Students’ guideline to tackling stress
Carey Lesley, Staff Writer
Everyone has their own ways of dealing with stress. This is usually seen in students as they strive to have a successful career after college.
Teens have struggled with stress as early as elementary school, and it slowly starts to worsen throughout high school. By the time they get to college, it’s a whole other ball game.
Stress is never easy to live with, but there are ways to use it as an advantage in life.
NGU psychology professor Robert Gaddis mentions three ways of using stress as a mechanism towards a successful career.
First, students are used to seeing stress in a negative perspective. We’re so used to seeing stress as our enemy. What we really should do is switch the role around.
“When we see stress, it often times helps prepare the body to get energized,” said Gaddis.
Second, understanding more about stress is a big deal. We need to learn more about what it is before we try to manage with it in our lives.
Third, we need to know how to acknowledge stress first-hand.
“Stress is going to happen, but how do we respond to it is what we need to ask ourselves,” said Gaddis.
He also mentioned the same reference to Kelly McGonigal’s book, “The Upside of Stress.”
In the second chapter, McGonigal said, “How you think about stress can alter your biochemistry, and, ultimately, how you respond to whatever can trigger the stress … When you feel your body responding to stress, ask yourself which part of the stress response you need most.”
Her book shows many examples of how stress can make us stronger, smarter and happier. It also gives good insight that would be useful towards students. One message from the book that surprises many people is that stress can be considered a good thing, and it’s not necessarily always bad.
It can push us forward.
