Recently, in class, we have spent a lot of time discussing stress as a student, parenting styles, and college admissions. One topic I deal with personally, and to a great extent, is stress. The effect of stress on our own lives depends upon many factors. The type of people we are, the situations we get stuck in, and the parents we have can all attribute to how we manage and experience stress. Some people can naturally handle stress and I get that. But then, there are those of us procrastinators who get ourselves into a lot messes, there are high school students, and then there are those of you struggling from things I probably couldn't imagine.
There is a lot of controversy over the main cause of stress in the lives of students and many assume that the answer is as simple as "school." Eureka! That's it! We found the problem guys! Or have we really? Can school really be the only source of all of our stress?
Stress can spawn from many places, including the people around us, especially our peers and our families. School can sometimes be seen as one big competition. "Yeah all of my classes are AP next year, so what? How many are you taking?" The desire to compete with our classmates is extremely common. It comes from the idea that if other people who can handle the stress of multiple high-demand classes, why can't everyone else? We have to be able to stand out if we want to go to a decent college that good old mom and dad picked out for you. And if your parent(s) got into Stanford, why can't you?
Yeah, I know, there's not much we can do to control our environment and the people around us. That stress will always be there. But finding a way to manage the stress of these issues is the real key. You don't have to make these problems disappear, but you can make the burden of stress less prominent.
Tips:
- Be organized
- Prioritize
- Live a healthy life
- Practice self-control
Don't try to control your environment, at home or at school. Learn to control the way your environment affects you.
Sources:
http://www.studypoint.com/ed/school-stres/
I personally really agree with what you said about learning to control the way your environment affects you. I believe that since we can't change the ways our parents think, the way colleges accept students, or how much work is given in school, we should do our best to change the way we do things in order to lessen our own stress.
ReplyDeleteNice post Max, and it really seems that stress is always weighing down on our shoulders, especially at our grade and age. I know you touched on some tips on how to reduce stress, but another way I like to relax is by listening to some music.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcsUYu0PVxY
I strongly agree with those parts in becoming less stressed. I think that the hardest one to keep is self-control. For me, a lot of the time, if I don't finish my homework at school, I have a much harder time working at home because my home is full of distractions. Also, in response to Nathan, don't know if this music relaxes, but it definitely gets the homework done!! Here's one example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5Kwf_nNmGI
ReplyDeleteTo support my point, getting your work done faster, allows you to relax more, making you less stress.
I think it's much easier to list certain qualities that make for a well-rounded person without applying them situationally. "Prioritizing" and "living a healthy life", I've found, are often at odds with each other. If I have to decide between going for a run or studying for a major test the next day, I'll most likely study and shrug off living a healthy life. The pressure to overbook schedules often comes at a cost - without knowing what colleges are looking for in applicants, it becomes increasingly difficult to create an appropriate persona. So instead, we try and do everything, and prioritization takes a back seat. Self control, on the other hand, could probably be applied to many situations and is perhaps the most straightforward to improve on.
ReplyDelete