Stress is an unavoidable part of college life. For many students, attending college means leaving home and being away from family and friends. Classes are sometimes very demanding, midterms and finals are often very stressful, participating in campus activities and organizations can be very time consuming and challenging, not to mention that the ups and downs of personal relationships at times feels unbearable.Stress refers to the body’s reaction to change in the environment. Too much stress over an extended period of time can be bad for your health. It can lead to feelings of anxiety, depression, and feeling overwhelmed. Chronic stress lowers the body’s immune response and leaves us more susceptible to illnesses. It may also lead to harmful coping behaviors like overeating and abuse of drugs and alcohol.
One way of measuring your level of stress is to measure the things going on in your life. Holmes & Rahe (1975) developed the Recent Life Changes Questionnaire, which measures stressfully significant events that have recently occurred. Many questions focus on things like financial and family problems, change in personal relationships, recent moves, job change, and legal problems. Research has shown that high scores on this questionnaire are associated with health problems.
There are a number of things we can do to reduce and manage our feelings of stress. First, we can avoid taking on too much. By selecting our activities wisely we can avoid the situation of having too many demands on our time. Second, we can monitor our attitude toward our activities. Demanding perfection from ourselves and from everyone around us is a recipe for stress because most of us are not perfect. Third, we can seek adequate rest and relaxation. Getting adequate sleep increases our ability to tolerate stress. Physical exercise can reduce feelings of stress and increase our feeling of well-being. Mental exercises like meditation and progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) are very effective in reducing feelings of stress. Finally and most importantly, we can replace harmful coping strategies with healthier ones. For example, we might replace overeating with a massage or hot shower. We might replace alcohol use with exercise followed by guided imagery or meditation.
The PVAMU counseling center offers assistance with stress management. We will give you a stress test to measure the amount of stress in your life. We can guide you in the development of a stress management program personalized to your situation and tastes. If you are feeling stressed-out and would like help managing your stress, come visit us at the counseling center here on campus.