Stress is the pressure or tension we feel in ourselves when problems exist in our lives. It can make our teeth grind, gums bleed, hands shake and have detrimental impacts upon our everyday lives. I learnt through personal experience and studies of psychology some useful ways of dealing with it.
Stress occurs when there is a difference in the requirements of a task and our perception of whether or not we have the resources to meet these requirements. Say you have an assignment due in two weeks and you feel as though you need three weeks to do it, you will then feel stress as you do not feel like you have the means to achieve the outcome. Stress is all mental. To change the way you feel stress you have to take control and change your perception about the resources you have. I find that simply changing my view of a situation and accepting this view is what combats stress. If you take the time to realistically think about the opportunities you have to fulfill the requirements and plan out your solution, then you will feel less stress. In my experience, a simple change in perception about a task can take you from nervous sweating to a calm counterattack of the task's requirements.
If changing your perception isn't all that effective then don't panic, at a certain level, stress is actually helpful to your functioning! The right amount of stress can actually push you to be motivated, productive and driven. Ever find that you always get the most on an assignment done right before it's due? Cheers eustress. Too little stress and you'll be bored, unmotivated and lack the drive to perform. Too much stress, conversely, equates to fatigue, breakdowns and denaturing of performance. In the below diagram, the blue zone represents the optimum performance zone of eustress. Left of the zone represents too little stress and right of the zone represents too much stress.
If the re-shifting of mental thoughts doesn't work out too well for you then plenty of other strategies exist. The following may help to reduce stress levels
Stress can be quite annoying if you don't know how to deal with it but hopefully today you've learnt something about controlling your stress. Knowledge is power and hopefully you all have the power to reduce the impact stress takes on your life.
Amateur Adolescent
- Get more sleep. The national sleep centre recommends
- 9 - 11 hours for 6 - 13 year olds
- 8 - 10 hours for 14 - 17 year olds
- 7 - 9 hours for 18 - 64 year olds
- Avoid having sugar, chocolate or coffee before bed
- Stop drinking coffee altogether
- Open up to someone about your stress ( in the comments below, for example)
- Meditate
- Go search for relaxing songs or study music and listen to one of those hour long relaxing hymns
- Listen to some Jack Johnson and embrace the chill
- Maybe your way of relaxing is even to pump up the beats and get angry and motivated? Different people de-stress in different ways.
Stress can be quite annoying if you don't know how to deal with it but hopefully today you've learnt something about controlling your stress. Knowledge is power and hopefully you all have the power to reduce the impact stress takes on your life.
Amateur Adolescent