I identified that the amount of school work I was trying to accomplish in a single day and my big move from Canada to Long Beach were my stressors (Ch 3, Pg 84). They were the external stimuli that triggered my response of stress. The move from Canada to the United States was a definite life change (Ch 3, Pg 85) for me, I had to readjust many aspects of my normal life from back home to adapt to living in southern California. I come from a friendly suburb that I have lived in almost my entire life, and I was used to seeing people that I knew almost everywhere I went. I had easy access to my best friends because I went to the same school as them. I grew up in a culture that worshipped winter, hockey, and the unofficial national coffee shop …show more content…
The flaw in using problem-focused coping is that it only really works effectively if we have some control over the situation. In my case, there will always be daily factors that may prevent me from exercising full control over how much work I complete on a daily basis. How much work I get done depends on how much sleep I get per night, whether I have eaten properly, whether I had to be doing something else instead of doing school work such as extra curricular activities. All of these things take up time that I could be using to complete my work, but these are unavoidable events of daily life that I must do so that I do not face a burnout from stress. Also, I have no control as to what my professors assign to me as work or what extra reading must be done to fully understand the concepts of the class, there is no strict structure. Professors will also always assign work over the course of the semester so there is no way to be completely done with work. My continuous effort to try and rid myself of work through problem-focused coping is not a long term solution and I will easily face a burnout if I continue to do …show more content…
I adopted a strategy that emphasized balance in my everyday life. I made adjustments in my life at the university like getting more sleep and actually having at least an hour a day to relax and read or to do whatever I like. By creating a healthy balance between school work and “me” time, I have felt happier and had more drive to do school work because I did not feel like I was drowning from never ending work. It was my belief that I held internal locus of control (Ch 3, Pg 102), the ability to control my own life, that allowed me to see that stress is unavoidable in college, but even when I experience stress, the way I succeed to overcome that stress is up to me. Only I can help myself. Only I can decide how to balance my life so that I do not have a
There are many challenges that one must face as we go through life. I have faced a few myself, however, none proved more challenging than moving from my country; Jamaica, to the United States and subsequently moving to the state of Wisconsin. Deciding to leave behind family and friends is the hardest decision to make, however, there are a few things that I was not prepared for that made the transition more challenging than expected. Moving away from all that is familiar culturally, socially and economically can be even more of a daunting task than imagined. There are things that are taught to us by our parents and others that are more dictated by our environment than anything else, so when I immigrated to the United States I had three major challenges to overcome.
In my experience it may seem that no matter how hard I may try to balance school, work, and family something always suffers. I simply try to remind myself that if I work hard and try to maximize my time that I should be able to accomplish all I need to do. Even if I am not successful in doing so at least I know that I tried my best to balance everything thing out. In my opinion people need to give one hundred percent of effort or else they will not be
Lazarus, R. S. (1966). Stress as a Psychological Problem. Psychological stress and the coping process (p. 3). New York: McGraw-Hill.
How to Deal With StressMany students go to school full time, and hold a part time job to earn money for school. Most students have about four classes, and each of the teacher’s of these classes gives an average of about an hour of homework each night; that averages out to four hours per night of homework, plus a part time job. School causes a lot of students stress because there are so many things to do, and so little time to do it. Stress is a normal part of everyone’s life; and is not a disease. It is not necessarily good or bad; however, reactions to stress can be harmful. Lack of time puts the stress on many students, and causes students to often procrastinate because they are constantly trying to meet deadlines and they don’t have the time to work on their assignments. Many students feel their grades are important; they need plenty of time to work on their work so they can do good. I can relate to them because if I get a low grade I get disgusted because I put a lot of time and effort in doing that assignment. But I think that a lot of the stress from school is caused, not only by the teachers, but also from the students to do well. Students put too much stress on themselves. A student just has to learn to manage their time well and just do as good as possible. Stress management involves the effort of that student to make emotional and physical changes.
Developing people skills, having exceptional time management skills, and positive thinking skills are effective ways of balancing work and school. A planner is an effective way to organize your time and allows you to tackle work and school. People skills are imperative to develop, considering that you will gain experience with people, thus, will lead to success in the future. Moreover, positive thinking skills will lessen stress while you are at these two places, and one last tool to remember, don 't worry about school while you 're at work and vice versa. The time that you 're at each place you focus on each task in its appropriate way. Let work and school remain separate; therefore, don 't bring work-related activities in school. Additionally, don 't bring school-related activities to work. If you are willing to separate these two places, hence you will be able to offer your best in
Overloading my self with too many classes can cause stress and not enough rest. Staying up late trying to study for every class, for tests, or even to do homework can be pretty overwhelming. Handling my classes can take the stress away, not only that, it also gives me time to study, to get
During my two-week period I started a “stress diary’ documenting my progress with putting the four A’s into action in my life to relieve stress.
Stress is defined by Mark Krause (Krause & Corts, 2012) as, “a psychological and physiological reaction that occurs when perceived demands exceed existing resources to meet those demands.” This refers to stressors, any event that happens to us can be stressors, but so can our response to the events. There is stress that is more of a one-time event called acute stress which would be like giving a speech in front of the class. Then there is also chronic stress which results from continual exposure to situations that lead to the release of stress hormones. Chronic stress can result in wear and tear on your mind and body. An example of chronic stress events would be financial problems and constant response to these events would have an effect on
Everyone deals with stress at some point in his or her life. Most people deal with it daily. As defined in the book called Principles and Labs for Fitness and Wellness, stress is, “The mental, emotional, and physiological response of the body to any situation that is new, threatening, frightening, or exciting” (Hoeger & Hoeger, 2012). This stress is caused by a stressor, which is also known as “a stress-causing event” (Hoeger & Hoeger, 2012). Stressors can take all different forms, from moving to a new town, having a baby, or even writing a paper (Boyd, Wood, & Wood, 2011). One major stressor in life can be going to college. If not coped with properly, these stressors can leave a person with too much stress that could end up harming them mentally and physically, such as developing an illness (Boyd, Wood, & Wood, 2011). There are several ways to cope with stress. Some healthy ways to cope with stress would be practicing emotion-focused coping, building time-management techniques, and practicing meditation.
At first there's not a day that there wouldn't be a situation that leads to stress for me or something that I have to deal with. And I find this coping strategy more valuable than any other coping strategy, because I always find myself using this strategy more often and it’s been keeping me on track with whatever I dealt with, and helping me take stress differently than the other practices of coping. For example, when I was told that I was on the aruge of failing, and that my grades are suffering, because of my academic level and how I was performing in my classes, where it led to a major ride of stress and anxiety for me. But unlike most other students who usually would ether drop out or quit. I decided to look at my problem a different way than how someone who failed would view their situation. Later on my grades eventually went up and I was able to be on track with my peers and friends. After learning what I did, and how it benefited me I saw this coping strategy something I wanted and valued a lot, and believing that it can help and lead me into a better future if I practice it enough and learn how to use it more often to benefit me. Eventhough, there are other coping practices out there that are good for many people and had an impact on their lives. I find problem focus more suitable for me, and see it having an effect towards my success in what I
Each individual possesses individual strengths and weaknesses when it comes to school, work, as well as life in general. It is important to be able to be able to identify those weaknesses in order to work on strengthening them, which ultimately will lead to lessening of the negative effects that influence daily life. For me personally, with nursing school, work, homework, family, friends, and other daily stressors, I struggle to adequately manage it all. Specifically when looking at how I manage my time, as well as how I manage my stress levels, I see a correlation with very negative effects. I am going to work on
In college, I realized that there is a large amount of reading that had to be done in a short amount of time unlike high school. There are also a great deal of book reports and essays that have to be done. Until I got into college, I have never completed a book report. I never realized that there was so much work that had to go into writing an essay or book report. There are so many steps, such as drafting and revising it repeatedly to get the grade you want. Since I was never a person that liked to read, I had a difficult time even picking up the book and starting to read it. It was difficult for me to focus on reading because it was not a book that I would have picked up on my own time. I had literally judged a book by its cover. I soon faced reality last minute and realized that if I did not read the book, I would of not of received the grade I wanted. I started to read the book and soon found myself not wanting to stop because I wanted to know what was going to happen next. I no longer procrastinate reading the book because the only one I am hurting is myself. From that point on, I realized that I just need to read the book because it needs to get done and nobody else is going to do it for me. Now whenever I get assigned to read a novel and a book report, I just complete it with no problem. It took my moment of recognition to see that there is no more time for messing around
Stress management is something we as people should take a lot more seriously than we really do. Whenever I tell someone that they need to learn how to control their stress they always tell me they need their stress. They are right, they do need their stress, we all need a certain amount of stress in our lives. No stress is almost just as unhealthy as too much stress. Just the right amount of stress is called Eustress. Eustress is a healthy stressor because it helps to keep us motivated. Unhealthy stress is called Distress. Distress is unhealthy because it can cause all sorts of health problems such as anxiety attacks or high blood pressure. There are two different kinds of stressors, an internal stressor and an External stressor. An internal stressor is self-generated stress. For example, spending more money than you have therefore getting yourself into debt, or procrastination. An external stressor is something that stresses you out that you have no control over. For example, sick or dying relatives or your car breaking down. Since most of the stress we suffer from is internal distress we usually think that it's something that a pill can fix. Hey isn't that Americas answer to everything, "Take a pill". Did you know that 80% of health care is spent on stress related disorders every year? (According to the centers for disease control and prevention.) You can easily avoid going to the doctors due to a stress-related disorder by simply learning to manage or relieve your stress. This is very important for students because stress will cause a vicious cycle of unhealthy behavior patterns. Once you become distressed it can cause sleeping disorders, unhealthy eating patterns, and immune deficiency. These will all c...
Although, I may not be as active and involved, or may not seem as interested in this course as the other students, I must admit this is one of few classes that I have taking here at the University of Florida that has impacted my life in one or another. The things I have learned from the many assignments you have giving us; I will forever use in my near future. I thought I knew everything there was to know about stress and anxiety, I mean I experience stress and anxiety more than often. I 've learned a multitude of things from you, my peers, and the book that I did not know entering this course. For instance, I never knew that there were bad and good stressors, in fact, feeling stressed is healthy. I thought of stress as being a depressing
Instead of procrastinating about studying or homework being done, I need to make more time for studying at least 30 minutes everyday. Nowadays, a lot of us have busy schedule, where we need to balance between work, school, family, and everything else we want to get it done. Yet, most of us fall short in the effort to manage time effectively. But by focusing on myself, by following self discipline, and by following a flexible schedule, I believe it will help me get my work done on time. There are times when I find myself with a lot to do within a short notice, I find myself feeling overwhelm. This is where I need to apply self discipline by staying focus on one task at a time, which increase my ability to concentrate. A big part of self management for me is getting things done within a set period of time. Setting my own deadline will help me at better accomplishing each of my goal and being able to break the work down into smaller chunk so that I can shrink it to fit my time available. After determining my priorities and mapping out what I need to do to be successful, I must take care of myself physically and emotionally by getting adequate sleep, take breaks, eat a well balanced diet, and exercise. These activities will help increase my energy level, concentration, and help me stay