Stress
Contents:
The Definition of Stress Ways to Manage Stress
Overload
Stress Resources Add relevant links to your Health 1 Bookmarks/Favorites folder.
In the fast-paced, competitive world we live in, it's almost impossible not to experience stress and its many physiological and psychological manifestations:
- feelings of being overwhelmed
- anxiety, frustration, anger, and depression
- trouble falling asleep
- difficulty staying asleep
- waking up tired and not well rested
- seemingly perpetual fatigue
- gastrointestinal upset
- changes in eating patterns (overeating or undereating)
- craving sweet/fatty/salty ("comfort" foods)
- more headaches than usual
- short temper/irritable
- recurring colds and minor illness
- muscle ache and/or tightness
- trouble concentrating, remembering, or staying organized
- anxiety
- depression
- social withdrawal
- crying spells
- relationship conflicts
- forgetfulness
- heart palpitations
- invitations to engage in unhealthy behaviors (e.g., smoking, drinking)
Stress is a disruption in one's psychobiological balance and sense of harmony within oneself and/or with the social and physical environments. The experience of stress is unpleasant, so when we become stressed, we try to regain psychological and physical balance. If we are successful, not only do we feel better, but also we gain confidence in our ability to handle stress in the future. If we are not successful, however, and stress is prolonged or severe, we may become fatigued, worn out, discouraged, and sick.
The Definition of Stress: "Oh No!"
Most of us experience stress as occurring outside of us in the form of daily hassles, family problems, unpleasant interactions with other people, job/school problems, major events (war, flood, famine), or even positive experiences, like starting a new love relationship or graduating from college, which, although positive, can be taxing. However, the real origin of stress is in our minds.
Stress is scientifically defined as "a relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well-being." In other words, stress comes from thinking, "Oh No! My well-being at risk and I'm not sure I have the personal, social, economic, or physical resources to meet this challenge and come out OK." Stress-producing thoughts can be about a current situation, like the break-up of a relationship, an imagined situation, like the possibility of a pop quiz, or something that already has occurred, such as a prior traumatic experience.
Thus, we create our stress by...
- thinking that a situation is absolutely or potentially damaging to our physical or psychological well-being or a threat to our survival or the survival of someone or something we care about. (See this extreme example of not getting stressed).
- believing that our personal resources are insufficient to ward off or overcome the threat to our well-being.
- causing the mind and body to become exhausted, worn down, and damaged,
- weakening immunity through the action of stress hormones, particularly cortisol, which bind to immune system cells and alter their functions. Stress-activation of sympathetic nervous system fibers that connect to immune system tissues also alters immune functioning.
- motivating unhealthy behaviors in an attempt to manage stressful feelings. These behaviors include smoking cigarettes, overeating, undereating, overworking, or drinking alcohol and using other drugs. Among American college students, for example, overconsumption of alcohol is commonly employed to reduce stressful feelings.
- not engaging in health-promoting activities, such as exercising regularly, eating properly, or getting enough sleep.
It is not always possible to avoid or escape stressful situations. Neither is it generally possible to change others so that they behave in ways we desire. In the face of stress, a wise course is to become mindful of how your thoughts contribute to feeling stressed. Becoming increasing aware of how your mind works can help you decrease the time your mind swirls around in the throes of stress. Other ways to manage stress include...
- Live healthfully. Eat healthy foods, stretch and exercise regularly, get sufficient sleep, don't smoke, limit consumption of caffeine, alcohol, and other drugs, and take "quiet time" to be contemplative, creative, and joyful.
- Make yourself a priority. When very busy, it's tempting to put off taking care of yourself ("There isn't time; I'll do it later."), so if you must, schedule time for healthful living as you do a class or other regular activity.
- Limit or eliminate interaction with the stressor. Be assertive with an annoying roommate, say "no" to unreasonable requests, use earplugs to block out noise, change jobs, change your major.
- Determine if the stressful situation is changeable and make a plan for doing so. Even if it turns out that change is not possible, believing it to be so lessens stress. Believing that one cannot change a changeable situation for the better (pessimism) creates a sense of helpless, which can lead to giving-up and depression.
- Accept that not all situations can be changed. If a stressful situation is appraised as not immediately changeable, accept and work with the reality of the situation. Wait for an opportunity to take action or look for the good in the bad ("a learning experience"). Facilitate acceptance by seeking solace and comfort in religion, social contact, being with Nature, or perhaps becoming more involved in helping others. Resist invitations not to think about the situation (denial), undertake escapist activities (oversleeping, overeating, using drugs and alcohol, or increased TV watching or web surfing), or become fatalistic and helpless (giving up).
- Ease your mind. Employ any of a variety of methods that can stop the physiological stress response and produce instead the "relaxation response" . These include meditation, image visualization, guided imagery, journal writing, exercise, and prayer. Making one of these methods work for you requires practice and persistence. After learning about the methods, choose one to experiment with almost daily over the course of a week. When you find one or two that you like, make doing them a regular part of your life.
Being confronted with too many challenges and changes can lead to overload -- the feeling that there are too many demands on your time and energy. Your life consists of zipping from here to there to attend to all of your tasks, but what you really want is a week off to play and "vege." And if overload grows to feeling overwhelmed, a student might drop a class or two, drop out of school, get depressed, or use alcohol or drugs.
At the heart of overload is the sense of lacking personal control. Individuals who believe they can influence the course of their lives are likely to experience less stress than individuals who believe that their fate is determined by factors outside of their control. Thus, while it is tempting to focus on things outside of yourself to explain feelings of overload and overwhelm, it is more productive to look at yourself, which is good, because you have more control over yourself than you do over things in your environment.
Here are some antidotes to overload:
- Plan ahead. Knowing when a stressful situation will occur produces less stress than not knowing. For example, most of the time, you will know at the beginning of a semester when major assignments are due. Plan for them.
- Keep a to-do list. At the beginning of each day, or the night before, write down all the things you have to do.
- Clarify intentions: Before you begin each day, take a few moments to be quiet and still and clarify your intentions. Ask yourself "What do I want/need to make happen today?" "What do I need to do to keep my mind, body and spirit healthy and well?" Don't think only of accomplishing tasks but also behaviors that affect your and others' health and well-being.
- Prioritize tasks: First things first. Classify tasks according to their urgency and importance and do them in this order: (1) urgent and important; (2) not urgent but important; (3) urgent but not important; and (4) not urgent or important. Distinguishing the urgent/important tasks from the urgent/not important ones is often difficult because urgency is a state of mind and makes everything seem important. Before prioritizing items on your to-do list, take a few minutes to become mentally and physically quiet. This will allow you to place truly urgent and important items at the tope of your to-do list.
- Don't sweat the small stuff. Eliminate unimportant tasks from your list. Don't do, think about, or worry about anything that doesn't match your most important values and long-term goals. "Keep your eyes on the prize."
- Schedule downtime. Even if it's only a few moments a day, take time for activities that you find meaningful and fun.
- Sleep. Not sleeping enough reduces performance and efficiency on tasks by as much as 50%, which makes tasks take longer and contributes to the sense of overload.
- Don't "Just do it." "Just do it" is a slogan for selling sports shoes, not living a life. Students often erroneously believe that the solution to overload is to put in more effort ("just do it"). Since they already are maxed out, putting in more effort cannot succeed.
- Resist multitasking. Try to do only one thing at a time. Multitasking appears to be time-efficient, but it also creates a sense of urgency, which produces anxiety and stimulates the secretion of stress hormones.
35 Awesome Stress Management Resources.
