mentally and physically. This tip can be a very important method of reducing stress and something people should be emphasis on as in balancing both work and a social life. Another important tip stated is to better or maintain a healthy sleep schedule because as a teenager it is important obtain a certain amount of sleep. Sleep is also proven to provide your body with a solid foundation at which you can successfully take on the next days tasks. Lastly, another helpful tip given for people to use is exercising or getting out and get moving. Exercise has been proven by research to be very beneficial for distracting people from their daily stresses. For example going to lift, for a run, or even a quick walk will take your mind off of many of the daily stresses high school students deal with. I personally believe this article provided three strong easily attainable tips to help alleviate stress. Researchers know that being a high school student can be a stressful time due to having a very restricted schedule with having to wake up at a certain time, school ends at the same time, athletic and club practices/meetings, etc. This is why these tips provide can be very helpful and do not require much effort or time to do something that will simply make their stresses and day get much better.

The next website I took a look at was tips for dealing with stress directed towards college students. College has proven to be an even more stressful time than high school as many factors in your life change very quickly. For example, having to adjust to living on your own away from your family and friends you grew up with, a much more intensive work load and having to find a resourceful way to balance your amount of free time and school work. Also stated in the previous article, it provided very similar tips for college and high school students including exercise, setting a well followed sleep schedule, and taking breaks from academic work/studies as I already described can be very beneficial for reducing stress in both college and high school students. This article also provided more successful tips for stress by stating to eat healthy. Establishing a healthy diet and eating well on a daily basis can help provide a huge increase in a individual’s energy levels as its been shown that junk foods decreases energy levels dramatically. Another important tip stated is for college students to make sure they have a strong emotional support system around them. Whether this includes a friend or group of friends or even a professor or athletic coach to let out your emotional feelings and thoughts. This has been proven to be a good way to reduce stress levels and physically letting your feelings out can be a fantastic stress reliever. As school work and studying seems to keep piling up, it could be very beneficial to physically write out a schedule with your work for your week creating a checklist that you use for making sure you get your work done by a certain deadline. It is a bad idea to procrastinate and allow your work load to keep stacking stacking each day. Make sure to work ahead and be a productive student each day.  Overall, I believe this website deemed to provide many tips that are beneficial and could easily be successful for reducing stress levels. College can be described as the best time of your entire life, but also the most stressful. College students deal with a great deal of very life changing experiences that they need to adjust to as well as dealing with a complete new social scene and tons of college work.

The Last website I examined provided multiple tips on how to deal with and reduce the amount of stress someone may experience while working. Obtaining and maintaining a job can be very stressful as multiple factors may play a role in the source of stress. For example, people rely on a job to make money to sustain a healthy and happy life for both themselves and their loved ones. Also, one may experience large amounts of stress due to  unhappiness at their work or with their co-workers. As stated in the past two articles related to reducing stress in high school and college students, researchers suggest exercising, eating healthy, and getting enough sleep to also be beneficial ways to reducing stress in the workplace. As we can tell, these three points seem to be very relevant as they are simple, and common ways to reducing stress for example in all three of the situations dealing with high school and college students and also people in the workplace. One successful tip provided by this website is to form positive relationships with your peers. Developing friendships with your coworkers and people you surround yourself with on a daily basis can be a great resource for discussing certain ideas and concerns you are currently going through or experiencing at your job. Also, it can also provide you with a reliable support system for you to lean on when it is needed. Anther great tip prescribed is to prioritize and organize. For example, plan our regular breaks throughout the day to take you away from work and stress for a short amount of time. This also means to prioritize your most important tasks that need to be completed for earlier in the day rather than later. Make sure to keep an organized and neat schedule that lists all of your work related issues for the week. People who have a consistent job and income source have many stresses that come along with working and provide for yourself and a family. I feel that these types listed can provide someone with quick and easy tasks to complete that could make someone’s stress levels plummet or ease greatly.

Citations:

--Original published at Caroline's Blog

Stress management is an important life skill to have or acquire so that you do not become extremely overwhelmed by any of the crazy things that may be put in front of you. To manage or cope with stress, one may turn to physical release, which is a release of pent up emotions in a physical or psychological way, use self-defense strategies such as repression of stress by being removed of conscious awareness, or by self-indulgence which includes treating yourself.  You could take a more problem-focused approach to coping by aiming directly at the stressor or you could take a more emotion-focused approach by focusing on feelings resulting from whatever is causing you stress. Focusing on your observer-self through mindfulness-based stress reduction can also serve as a helping tool for stress management. Stress can affect people of all ages, and there are helpful ways targeted to some specific demographic groups.

As an athlete, I understand how stressful it is to be involved in a competitive sport. An article by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center suggest that athletes take a ‘PERFECT’ approach to dealing with stress. This strategy includes positive self-talk, embracing adversity, reverse engineering, focusing on the now, evolving and chilling out.  This strategy focuses on using self-indulgence by taking a rest from the strains of physical exercise. It also explains that embracing diversity means that even when things are getting tough, athletes need to push through this feeling to succeed. This could be an example of self-defense coping as a reaction formation by doing the opposite of how you are feeling and pushing through the pain.

Parents have to deal with an all new set of stressors when having to deal with their family, finances, and work. An article on the Parenting Science website gives research-based tips to make life better and to reduce stress. One of the main things that this article focuses on is reducing negativity of all forms in your life to make things better. These kinds of negative thoughts, people, and experiences are examples of chronic negative situations, or continued negative situations with no end. Clearing these out will allow you to focus on and bring in more positive thoughts and experiences into your everyday life. These adaptive strategies of switching to more positive thinking will allow for a decrease in stress without complications.

Sometimes, we forget about how stressful the lives of younger kids are. Although their issues may not seem so severe to an older adult, the problems and stresses they are enduring can be taking a toll on them psychologically. An article on web-MD gives us an insight about how adults can help children deal with stress. Most of this advice focuses on helping with schoolwork. It discusses how secondary appraisal, or the appraisal of abilities to deal with the stressors. By appraising their ability to study properly and manage their time with school work they will not feel as overwhelmed by those issues every day.

Most people will have to deal with a stressor in their life someday. These stressors come in all shapes and sizes and managing them can become difficult, but once you find a way to stay calm, cool, and collected, the stressors will minimize, and you will be able to carry out your day without stress weighing you down.

https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/blog/perfect-method-reduces-athlete-stress

https://www.parentingscience.com/parenting-stress-evidence-based-tips.html

https://www.webmd.com/parenting/features/coping-school-stress#2

--Original published at Psychology 105

There are many techniques people can use to cope with stress in their everyday lives. The Internet contains an abundance of tips and different coping mechanisms. In this post, I will be analyzing different stress management techniques for college students, parents, and athletes. A lot of the basic information found on each website for the different audiences is built on the same principles.

For college students, I found an article from www.everdayhealth.org. This source provided a lot of constructive strategies to deal with stress. It advised that students lead a healthy lifestyle with a balanced diet and sleep schedule, as well as regular exercise. These are helpful, but these tips are generally suggested to most people. On of the more helpful tips specifically for college students is to not overload their schedule. This is more of a problem-focused strategy, but I think it’s useful because it provides students a way to keep their stress levels lower in the first place, rather than struggling to cope later. It also tells students to avoid relaxing with drugs or alcohol which is a great tip. A lot of students may turn to substance use to avoid dealing with stress, and this can quickly become a larger problem rather than a solution.

The source I found for athletes came from www.nova3labs.com. I think this article was more geared toward providing emotion-focused coping strategies for athletes. Generally, I think athletes lead healthy lifestyles, so these tips were omitted. However, they made a good point about keeping a positive attitude. In class, we discussed Richard Lazarus’s levels of appraisal and how secondary appraisal is a significant factor in how individuals respond to stress. By keeping a positive attitude, I think individuals would feel that they have better abilities to deal with their stressors. The article also suggests that athletes build a strong support system, such as their peers, coaches, and trainers, who will encourage them and provide perspective and hope. It also suggests that athletes take time to do fun activities other than their sport, which I think is extremely important. Although self-indulgent techniques can be done to excess, I think they are necessary to include because it is important to keep a wide range of techniques at your disposal.

For parents, I found an article from www.parenting-ed.org. It included many of the tips that the articles discussed above provided. I was able, howeve to find tips that would be more helpful specifically for this audience. One of the these was that parents should take time to get organized. Parents have many different things to worry about, including work, children, and finances. The article suggested that parents plan ahead and avoid procrastination.  Another helpful tip was to develop a weekly or monthly budget. Money is a point of stress for a lot of parents, and I think a budget provides a direct way to cope with the problem instead of ignoring it.

Overall, each source seemed focused on providing more adaptive coping strategies rather than maladaptive strategies. As we discussed in class, these strategies are very individualized but can be used across many different situations which we saw in each article.

Sources

--Original published at Carly's College Blog

For this spotlight post, I chose the stress management option. Although the body can cope with stress, a long term build up can be detrimental. These are the tips I found when looking for stress management:

The first website I looked at was Everyday Health, and their article is tips for college students. They provide 10 tips to “tackle” stress. The tips are: to get enough sleep, eat well, exercise, avoid caffeine, get emotional support, avoid alcohol, don’t give up your passions, try not to overload yourself, breathe and get a massage. Although in college it is very easy to overload yourself, I think these tips all hold potential to be successful. This is because they are adaptive tips, they can help decrease stress without presenting any complications or additional stress. They focus on coping with the feelings that come with stress, which is also called emotion focused coping.

The second website I looked at was called archetypes, and they have an article targeted to athletes. They have 3 tips which are: let it go, catch some air, and download relief. Let it go is essentially the idea of only focusing on things that directly effect you, because trying to focus on other issues will cause additional stress. They also discuss the importance of taking time for deep breathing, and downloading music or meditations that will help you relax. These three tips highlight both emotion focused coping, and problem focused coping, which is focusing directly on the stressor. By focusing on the sole area of your stress and letting the rest go, it allows you to work through each problem at a time. i think that since this article is focused towards athletes, they should have included some tips focused around physical release, such as hitting the gym, or practicing their sport.

The last website I looked at is ironically called Stress Relief Choices. The article I looked at is targeted towards teachers. It outlines 7 ways for teachers to manage stress. The #1 tip is to “keep calm.” I think this is funny because if they were calm they would not be googling how to be calm. The other 6 tips are: practice stress relief daily, center yourself before class, be compassionate, laugh with your class, maintain boundaries, and be consistent. I agree with practicing stress relief daily because it is something most people can benefit from. just by taking 15-20 minutes out of each day to focus on centering yourself can help keep your mind on track. Compassion was a tip I didn’t understand until I read the description. It talks about how you need to keep your students in mind because you don’t know what they are going through outside of the classroom and how as a teacher, your mood can effect theirs as well.

One common tip that seems to make it across all 3 websites is to breathe. It’s interesting how even though we know we are breathing, we still get caught up in our own stress that we need to step back take a deep breathe and regain ourselves. I think that these tips can all be successful. Adding a bit of mindfulness to each day can help keep your stress levels in check. These tips mainly fall into the adaptive category, so they won’t cause other complications.

Sources:

https://www.everydayhealth.com/college-health/college-life-10-ways-to-reduce-stress.aspx

https://www.archetypes.com/stress-management-tips-athlete/

https://www.stress-relief-choices.com/stress-management-for-teachers.html

--Original published at Marisa Psych Blog

I chose to look into the management of stress through online sources for this post

https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/blog/perfect-method-reduces-athlete-stress

The first website I looked into was how stress connects to the lives of athletes and how athletes can find better and effective ways to cop with their stress. This article provided a method and seen to help young athletes reduce stress went by an acronym, P.E.R.F.E.C.T.. This method was created to calm performance anxiety, which overall leads to a better quality of performance.  Athletes are constantly under pressure and carrying a lot on their plate. With this method, it allows them to separate each aspect of the game and how to continue moving forward in a positive light with less stress. The P.E.R.F.E.C.T. acronym stands for positive self-talk, embrace adversity, reverse engineer, focus on the now, evolve, chill out and talk it out. One of the biggest parts of this method for most athletes are the categories of positive self talk and focus on the now. When in action of performance players can focus on mistakes they have made throughout their game, or what they have done that could have been better in the pursuit of getting a win. With positive self-talk, you are able to focus on the rest of the game and have optimism for the potential outcome. Athletes can get into their heads easier and quicker than non athletes do to their love of perfection, success, and the feeling of winning the game. Succeeding is more or less a drug to a person who puts all their time and effort into a sport they love. With the P.E.R.F.E.C.T. method, it allows individuals to categorize the most important aspects of stress and how to handle them, creating a positive and excellent athlete both playing in the game and throughout the classroom.

https://www.verywellmind.com/top-school-stress-relievers-for-students-3145179

The second article I looked into touched on how stress connects to high school students and tips that could potentially make things better . This source states that many high school students carry a lot of stress throughout their academic careers, and can take a very big toll of not only ones health, but their grades and even their emotional state. A study done by the American Psychological Association revealed that many high school leveled students feel levels of stress and adult would possess, leading to feelings of being overwhelmed, depressed and feeling as if the stress is taking over their life and a lack of being about to cope effectively is creating more stress. Stress in teens is seen to effect sleeping and diet patterns as well as how much activity and exercise a healthy teen needs to strive. One of the biggest tips that was given throughout this article in relation to reduce stress was taking power naps. With a long list of to dos and what seems like a never ending schedule, students need to make time for rest. Missing sleep can be detrimental to not only a teens health, but anyone of any age category. Finding small areas of time to sleep creates a more productive student who has had time to rest their brain and can use it more efficiently. Couple other tips that seems to be important and popular to teens is eating healthy, getting exercise, positive thinking, and music. All of these things can help with a positive look into facing your day with a reduced amount of stress.

https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-deal-with-stress-at-work-3145273

The last article I used as a source spoke about the stress of employees throughout their workplace. The rate of stress for individuals continue to climb as the years progress, but stress is seen in various different environments. In this case, this is about corporate stress and how adults or others ho have a job are stressed and ways it could be reduced of simplified. According to a statement from the CDC’s National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, their recent studied have shown that the number of Americans who say they are feeling “extremely” stressed through their work ranges from 29 to 40 percent. Finding a low stress job seems to be a easy solution, but every job comes with its own sources of street, their is no way to fully avoid it, but their are many ways to face and deal with the problems placed infront of someone in a healthier manner. Some ways that workers can simplify their day and better deal with their stress all starts off with how you start you day. Make sure you make time for yourself, eat a proper breakfast and stay positive. Throughout your day, try to steer clear of conflict, stay organized, comfortable, try not to multitask too many jobs, listen to music, and over all just focus on what needs to be done. If you use all of these factors in a regular day it will hep you reduce your stress inside the workplace.

Overall, these articles showed how many different types of people deal with the issue of stress as well as tips to make it better and how to reduce the amount you take on.

--Original published at Chey's Blog

I chose to evaluate online stress management approaches for my post. The first type of stress management that I looked at had a focus on high school students. The article for this website is titled Top 10 Stress Relievers for Students. It was stated that, “An NYU study found that much of high school students’ stress originates from school and activities and that this chronic stress can persist into college years and lead to academic disengagement and mental health problems” (Scott 1). Some tips were provided to help the stress of these high school students. The biggest tip was to take power naps because of a lack of sleep. From what we talked about in class, naps are not the best idea. They should not be frequent and should be less than twenty minutes long because they can greatly disrupt your sleep schedule. Exercise was another option that was given. This could be useful to relieve stress, but as we talked about in class it could also cause stress for some people. So, it is really up to the person exercising to decide whether that works for them.

The next type that I looked at was directed towards athletes. I know we have a lot of athletes in our class that have talked about their stress levels, so I thought it would be interesting to see what coping mechanisms the internet had to offer. The article that I found is called Five Stress Management Tips for Athletes. The number one tip provided here was to get adequate rest. The suggestion was 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night and naps if you could not get that much rest. Now, as we learned in class that specific time of sleep is not necessarily correct and you just need to find what works for your body. The naps were also spoken of previously. Another tip was to check your attitude. The article talked about how having a positive attitude can reduce stress. I’m sure being positive is one way to not have stress, but I’m not sure that just telling yourself to be positive is going to get rid of stress, especially for those with anxiety.

The last type that I looked at was stress management for employees in the workplace. There is a lot of stress in the workplace and I know the way that I cope with it is unnecessary bathroom breaks to get away from coworkers. So, I wanted to see what tips were available that did not include those bathroom breaks. The article that I found for this is called 9 Simple Ways to Deal With Stress in the Workplace.  One tip that was provided is to avoid conflict. I would say that is a very good tip to avoid the stress, but it does not really give you a way to manage the stress you are already feeling. Another tip was to go for a walk on your lunch break. For those of us that enjoy food that might not work, but if you are really stressed I do think that is a good option. Walks actually relieve my stress a lot. I think that moving around helps to keep me calm.

Overall these were pretty good tips. I would not personally do most of them because they would not work for me, but getting a decent amount of sleep and exercising are good tips that a lot of people could use.

https://www.verywellmind.com/top-school-stress-relievers-for-students-3145179

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

https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-deal-with-stress-at-work-3145273

--Original published at Marlee's Psych 105 Blog

Website 1 Students– https://www.learnpsychology.org/student-stress-anxiety-guide/

The first website, provides stress management tips for college students through the “5 School Stress Busting Tips.” This method consists of getting plenty of sleep, thinking positively, having a stress outlet, engaging in relaxation techniques and talking to someone. These methods are designed to help you cope with and manage the stress which comes along with being a full time student. Being a college student, you tend to sacrifice sleep in order to socialize with friends or complete your school work. Step one, of the SSBTs tells us to get plenty of sleep because without it, our academic performance is impaired. The second step, tells you to think positively. According to the SSBTs,”positive thinking may improve physical well-being, produce lower feelings of depression and produce lower levels of distress”(Cohen). The next step tells you to have a stress outlet. This could include finding an intramural sport you like or joining a social club. Next you should find a relaxation technique. A good relaxation technique could be slowly counting to ten or meditation. The final step, tells you to talk to someone. Talking to someone is a good way to reduce stress and clear you mind.

I would say all of the steps presented in the SSBT are adaptive strategies to relieve stress. When I say adaptive strategies I mean that all of the tips decrease the stress without other complications such as those of self-indulgence. Self-indulgence is a form of stress relief in which you do something pleasant to compensate for your stress, but it tends to backfire because you are not actually addressing the stressor itself. On another note, all of the steps are also emotion-focused. All the steps focus on how you react to the stressor. I would say the 5 School Stress Busting Tips are effective in decreasing stress.

Website 2 Parents/Children– psych central.com/…/7-tips-for-helping-your-child-manage-stress

In this website, psych central gives us 7 tips to reduce stress in children. The seven tips presents us with both problem-focused and emotion-focused constructive strategies. The tips are also geared to ensure that children don’t lash out. These tips address the stressors in a healthy manner as opposed to maladaptive strategies, such as drugs alcohol or self harm. The tips include stop over-scheduling, make time for play, make sleep a priority, teach your kids to listen to their bodies, manage your own stress, make mornings calmer, and prepare your kids to deal with mistakes. The tips present both forms of constructive strategies. we see problem-focused coping through avoiding over-scheduling and making time to play. Both tips attempt to reduce the stress directly. Tips like teach your kids to listen to their bodies and preparing your kids to deal with mistakes are forms of emotion-focused coping. These tips focus on how the child reacts to the stressor without actually effecting the stressor itself. The fifth tip that we are given also shows us how observational learning takes place. Tip 5 tells us to manage our own stress. We are told to do this because, like Lyon says,”stress is really contagious.” If you are showing signs of stress your child will pick them up through observational learning.

Website 3 Athletes- https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/blog/perfect-method-reduces-athlete-stress 

The last website discussed ways that athletes can cope with stress. These tips are provided in the form of an acronym called P.E.R.F.E.C.T. This method attempts to build and support an athletes self-esteem. Athletes are constantly undergoing mass amounts of pressure and regularly experience performance anxiety. The P.E.R.F.E.C.T. method stands for “positive self talk, embracing adversity, reverse engineering, focusing on the now, evolve, chill out, and talk it out”(Doncaster). That being said, both positive self talks and embracing adversity come into play when talking about secondary appraisal. Secondary appraisal is the way that people cope with their stress. In order to combat their stress, athletes need to have a high confidence level. This confidence will make coping with stressors easier and allow the athletes to perform to the best of their ability. Being an athlete, I know that no matter what sport you play you will always be placed in a stressful situation. It is better for athletes to learn how to cope with the stressors in an emotion-focused approach because the stressor will never truly be gone and if it is another will surface. In sports, problem-focused coping is not effective because there is always another situation to address.