Why Stress is your Enemy

You looked really stressed? Almost any college student could be asked this question. The demands of a University compared to those of High School make almost all students unprepared for the new workload. It may only be around exam or midterms for some students, but everyone gets stressed out. Sometimes it feels like once you are stressed it continually worsens and there is no way out. This is the problem that many students face and what many do not know are the health problems that result from too much stress that only exacerbate the problem. 

Major changes in lifestyle create stress. Moving off to school and no longer living at home is a common example. All the supports that are normally present are gone. Most people have never needed to live so independently where everything needs to be taken care of by the individual. This is where stress begins its slow takeover of a student. One of the issues faced by stressed students is that the effects of it prolong and worsen the stress. Stress causes difficulty sleeping, anxiety, depression, forgetfulness, difficulty concentrating, colds, headaches, and even more related symptoms. If your source of stress is schoolwork, all these things are only making it more difficult to get work done and do well in classes. How then can students avoid this cyclic problem?


The first step in removing stress from your life is to balance out your life. This is normally done through time management. Getting organized and limiting yourself to certain activities for only so long makes you rotate what you are doing. Getting enough sleep and some form of exercise will keep your body in better balance. Having a plan removes worry about when you will finish something. Instead of dreading getting a paper done, you know that your introduction will be finished this morning, the body and conclusion tonight, and the revisions will be made the following day. This breaks down a daunting task into manageable parts that can be accomplished much easier versus doing an all nighter to finish a paper. This will only make you sleep deprived and less productive the next day, which puts you even more behind.  




Sources:
http://www.healthline.com/health-news/children-top-health-dangers-for-college-freshmen-091413#2
http://www.counseling.ufl.edu/cwc/stress-and-college-students.aspx
https://learn2balance.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/bigstockphoto_stress_asian_scholar_5099246.jpg