Don't even STRESS it !

Stress in General Are you going through any of the symptoms from the diagram above ? Everybody must have went through these symptoms due to a lot of stress. Many stressors can alter a person's life. A decrease in exam grades, loss of eating, poorly attending classes, losing interests in activities, avoiding deadlines etc. This can occur in many college students lives. Stress, who doesn't have it ?

Most college student goes through a huge amount of stress throughout their semester depending on what courses they are taking. When I was a high school student, i didn't understand the meaning of stress..until i got into college. I never been out on my own and i thought that i could handle everything but it took me a while to realize that sometimes i need to breath. But i feel like that's what life's about. Having stress. You just have to learn how to avoid it or deal with it. How? It's all about managing your stress and controlling your reactions to your current situations that makes you want to avoid it. Once you change your reaction to the stressful situation by doing things that you enjoy, it can reduce the stress.

This is how i dealt with my stress maybe it will work for you

In the beginning of my freshman year, the transition was really sudden for me. I didn't know how to balance out my classes, social life and my personal life as well. This semester has a bit of stress for me. My CLS 105 class has helped me see what kind of strategies i can use to avoid stress. What i learned was three important things to stress management; CAUSE, RELAX, ORGANIZE. You have to find out what the cause of the stress is so basically you identify. After you find your stressors, you take a break from it and relax. After you are done taking a break from the stress, go back to it and organize in a different way. In class, i learned about the stress reduction strategies and tried two of them. But first, i used the strategy that helped me identify which are the stressors in my life.

Stress diagram

This strategy helps you visually see what are the stressors in your life and how much of it stresses you by making a diagram. You first write out your list of stress by prioritizing them and then make a diagram. This helps you identify what it the most stress in your life or which is the least. When i wrote down my list of sources i just thought of everything in general that i don't even like doing or handling the situation because i know it's just going to frustrate me and stress me. What's stressing me right now is the finals because i know i have to give in a Global Event Log by the last day of class and i got a Sociology paper/exam for the last day as well. So in general, paper and projects are the most thing that i am concerned about and should address first !

Stress Reduction Plan

I love this strategy so much ! why ? because it allows me to relax of course. What you need to do is make a list on what you enjoy doing a lot or what makes you forget about your problems. It's okay to take a breather. This plan can help you control your stress if you have a huge amount of it. It can be a part of your daily routine or even your weekly routine. For my daily routine for my stress, i would go on facebook and just look at people's pretty pictures and it helps me smile and forget about my stress. So let's say i have to start on that WGS global event log, i could start on it every weekend and just do things to take my mind off it in case i feel tensed from it. I would also talk to a friend about my problems and what i am stressing about whether it's personal stuff or finacial things. I remember i was stressing about not having enough money for next year and i asked my friend for a lunch date at bubble tea because my mom has been bugging me about taking out loans and looking for scholarships. i was having a good time with my friend and then i decided to tell her about my situation and she recommended a program for people struggling finacially. It was good that i actually talk to her and she offered a possible solution in reducing my stress !

Another stradegy that relates to this is...

10 minute vacation

For this stradegy, it's more for people that are doing project or doing a work that requires a long specific amount of time to do. 10 minute can allow you to get away from all that stress of work. YES ! only 10 minutes though. You can go to "vacation spots" like YOUTUBE or ADDICTIVEGAMES.COM etc. Anything that you want to get your mind off and enjoy doing will allow you to release some of that stress away. I would go on youtube and watch and listen to cool music video! One video that i have been attached to watch and listen to is " Her morning Elegance by Oren Lavie".

Conclusion

Honestly i have been doing these things everyday ! i know i cant just keep working and not breath a while. I need to do things that i enjoy or I'll just having those symptoms of the diagram above. i dont think anybody wants that. Everybody has stress, you just have learn how to react to it and not go crazy !

Avoiding Your Acadamic Fears !

Every single college student has an academic fear, it's just up to the student to overcome it.

Having an academic fear can cause the lack of a motivation to a student. Here are a few academic

Failing tests. Too much absences. Missing homework. Forgot to do a important project. Missing an appointment from a Professor/ T.A Not enough class participation.

These fears can cause a student to stop trying to do better because they are so focused on what had happened so they chose to be a pessimist. THE TRUE FEAR IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT ! A student can be scared but they shouldn't think of the worst, they should think of which is the best,realistic action they can take in order to do better. I feel like everybody makes mistakes and you can always learn from them. If someone is losing focus then you have to snap out of it and get back on the game.


What i did..

I made a table and made separate categories,

• Academic Fears
• Worst Outcome
  
• Best Outcome
• Action Needed

I prioritized what was the most important fear or had the greatest value from 1,2,3.

My first academic fear is not choosing a major before junior year. I haven't been motivated cause nothing seems to interest me. These classes that I am taking makes me fall asleep in class or just wonder off. Since I am undecided, I fear that i will never find my major ! The only action i can think of to help myself is to just keep taking classes or research around. I really don't know what motivates me. I have been doing community service and nothing really sparks out an interest.

My second academic fear was being absent from class this week ! I have been sick and i know i missed a lot for my classes. I was scared that the absences was going to affect my grades because some teachers are really strict when it comes down to missing their classes. I thought my grade would drop and i thought that the information was necessary for me to learn for a test or final as well.The only thing i could do was go to the T.A office hours and just ask them really nicely if I look over the slides. ( Sociology) and for CLS, i ask my TA, if she could go over it with me and she did. I feel like i just got to be motivated to not miss the test cause i was really scared that i was going get a grade dropped. As long as i don't let this happen again, i should be fine.

My third academic fear was not understanding the information in my Woman's gender class. I had to in the essay on Wednesday but before the week i read the readings which are really hard because i have to be analytical about it. The essay is a 4 page analytical paper of the 9 sets of readings i had to do. I would have trouble with certain articles so i would go to my T.A office hours. That was the best thing that i could have done to help myself write the paper. She would break down what the authors purpose was and she gave me a better understanding. I felt proud of myself cause i went to her for help. I didn't do my paper at the last minute so i felt like that benefited me also cause she saw i worked on the paper as well.

Writing down these academic fears and seeing what action i took made me feel proud of myself because i saw that i actually overcame my academic fear of doing "bad" or "failing". It was up to me to take charge, and i did.