Question

What types of stress do you experience with balancing home, work and school? What are the strategies that you use to deal with the stresses that you feel.

Answer 1

Stress is termed as the emotional, mental and physical response to a stimulus or stressor. It depends on situations and how people respond to that. For example, a student who has studied regularly and revised the whole semester would experience less stress during final exams week than would an unprepared student.

Stress can also be called a bane of modern existence, these days the high amounts of societal or work pressure faced by the people are immeasurable, as people experience intensified workload, the constant search for perfection, balancing the work, family and social life, etc. the type of stress experienced in these common situations is acute stress, it is for a brief period of time but can go back to feeling less stresses, another type of stress can be experienced in the continuous workplace can cause burn out it is called chronic stress, it can happen regularly. Therefore, stress can have adverse effects upon mood, people's sense of well being, health and behavior. Since it can happen to all social groups and all age categories, hence no one can truly escape it.

The short term effects of stress include sleep disorders, muscular tension, digestive disorders, depression, burnout, isolation, relationship problems, reduced performance, loss of self-esteem, etc. However, the long term effects of stressors can severely damage health, as it can adversely affect the immune, cardiovascular, neuroendocrine and central nervous systems.

Stress is the body's response to the psychological perception of pressure or stressors. The positive stress provides people with the boost and energy to get through situations like exams or work deadlines which helps people stay motivated in life, it is commonly known as eustress. It produces feelings or inspiration, contentment, and can build resilience and self-efficacy. On the other hand, the second type of stress known as distress can provide a sense of discomfort, decrease performance, causes anxiety, and can lead to physical and mental problems.

External stress can be caused by major life events, environment, social stress or demands of everyday life, such as loss of a loved one, urgent deadlines, exams, bullying, etc. These external stressors cant be controlled by the person.

In addition to these external factors, people can create their stress which is majorly internal. Internal stress can be caused by excessive worrying, negative self-talks, choosing an unhealthy lifestyle, setting artificial deadlines, lack of sleep, etc. People also stress about the situations that “might” happen in the future which is commonly known as anticipatory stress.

To manage the effects of stress, people can seek psychological stress, when it gets to an uncontrollable state and can start forming a lifestyle pattern that can be changed effectively. Exercise and maintaining a healthy diet can also help lessen the effects of stress, meditation is another way to reduce the effects of stress for a peaceful state of mind. Another more common techniques are, writing a journal, listening to calming music, indulge in hobbies, going on a break or vacations, etc.