Viola’s Stress Management

College students often feel the stress from exams, papers, work or other extra-curriculum. Stress will not disappear voluntarily. What we can do is change our reaction to stressful situations and minimize their negative effects on our life.

I have gotten much pressure since the beginning of this semester and recently I have a lot more. This is almost the end of the semester and a lot of things need to be done within these few weeks before the summer vacation. On the other hand, I have so much in my mind, such as transferring in fall, that I will think over and over again so that I feel tired. So I try some stress management strategies to handle these pressures.

First I try the Stress Diagram. This strategy means to prioritize the causes for one’s stress and help to identify the issues needed to be addressed first. I think this is a good start to manage stress as you must identify the sources of stress first before you can find out useful strategies to use.

Here are the steps. First, I list the sources of my recent stress. Then I divide a pie chart into the sections corresponding to the number of stresses. Each section of the pie represents the relative amount of stress. Next I label each section with the source of stress. Here is my pie chart.

This pie chart is simple and very easy to see what the biggest source of stress is. From the chart, I know that all my pressure comes from the academic area. Most of the pressure comes from homework assignments. This is the issue needed to be addressed first as other three sources of stress are closely related to homework assignments. So I want to use some strategy about relieving strategy while doing homework.

I have used the A Day at A time strategy before, and it is helpful in anti-procrastinating, thus helping relieving much of the pressure. This week I use another anti-stress strategy called 10-minute vacation. I find it not very useful for me.

The strategy is quite simple. It is designed to get one away from the work one is doing for a specific amount of time so one can be reenergized. So I decide to have a ten-minute break after doing assignment for 50 minutes. I check my email, read news online and watch some movies. I do have relaxation, but the problem is when I start doing these things, it is not easy to stop after 10 minutes, especially when I read the news or watch movies. When I read the news, there are other interesting things there on the Internet. When I watch a movie, it is hard to resist the temptation to know the rest of the story. Usually I will extend the 10-minute to half an hour. This is quite bad. So now I just leave my computer away for 5 to 10 minutes after 50 minutes of studying. I will get some water, have a walk or just close my eyes. These small actions are quite helpful.

Both of the strategies I use this week can be used to a specific course or all the courses. I use it for all my courses as they can apply to any of my course and I think this is an overall management for stress I have experienced. Even though the 10-minute vacation strategy does not work for me, you can try it to see if it works for you, especially if you have better self-discipline than me =].