In recent times, stress is one of the most serious obstacles many school and college students suffer from during their scholarly life. If you are also one such student who is dealing with stress, then it is necessary to manage it properly. Untreated stress may lead to physical or mental health issues. Currently, are you wondering how to relieve stress? Relax! Some effective stress management tips would definitely help you to get relief.
According to the American Institute of Stress, nearly four out of every five college students experience stress in their lives. Remember, stress that is left untreated can cause symptoms such as difficulty concentrating, decreased energy, changes in appetite, insomnia, and irritability. In addition to all of these physical side effects, increased stress may also lead to a variety of other health issues and jeopardize students’ personal and academic outcomes.
As stress has become a common illness among students, it is important to speak about stress to students and help them handle it. That is why we have composed this blog post. Here, in this write-up, we have briefly explained the meaning of stress and its types, causes, and symptoms. Moreover, we have also shared some effective stress management tips for students. If you wish to quickly recover from stress and improve your academic performance, then keep on reading.
What is Stress?
Stress is a natural defense mechanism in the human body. In simple terms, stress can be defined as a physical reaction to an individual’s emotions. Usually, when the brain identifies a stressful event that is either positive (e.g., an award ceremony) or negative (e.g., death of a loved one), then the adrenal gland will release hormones such as epinephrine and cortisol.
The stress hormones secreted in the body will switch on the flight-or-fight mode and will help an individual fight against the dangerous or threatening situation positively. But increased stress levels would become tough to handle because chances are there for an individual to experience a long-term or serious effect on memory, metabolism, and blood sugar regulation.
In general, stress occurs in any one of the three forms listed below.
Acute Stress
It is the most common stress faced by every individual including students. Acute stress mainly occurs as a result of daily life activities such as running late to class, scoring fail marks, etc. This type of stress will heal quickly and will create only a minimum impact on the physical or mental health of a person.
Chronic Acute Stress
It occurs when a person can’t escape from a long-term stressful condition. For instance, a student who is struggling to perform well in all academic subjects may experience chronic acute stress, which may lead to sleep problems, weight gain, and anxiety.
Episodic Acute Stress
This type of stress happens when a person faces acute stress many times over an extended period. Some common symptoms of episodic acute stress are tension headaches and migraines.
Major Reasons Why Students Feel Stressful
We can treat a disease or disorder only if we know the cause or reason for it. So, first, you should identify the cause of your stress. Basically, both school and college students experience stress because of the following reasons.
- Unable to pay the education fees.
- Homesickness when staying in boarding school or college hostel away from home.
- Shy to interact and make friends on campus.
- Difficult to live with roommates who are strangers.
- The increased workload associated with coursework(volume and difficulty level of assignments/ homework)
- Peer Pressure.
- Attending exams.
- Loss in the family.
- The feeling of uncertainty.
- Rivalry with sports teams.
- Fear of failure.
- Scheduling problems related to part-time work and education.
- Social challenges (no parental support, tough to interact with teachers, etc.)
- Romantic Relationships.
These are some of the common causes of stress in students. Perform an in-depth analysis of yourself and find out whether or not any of the reasons shared above disturbs you. Note that, you may also develop stress because of other reasons that are not listed here too.
The first step in stress handling is identifying the cause of stress. So, never fail to identify the major reason for your stress disorder. Once you know the reason, you can follow appropriate stress management tips and set yourself free from stress.
What are the Symptoms of Stress?
How can you identify that you are stressed? When you are exposed to any of the stimuli that trigger stress, you will feel some set of behavioral, emotional, physical, and cognitive reactions in your body. These reactions are nothing but a signal that your body sends to inform you that you are in a stressful state.
Listed below are some common symptoms of stress in students.
Physical Symptoms
- Fatigue
- Headache
- Stomachache
- Shortness of breath
- Muscle tension
- Increased blood pressure or heart rate
- Vertigo
- Sweating
Behavioral Symptoms
- Drug or alcohol consumption
- Reduced sex drive
- Continuous or reduced eating
- Irregular sleep habits
Emotional Symptoms
- Loneliness
- Mood Swings
- Helplessness
- Increased worrying
Cognitive Symptoms
- Negative outlook
- Loss of memory
- Disconnection from thoughts and feelings
- Loss of concentration
Health Issues Associated with Academic Stress
Will academic stress lead to any other health conditions? Yes! Research informs that stress in students can lead to the following mental and physical health issues.
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Sleep disorders
- Chronic Muscle Pain
Stress Management Tips for Students
Till now, we briefly had a look at the causes and symptoms of stress. Next, let us learn stress management tips.
Have you ever wondered how to manage stress? Actually, you can cross half the way, if you figure out the reason for your stress. Once you have identified the causes of your stress, you can try to eliminate stress or build your ability to cope with stress by implementing any relevant stress management tips or tricks.
In general, there are several stress management tips available for students. Here let us have a glance at some simple and effective ways that will be helpful for students to manage stress.
Get enough sleep
Students with tight work schedules often follow a different sleep pattern and at times miss sleeping. Unfortunately, if you don’t sleep properly, you would suffer from severe health issues over a long time. Also, your productivity would reduce and most of the time you would find it difficult to concentrate on your studies or work.
Remember, you can work actively and improve your performance, if you take a rest in the middle, instead of working rigorously for a long period without any breaks. Never follow an irregular sleep cycle or schedule. Always, try to have at least 8 hours of sleep a night and take a power nap whenever needed.
Getting enough quality sleep would help you kill stress, stay healthy, have a clear mind and improve the level of your productivity.
Maintain a healthy diet
Students commonly fail to concentrate on eating habits when they are under stress. Note that, if you follow a proper and healthy diet, your brainpower will increase, or else your mental energy will drain quickly.
Basically, for students, a healthy diet acts as one of the best stress management techniques. Make sure to eat nutritious food or foods that are known to fight stress and refresh your mood.
To stay away from stress, light-headedness, diet-related mood swings, and many more health issues improve and maintain a healthy eating plan.
Exercise regularly
Busy academic schedules usually make many students forget about their physical fitness. If you do regular exercise, it would help you fall asleep, and in turn, would reduce your stress levels.
Remember, exercise is one of the best ways that would give you a long and healthy life without stress. So, keep a regular exercise practice throughout your life.
You don’t need to do hard exercises. Simple stretching exercises, yoga, short walks, or cycling in the morning are enough to boost your energy and escape from tension. You can also engage in any sports activity to stay fit and healthy.
Build time management skills
For students, generally, more time is required to work on their studies and improve their academic performance. But if you follow an irregular work schedule, then it would become tedious for you to complete all your academic work within the deadline. Note that, skipping the deadlines or being unable to finish your exam preparation on time would automatically trigger your stress.
Do you want to perform well in your studies without any stress? If yes, then read the time management tips and build your time management skills. Maintaining a proper time plan would save you from stress.
First, set up a timetable or study schedule. When preparing the schedule, break your studies or project into smaller chunks and assign a specific time duration for each chunk to complete. Then, try to stick to the work schedule you have prepared. By doing so, you can save more time and also complete your work on time. Also, it would IT infrastructure Management Assignment Help you work progressively and achieve your goal without tension.
Set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals, whenever you involve yourself in work. SMART is one of the effective ways to complete things without becoming overly stressed.
Avoid procrastination
Many students due to laziness often postpone their important tasks. Remember, procrastination might feel good at that instant, but later it would lead to stress.
If you ignore your laziness and manage your time wisely, you can avoid spending your late-night sleep hours on your homework. Also, you would get ample time to enjoy and concentrate on other things. So, never procrastinate.
To push through procrastination, try to build a plan. Say, for instance, you can find an accountability partner or use any goal breakdown worksheet.
A medical study also states that habitual procrastination might be a sign of anxiety or ADHD.
Be organized
Being organized would help your escape from stress. Hence, make sure to maintain a system of organization for taking notes, and keeping track of all your academic work and assignments.
When you stay organized, you can easily remember your exam dates and deadlines. Most importantly, it would give you peace of mind and help you clear all the clutters and disorganized things that exist in your mind.
If you want to prevent stress, prepare a calendar, a filing system, and a schedule for all the academic work you do. You can organize your schedule manually or can also use any software or online work management tools that are available.
Prepare a comfortable study environment
Having a good study environment would help you reduce your stress and learn peacefully. If you study in a disturbing environment, then you can’t concentrate on your studies for a long time and will be easily distracted.
Before you start learning, first identify what environment is good for you. Usually, each individual will prefer a different study environment. For instance, some students will love listening to music while learning and some students will prefer a calm environment for learning. So based on your preference prepare a comfortable study environment.
When you study you can also do aromatherapy, a popular stress reliever. Especially, to wake up your brain and stay active while learning, you can use peppermint essential oil for therapy.
Identify learning style
According to learning style theories, students learn information in several ways. In general, there are four main types of learners- auditory, visual, reading/writing, and kinesthetic.
When learning, visual learners will give more preference to pictures, movies, and diagrams. The auditory learners will rely on music, discussion, and lectures. The reading and writing learners will read the textbooks and take notes while learning. Kinesthetic learners will give more importance to movement, experiments, and hands-on activities.
So, analyze yourself and identify your learning style. Once you have found your learning style, alter your study practice as per your learning style to achieve success in academics.
When you have a clear idea of how to study, then you can quickly learn and understand the concepts without unwanted stress or tension.
Also, practice any specific learning skills or techniques to stay focused on your academic tasks. The learning skills would help you to improve your productivity and decrease your stress levels.
Practice visualizations
Visualization is another powerful stress management technique for students. By imagining yourself achieving your dreams or goals, you can simply eliminate stress and improve your academic performance.
Visualization is an easy and effective method that would calm you, break down your stress, and switch off the anxious response of your body. Hence, daily for a few minutes, make sure to visualize in detail anything that you expect to happen in your life.
When you use this practice of guided imagery, you can actively work towards your goal with a fresh mind and make it happen. Also, it would help you build your confidence level and lower your stress level.
Stay positively
It is proven that students with optimistic thoughts are less stressed, more successful, and healthier. So, if you increase your overall level of optimism, then you can easily come out of your failures and work hard to achieve your goals. Most importantly, the habit of positive thinking would bring you better relationships as well as better grades.
Positive self-talk is one of the best ways that would help you to build a stronger sense of optimism. So, train your brain to trigger positive thoughts whenever you need them.
If stress ruins your scholarly life, then you can easily kill stress by developing the traits of optimism. Note that, your positive thinking would definitely mold you to perform better in your studies and future career.
Take Deep Breaths
Do you need instant relief from stress? Cool! Whenever you experience stress in your body, stop thinking and take a deep breath.
Breathing exercises are one of the quick ways to calm down your soul. So, learn and practice some simple breathing exercises. To relieve stress in minutes, you can do breathing exercises anytime, anywhere.
Say, for instance, you can easily reduce anxiety before or during tests at the examination hall. Also, you can take deep breaths during other times when stress hits you.
Listen to music
Music is one of the convenient stress busters that contain many cognitive benefits. It would help to stimulate your mind and get you out of stress.
To calm down your mind and stimulate it, you can use the benefits of music for your good. Say, you can play classical music while learning, play peppy music to wake up mentally or relax your mind with the help of your favorite songs.
Maintain social life
Nowadays, students have no time for social life. Many students cancel their plans with family and friends to concentrate on their studies, project work, or assignments. Also, there are some students who prefer spending time alone on their phones and playing video games instead of mingling with their family members.
Remember, ignoring social support would increase your stress. Research states that maintaining a strong network of friendships can positively impact academic success and well-being.
So, if you want to be free from stress, give more importance to your social life. Often watching a movie with your friends or having dinner with your family members will relax your brain from stressful work.
Avoid stimulants
Never drink coffee and energy drinks when you are up during late-night study sessions. Because drinking them would crash your mind later. In general, the stimulants like this would increase the cortisol levels in the body and in turn, would develop the physical effects of stress. So, be certain not to rely on energy drinks and caffeine-based drinks.
Identify a stress buster
You can’t completely avoid stress. However, identifying a healthy way would help you to handle your stress effectively.
Basically, there are many stress busters and relaxation techniques available. Some common stress outlets are getting massages, chilling with family and friends, building a new hobby, cooking, art, meditation, exercises, and so on.
Based on your interest, you can find out any stress outlet that relaxes your mind and practice it regularly.
Conclusion
We hope you have now gained a better understanding of how to manage stress effectively. Keep in mind that the only way to reduce your overall stress level without becoming chronically stressed is to incorporate stress management into your daily routine. So, regularly follow the tips suggested in this blog post to have a stress-free mind.
In general, higher levels of stress will be more harmful to your health. Anxiety and depression would result if stress is left untreated. Therefore, never treat stress lightly. Take the necessary steps to reduce your stress levels.
You might have trouble coping with stress as a student. In case, you can’t handle your stress on your own, reach out to your on-campus mental health services or any off-campus center. A life coach or therapist will assist you in reducing your stress and feelings of isolation.
