Farah Hussain
10/23/12
Mel Woods
Journal 4
As I was reading about the stress management realm in the EQ edge, I found the evolutionary aspect of stress to be quite interesting. I did not know that the term stress originated from physics rather than psychology. This made me realize that stress is more real than I thought because it is an actual force rather than just a feeling that can go away. It can have physical implications to my body that are harmful. Another interesting point in the book was that an indicator of stress was loss of appetite. This struck me because my body has the opposite reaction. I eat more when I am stressed.
A current stress management strategy I employ is running. Actually, it doesn’t have to be running, because now it has transformed more into any physical exercise. Whenever I am just really stressed or anxious about something and I can’t make it stop, I like to go out for a run.
Recently, I have been doing Zumba. These activities really help decrease my stress because my physically exerting myself I feel like I am working my stresses off as well as being productive at the same time because I am getting a work out in at the same time. Plus, at a scientific standpoint, the release of endorphins while working out allows me to feel more pleasant and just feel better overall. Another strategy I have for managing stress is taking a nap. I am a person who doesn’t get very much sleep at night so I absolutely love taking naps. I find myself to be extremely tired and exhausted at many points in my day so taking a nap really feels great. I also feel like I am catching up on my lost sleep. A problem with this strategy of stress management is that I often fall asleep for hours and end up losing time in my day. As a result, I have to stay up

later at night to finish what I had to do during the day. This makes me more stressed and angry that I am losing sleep. This becomes a cycle and it is hard to stop. Naps may not be a good strategy now that I actually think about it. I more waste my time by taking naps. I should rather drink some coffee during the day and be able to go to bed on time at night. I have been taking less and less naps as I began college. I think I have only taking 2 naps since the semester has started. That is fantastic for me knowing that I haven’t been wasting time by sleeping. The naps I have taken have been no more than an hour. However, college is way busier than high school so not taking naps doesn’t open up a whole new time slot for me. I still am occupied at all times and that gets me pretty stressed so I need to find a new strategy to calm myself. While I am on the subject about calming myself, I will talk about another strategy I use to decrease my level of anxiety and stress. I like listening to music to calm me down, and often times it works wonderfully. Listening to music I really like gets me pumped up and energized. Now, I can’t listen to music I like while I do my homework or study because that plays as a distraction. So what I do is when I am doing my homework, I listen to classical solo piano. It calms me while I study and it doesn’t serve as a big distraction either. It also helps block out the noises of the outside world so I really focus on what I’m doing. Obviously this is a really productive strategy for me and I am so happy that I discovered it.
At Carson, I have observed that the students employ a stress management strategy. I am not talking about all the students because most of them do not employ any stress management strategy at all. However, the students who do try to manage their stress usually take deep breaths and count to 10. I think this is a wonderful way to calm oneself. The problem is that the majority of students don’t do this. So we taught them all to do this. Another new strategy we taught them

is to twiddle their thumbs and be exerting physical energy somehow by not being disruptive to class.
To be honest, I have never tried breathing exercises as a stress management strategy. I have read and heard plenty about how breathing exercises and meditation play a major role in relieving stress and relaxing the mind. I think I will give such techniques a shot and see how it goes. I’ll take little breaks in the day to just sit and do breathing exercises and sort of take myself out of what I am doing for that bit of time.