Just Stress Relief

Feeling stressed? College students are finding creative ways to relieve stress.

College students screaming for stress relief reports : “Dodgeball games and trampolines

And at Santa Clara University in California, a bunch of dorm mates recently took a break from studying to go to a warehouse where they jumped on huge trampolines and played dodgeball with kids half their age.

‘When we got back, I still had to type a paper,’ says Evan Sarkisian, a senior who is a ‘community facilitator’ at one of Santa Clara’s dorms. ‘But it was good to get some perspective and get distracted.’”

Easy ways to get stress relief

Try:

* Aromatherapy

* Exercise

* Ensure that you get a good night’s sleep

* Eat well – watch your diet

[tags]xxx[/tags]

Contemporary society presents many circumstances that can encourage stress for teens. One of the chief potential stressors is often found right at home: parents.

That’s not to say parents cause teen stress. Even teens are self-responsible individuals, within the realm of actions open to them. And that’s the key to some of the sources of teen stress. They are sometimes given too much freedom, in other areas too little.

Setting a developing person adrift among the variety of choices available in modern, complex society is a near guarantee for stress. That reaction is fundamentally the result of a conflict between “I must” and “I can’t”. In many cases, it is indeed true that the teen can’t.

No one could reasonably expect a fourteen year-old to know how to negotiate the maze of challenges the modern world offers without good guidance. Few are equipped by parents or nature to do so at that age. One isn’t born knowing how, for example, to earn money, raise babies and deal with adult life – and that knowledge is rarely attained by age fourteen.

But it’s also true that teens are not children. They are very self-aware, have complex systems of values and have some knowledge of the world. They have the ability to begin to exercise their powers independently. When that independence is stifled, opportunities to test guesses and solve problems is stunted.

The results of both these false alternatives – independence in the sense of being totally abandoned to one’s own devices, and lack of independence in not being allowed to make choices and deal with the consequences – will inevitably result in stress.

The former leaves the teen in the position of having to solve problems they simply aren’t ready to solve. The latter makes it extremely difficult for them to gain or expand their ability to solve them.

Teens will often implicitly recognize this when they complain to parents ‘You never let me have my way’, or, “I’m old enough to make my own decisions”. Some parents react dogmatically by declaring that they will make those decisions, others err on the other side by simply throwing off all restraint and allowing the teen to ’sink or swim’.

Knowing when to do one, when to do the other is every parent’s challenge. But the teen can help themselves and the parents out of this dilemma – and in the process save themselves much needless stress.

Just as they are not children, teens are not adults. But they can improve their situation by demonstrating the first and emulating the second. Paradoxically, voluntarily reaching for responsibility is one very effective way to minimize stress before it builds.

Though responsibility can lead to stress – if met with resentment or fear rather than confidence and persistence – it can also help build those skills needed to head off stress before it grows. When the responsibilities are those the teen is actually, with effort, able to handle the result is confidence building.

The surest way to decrease the stress that comes from fear of failure or of dealing with stubborn parents is to successfully tackle the challenges of school, home responsibilities and other hurdles. Sometimes that will require starting over after initial failure. Teens will learn practical knowledge from undertaking the challenge and build psychological strength from making the attempt.

[tags]stress, parents, teenagers[/tags]

Everyone agrees that stress is bad for you, but how bad? Rapid heartbeat, raised blood pressure, a rise in blood sugar level and a lower digestive rate are just a few of the physiological effects of stress.

The psychological effects, though sometimes more subtle, are important too. Increased stress, especially when it lasts over time, often leads to irritability. A person will be more quick-tempered and easy to anger. He or she will be more impatient, and more inclined to fear the future while feeling less able to cope with the present. People who are stressed tend to find it harder to concentrate and have greater difficulty making decisions.

These two realms are not unrelated. The hypothalamus and the pituitary gland are two brain components that lead the charge during stressful events. They release a substance called ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone) that stimulates the adrenal gland, near the kidney, to release cortisol. Natural levels of cortisol rise and fall during the day, but an excess can contribute to the “flight or fight” response that we experience during stress.

That can lead to neck muscle tension, stomach and bowel upset and a host of other effects. There are studies that suggest that if the stressful state persists it can lead to weakening of the immune system. That contributes to more frequent colds and other bad health effects.

High stress can cause a shortened attention span, less efficient memory recall, lowered objectivity and other cognitive problems. As dire thoughts race around the mind, there is less focus on solving life’s daily challenges in rational way. Moodiness, unreasonable anger, unwarranted feelings of injustice and other emotional consequences often follow.

The results of this are too often depression, apathy, crying in the absence of a specific cause, increased fear of failure and an overall sense of doom. But those are extremes and they are by no means inevitable.

There is sometimes a vicious cycle set up. The conflict between “I must” and “I can’t,” which is an essential element in stress, can lead to greater likelihood that, indeed, one can’t. That loss of confidence in one’s efficacy in dealing with life’s challenges can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But that too is not inevitable.

By focusing on the factors that led to stress, evaluating them realistically and keeping a sense of perspective about their consequences, stress can be reduced and even eliminated before it becomes a chronic problem. That, in turn, helps reduce the occasions when a minor problem leads to major stress, even in the short term.

[tags]stress, stress relief[/tags]