Tips for dealing with college stress

By Jason Koole
Western Herald

Nicole Mouch, a junior pre-med student at Western Michigan University feeling stressed about the heavy loads of being a college student. Bethany Bohlen/Western Herald

The life of a college student usually consists of papers, assignments and due dates for everything.

The due dates can cause students to become stressed.

“Stress is a normal physical response to life; if we didn’t have stress, we wouldn’t be able to function,” said Dave Jones, coordinator for Sexual Assault Prevention and Education.

“Stress helps us get ready for a variety of things. It’s a brain process; it’s a hormonal process that is natural and good.”

Jones is currently a doctoral student in psychology, as well as an employee at the Sindecuse Health Center on Western Michigan University’s campus.

Jones said he knows about the stress and pressures that a student can feel. He said that procrastination is one of the big factors that can cause stress in students.

“I can’t say [what causes stress for students] definitively,” Jones said.

“For homework and classes, we have these deadlines and we don’t prepare for them and I think a lot of that stress comes from that. [If we don’t have] things mapped out and then having a day come when something’s due hit you and you haven’t worked up until that point. So maybe procrastination is one of the things that causes a lot [of stress].”

Jones also talked about the natural responses to stress, which are fight, flight and freeze.

When someone is faced with stress, they react in one of these three ways. He also said that is important to be aware of how someone deals with stress to be able to better prepare themselves.

“I sometimes work better under stress so sometimes I wait too long to do some assignments so my stress response helps to motivate me to do good work on my paper,”Jones said.

“Now, some people, if they got to a week before an assignment is due and they haven’t started it yet, then their stress response could shut them down [while] some people just choose not to get involved with it.”

One thing that professors can do to help with stress is to set clear expectations for classroom behavior as well as focusing on the learning aspect rather than the final outcome.

But it is ultimately up to the student to figure out how to manage their stress, Jones said.

Jones said that stress prevention is different for each person. Some good examples of how people deal with their stresses are through activities like exercise, meditation and positive self-talk.

Also, if stress ever gets too difficult to deal with, it is important to talk to someone about what they are dealing with.

“One thing I think that’s important is being able to live in the moment, focus on the immediate rather than the perception of what’s to come,” said Jones.

“Sometimes we stress out about perceived actions and events and they haven’t even happened yet. We spend all of our time stressing out on what may or may not happen when we need to focus on what we need to do now to get the best situation for us in the future.”

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=19699

Posted by HeraldAdmin on Sep 5 2010. Filed under Campus, Local, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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