Study skills > Module
2 > Page 7
Dealing with stress and
managing anxieties
Deal with stress
First, you must learn to recognise stress
Stress symptoms include mental, social, and physical manifestations. These include exhaustion, loss of/increased appetite, headaches, crying, sleeplessness, and oversleeping. Escape through alcohol, drugs, or other compulsive behavior are often indications. Feelings of alarm, frustration, or apathy may accompany stress.
If you feel that stress is affecting your studies, a first option is to seek help.
Stress Management is the ability to maintain control when situations, people, and events make excessive demands. Here are some of the ways to manage your stress;
- look around and see if there really
is something you can change or control in the situation
- don't overwhelm yourself by fretting
about your entire workload. Handle each task as it comes, or selectively
deal with matters in some priority
- try to be positive: give yourself
messages as to how well you can cope rather than how horrible everything
is going to be. "Stress can actually help memory, provided it
is short-term and not too severe. Stress causes more glucose to
be delivered to the brain, which makes more energy available to neurons.
This, in turn, enhances memory formation and retrieval. On the other
hand, if stress is prolonged, it can impede the glucose delivery and disrupt
memory."
- try to "use" stress: if
you can't fight what's bothering you and you can't flee from it, then
just flow with it or try to use it in a productive way
- selectively change the way you react: but
not too much at one time. Focus on one troublesome thing and manage
your reactions to it/him/her
- reduce the number of events going
on in your life and you may reduce the circuit overload
- change the way you see things: learn
to recognize stress for what it is. Increase your body's feedback and
make stress self-regulating
- the bottom line of stress management is
"I upset myself": develop a thick skin
- avoid extreme reactions: why hate
when a little dislike will do? Why generate anxiety when you can be nervous?
Why rage when anger will do the job? Why be depressed when you can just
be sad?
- set realistic goals for yourself:
learn how to do nothing
- don't sweat the small stuff: try
to prioritize a few truly important things and let the rest slide
- work off stress: with physical
activity, whether it's jogging, tennis, gardening
- get enough sleep: lack of rest
just aggravates stress
- do something for others to help
get your mind off yourself
- remove yourself from the stressful situation
if only for a few moments daily. Give yourself a break
- avoid self-medication or escape: alcohol
and drugs can mask stress. They don't help deal with the problems
- most importantly: if stress is
putting you in an unmanageable state or interfering with your schoolwork,
social and/or work life, seek professional help.
