STRESS MANAGEMENT: KNOWING AND

COPING ON WHAT STRESSES YOU

Rozel Anne Vargas

In a school context, students are susceptible to stress, and this often seen in College
students. With a lot of things that demand their time, effort, money, and energy, stress triggers
their body and affect their sense of well-being and quality of life. Stress is not a foreign word
and may be a part of most common line of the students in their everyday struggles. You can
even overhear someone walking past by you saying, “mais-istress ak!”. That line gives every
non-expert their own definition and interpretation of the word stress. But stress is a far more
complicated than words associated with it like worry, burden, anxiety, and strain.

Endocrinologist Hans Selye, father of stress, defines stress as the reaction and adaption
of any organism to perceive threat. According to psychologist Julie Pike, Ph. D, stress is the
body’s response to the situation that a person perceives to be overwhelming or too demanding.
Stress activates body’s stress mechanism mediated by sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and
hypothalamic-pituary-adrenal (HPA) axis. The mentioned system secretes a adrenocorticotropic
hormone (ACTH) which release cortisol and epinephrine or adrenaline which affect the body
and brain in several ways.

Most Common Stressors of Students

1. Academic and Extracurricular Activities
Students suffer from stress mostly because of academic pressure. They receive heavy
workloads from different subjects simultaneously, leaving them no time for themselves. They
were forced to meet all the requirements on a specific deadline and they even sacrifice their
sleep, time to eat, and time to be with their peers and family, just to work on their projects.
Academics can be stressing, balancing both academic and extracurricular is an additional
tension for students. Extracurricular activities such as sports, clubs, choirs, and volunteer works
require time from the students, to hone their skills, awareness, and to work on their talents.
Hence, weighing the two involves thorough management of time.

2. Dating
Falling in love is one thing, but being loved in return is a different level. Most students
enter into a relationship and start dating in college. They try to handle relationship and
schooling, and being committed requires maintenance for a relationship to be sustained. This is
one of the stressors of the students who are dating because of the dramas, push and pulls
caused by romantic relationships. On the other hand, those students who tried their luck in
dating and turned out to be unsuccessful may cause them stress because of the rejection and
they would even try to wonder what is wrong with them and start doubting themselves.
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3. Financial Burden
Tertiary education adjoins steady monetary support, and with limited financial
capacities, not everyone can afford college. Now, with the Universal Access to Quality
Education Act (RA 10931), college becomes accessible to anyone. If only the free college tuition
act also covers private, catholic institutions, then the burden will lessen to students of private
schools. A full merit scholarship may be a big help upon adding the cost of books, board,
allowance, and transportation, but it is not still enough to provide for college. Some students
take part time jobs instead of resting to augment their college expenses.
4. Social Stress and Peer Pressure
In college, students may be meeting different kind of people tailored with different
beliefs and dispositions in life. Finding a group that they belong and keep their own ring of
friends leads to stress at times. Bullying and subtle instances of relational defiance are the
things they needed to manage. Peer pressure is a dilemma for students, because being in a
group with different kinds of people, trying to fit it, just to establish and maintain friendship can
be toxic and unhealthy.
5. Parental Expectations
Saying that any parents have no expectations from their children, is a lie. Parents always
have expectations to their children, they expect them to strive harder, to study well, to
succeed, to have a good character, and to be someone that they always hope for from the very
beginning. Every parent have their own presumptions but the only difference is that some
parents tend to burden their children to live up to their expectations. Some parents demand
and pressure their children to get high grades, or to be the top one in school, and to achieve
great things in life. Some parents often compare their children to others to push them to do
better. For some parents, comparison is a reverse psychology to motivate their children,
comparison is a pressure that stresses them because it makes them feel their efforts are not
enough. There will always be better than anyone, that is why every parent should recognize
and validate the effort of their children no matter how big or small it is.
6. Significant Life Changes
Outside or inside the scholarly context of a student, there comes a particular life
changing experience that they encounter and may trigger stress because the change in their life
may be too overwhelming and too detrimental for them to handle. It can be an event or
occurrence, a loss or gain, positive or negative, but one thing is for sure, the life of that person
will never be the same and cannot go back to the way life was before the event. It can be a
change in home environment, moving away from home for college, meeting new friends, falling
in love, puberty, break ups, change of course, change in schools, change in family make up
including marriage or divorce, diagnosis of medical condition, change in financial status, death
of loved ones, and many other major life events that change a person dramatically. Changes in
life may be tough to deal with and can cause stress or strain for an unknown period of time,
depending on how one would cope with the situation.

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A Healthier Way on Coping With Stress
1. Know, understand, avoid, and eliminate your stressors.
Identify your stressors, it is not mandatory to be stressed on every single stressors
existing in your life. Manage your care-budget and decide which stressors you would allow to
affect you. Avoid situations wherein you would be stressed and avoid people who stresses you
out. Surround yourself with people who are intellectually stimulating and stop selling yourself
short, you don’t have to care about all the problems every single time.
2. Be optimistic
The thing about stress is that, it could either make you or break you. Stressors are
problems but it’s up to you to decide on how are you going to look at it. Reframe problems and
look at it as an opportunity for you to grow smarter. Focus on the positive side and take a
moment to reflect on all the things you appreciate in your life. In short, count your blessings
not your problems.
3. Talk to someone
Don’t try to cope alone. It’s not easy to remove your mask, bring your guard down, and
admit that you are not fine. But be honest about who you are and what is happening in your
life. Share your worries, confess your failures, admit your fears, reveal your feelings, disclose
your doubts, and acknowledge your weaknesses. Talk to someone who cares about you and let
them provide love support, and guidance.
4. Make time for fun and relaxation
Take a break and nurture yourself. With all the demands in your life, try to make time
for leisure activities and to relax. Recharge yourself and give yourself a time out from all of the
responsibilities and requirements that you have. Give yourself a rest from your daily schedule
and don’t allow obligations to encroach.
5. Take care of yourself. Adopt a healthy lifestyle.
Eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly, avoid alcoholic beverages, cigarettes, drugs,
reduce sugar and caffeine intake, most importantly get enough sleep.
6. Pray.
Talk to God and ask for His guidance. Pray the serenity prayer. Realize that you have to
accept the things you cannot change and change the things you can.
The school context and academic environment can be highly competitive, although some of the
problems of students are not limited to school environment but they can still wear down
students’ academic performance as well as their state of well-being. Stress is inevitable. It may
help a little to know that you’re not alone and that everyone is suffering. Don’t invalidate
someone else’s pain just because you were inflicted rigorously. Be sensible and sensitive to
everyone you meet and never mock someone else’s distress by saying, “para yun lang
naapektuhan kana”. Both of you don’t have the same level of coping mechanism and sensitivity.
One should learn to be kind to lessen the world’s negativities. Don’t be a victim of stress and
don’t victimize someone by bringing them stress.

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 
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 
