--Original published at Noah'sPSY105blog

Stress management is absolutely crucial in most people’s everyday lives. This holds especially true for college students who are often sleep deprived and have to abide by very strict deadlines when it comes to assignments and testing.

To be truthful, during school I do not have a set tactic when it comes to managing my stress levels. I often try to keep a level head when work starts to pile on during the middle of the semester or I am tasked with a large work load. The largest tactic I employ on a regular basis would most likely be stepping back when I start to get stressed, take some deep breaths and break up my schedule in a way that makes it seem like I have less work than what I actually do.

I believe that if I were to incorporate more stress management activities I would most likely incorporate hiking into my schedule. I believe hiking is an extremely good stress management activity because not only are you able to go out and clear your head by surrounding yourself with nature, but the natural beauty of the sights that you see whilst going on hikes can be somewhat soothing as well which may improve your mood as a whole. I think this is an activity I could realistically incorporate into my schedule because you do not have to take an extremely long hike to experience the calming effects, and there are a large amount of interesting trails near Elizabethtown and near my hometown as well.

--Original published at Sherika's Psych Blog

College is a very stressful time period for many students lives, not only are they experiencing living in a singular place away from home, but the stress of academics, maintaining a social life and more contribute to stress as a whole. But what are some ways that stress like this can be managed?

For me personally, I’m a huge fan of music, art, and reading. Whenever I’m stressed out I simply either listen to music of different varieties, read a book, or watch a movie. On any given day they tend to work, since I’m confining myself to a degree of solitude and in that time I’m allowing myself to decompress from the stressful situation I found myself in.

To deal with stress more effectively, I suppose I could take up a less stressful hobby that allows me to be both productive, but relieve stress at the same time. So I suppose I could take up painting in order to supplement my stress relieving strategies.

--Original published at Rickster's Psychology Blog

I watched a TED talk from Kelly McGonigal called “Making Stress Your Friend.” I didn’t really believe the study she brought up. I believe one of the statistics was if one of the participants believed stress was bad for their health and was moderately to severely stressed, then they had an increased 43% of dying the next year. I believe a survey size of 30,000 is not large enough to be preaching numbers like this.

Then she talked about what out body does to react to stress. The body releases oxytocin which is also called the “cuddle hormone.” The heart contracts blood vessels while stressed. When your stressed, you begin to breath quicker and your heart pumps harder. This is why stress is linked to cardiovascular disease.

This seems like a lot of doom and gloom. However, it can all change if you think of stress as a good think. McGonigal said if you view stress positively, you won’t have compressed blood vessels and your heart will continue to beat harder which is good for cardiovascular health. Stress also helps to you to reach out to people you care about and seek support which is caused when oxytocin is released. Oxytocin helps with stress resilience and helps heart cells regenerate. She even said snorting oxytocin would be great for everyone.

I think this a great video to show someone who is in the middle of a slump. It’s inspiring and its supported with science. I wouldn’t believe everything she said about the studies but everything else seemed pretty legit to me.

I already implement this into my life. I played sports all my life and always got burst of energy when the enemy team or crowd was booing or talking smack. I take it as a challenge and I always seemed to play better when my back was against the wall or there was money on the line.

Pressure makes me perform better. That’s probably why I’ve always been an extreme procrastinator.

--Original published at olivyahvanek

My current stress level is much lower than it is during the school year because I am taking many less classes than I am during the school year. I also am taking this class at my pace, rather than attending classes every day I get to take this class from the comfort of my own home. I feel as though being at home I am less stressed taking a class because I am working at my pace and I am in my own comfortable environment.

During the school year I do not get very stressed, but I do get stressed for sure. I do have some stress management for during the school year, when I am very stressed. I go to the gym and run and workout, which helps me focus on something different for a little bit, rather than focusing solely on school work and stressing out more.

This really does help me be less stressed because I can work out all of my anger and stress directed towards school work.

Other things that I could do to manage my stress would be boxing because that would take off a lot of anger and stress by boxing, rather than taking my stress out on something. I think that being stressed makes my performance worse because then I am not able to focus on my work and things that I need to focus on. I think that when I am not stressed my performance is better, which is why I enjoy going to the gym and doing physical activity to relieve my stress.

--Original published at Courtney's College Blog

Throughout my academic career, I have tried several different stress management techniques, and have found several practices that work for me. I have started practicing yoga about a year ago. It is a valuable escape from reality that allows me to focus on myself for one hour out of the day. I owe my thanks to Professor Lorenzen in the Spanish department, who is my yoga instructor. While practicing yoga, I have found value in meditation. Meditation does not have to take long and is a great way to clear my mind. I have started implementing yoga in between study breaks, and whenever I am overwhelmed. I tend to get overwhelmed frequently, since I have been struggling with anxiety since I was around thirteen years old. I am on an antidepressant, which has been working well. It eliminates excess stress so that I can experience as much stress as any other student, which as you know, is still a lot.

Stress has impacted much of my life, which is why I have explored many techniques. Regardless, I still have more practices I want to implement in to my daily life. I do rigorous exercise twice a week, but I think if I do it more often, it would release more stress. During the spring, I ran several miles almost every day, and that was a great way to relieve stress and aggression. I need to go back to that routine, especially when the fall semester starts. One thing I want to implement is learning to accept the things I cannot control. Since I like to plan every aspect of my life, when something is out of my control, I become stressed. Forget about a five year plan, I have an 100 year plan. This trait has its upsides and downsides, and I am looking for ways to cope with its downsides. Another thing I want to try is breathing exercises. I know that breathing exercises work for many people, so I want to try it also.

--Original published at JVershinski's Blog

So I’ve never really gotten too stressed about things. Tests and quizzes don’t stress me out. Job interviews don’t stress me out. Don’t ask me why, because I have no clue why these things don’t stress me out, but they just don’t. For the occasional event I do get stressed about, I take some very thorough steps to ensure I can try to minimize the stress as much as possible.

My first step in minimizing my stress is to ensure that my daily routine does not change significantly. I’ve tried to change it up before when I’ve gotten stressed, but that just made me more stressed about the entire situation. I will wake up at the same time, eat breakfast at the same time, workout at the same time, and do my homework at the same time I would on any other day. The next step I take in minimizing stress is to ensure that I get a good couple nights of rest. Sleep deprivation is something that I’ve noticed does not treat me well if I am stressed out. Making sure I get enough sleep allows me to still feel good when I wake up and go to the gym, and it helps keep my stress in check. One thing that I do like to change up is that I will take somewhere between 5-10 minutes of my day to meditate. A lot of people may laugh at this, or joke around about it, but it has really worked for me in the past and still does. It clears my mind, relaxes all of my muscles, and just leaves me feeling good afterward. I think these things help me keep my stress levels low, and keep me going through the stress.

I’m not really sure of any other stress-reducing techniques I could incorporate into this routine. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know because I would like to try new things as well.