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Sean Borkowski
Stress Management
Final Portfolio Paper
Stress
“A state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very
demanding circumstances,” is the definition for stress. Stress can be caused by many
different things and different people deal with stress in many different ways. Stress can
also be defines as the brain’s response. Stress is a normal physical response to events
that make you feel threatened or upset your “balance” in your body in some way. When
you sense danger- whether its real or fake- the body’s defenses kick into high gear in a
rapid, automatic process known as what we learned “fight or flight” reaction. The stress
response is the body’s way of protecting you. When working properly, it helps you stay
focused, energetic and alert. In an emergency situation, stress can save your life and
giving you extra strength or laser focus. Many people see this as adrenaline. Many things
can trigger the response in the brain. Stress can be categorized into two different types of
stress. One is eustress, which is good stress that motivates you and makes you continue
working or work toward something. There is also bad stress, which is called distress.
Distress is what most people think when they they think of the world “stress”. Eustress is
thought to be said as good stress. Everyone needs a little bit of this type of stress to be
able to be happy in his or her life. It is when this stress is no longer tolerable and/or
manageable that distress comes in. Distress is when good stress becomes too much to
bear or cope with. Everyone has experienced distress, whether it was in the work place
or at school. Tension is built and there is no longer anymore fun in the challenge. Some
say that it seems like there is no relief or end in sight when they feel distress. This stress
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is what we are most familiar with and sometimes it can lead us to make bad decisions.
Distress can take a toll on the health of an individual.
There are many negative affects to stress. There can be cognitive symptoms,
emotional symptoms, physical symptoms and behavioral symptoms. Physical symptoms
include increased blood pressure, rapid breathing, generalized tension, aches and pains,
nausea, dizziness, chest pain, loss of sex drive and frequent colds. Other behavioral
symptoms include overeating, loss of appetite, drinking, smoking, negative copying
mechanisms, sleeping too much or too little, isolating yourself from others,
procrastination and nervous habits. Emotional Symptoms are present and they are
moodiness, short temper, inability to relax, feeling overwhelmed, isolation and
depression. Cognitive Symptoms are also present and they include memory problems,
inability to concentrate, poor judgment, seeing only the negative, and constant worrying.
When you are stressed over little things like a traffic jam or a busy schedule, your body
doesn’t not differentiate it from life threatening situations. Your body does not see these
stressors any different. With long-term stress, comes chronic stress. Chronic stress is a
serious problem and is harmful to the body. Chronic stress can have an effect on all parts
of your body. It can raise your blood pressure, suppress the immune system, increase the
risk of heart attack, contribute to infertility and speed up the aging process. Also things
like weight and sleeping problems can occur. Many things in life can cause you to feel
the distress that is talked about.
There are many things that can cause someone to have stress in their life. There
are two different types of things that can stress you out and they are external and internal
causes. Some common externals are major life changes, work or school, relationship
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difficulties, financial problems, being too busy, and children or your family. With
external causes, there are also internal causes. Common internal causes of stress are
chronic worry, pessimism, negative self-talk, unrealistic expectations, rigid thinking, lack
of flexibility and all-or-nothing attitude.
As a college student athlete, there are many
things in this world that can cause my self to feel stressed. Whether I am at home during
break from school or actually at school, stress is a normal thing for me. Living about 2
hours away from school, you can see where some things can cause me to have distress.
Simple things like traveling home on vacations and traveling back to school can be
stressful. Things like problems with my car and traffic can easily be something that
causes stress. Not only traveling, but being at school can cause stress can effect me.
Being a student can cause a great amount of stress especially a college student. Between
papers, speeches, projects and homework, it can really take a toll on you and your body.
Not only do the work part of college stressful but the living conditions are also stressful.
Being a freshmen at Rowan, it is required to live on campus. This can cause many things
to stress you out. These things can include, not having your own bathroom, not having a
kitchen available, living with a roommate and living on your own. Personally, I think
freshman year was the most stressful year of my life. Today, as a Junior in college I am
allowed to live off campus. I live in an apartment off campus and this causes different
things that stress me out. Living in an apartment is a different situation then in a dorm.
Things like paying bills for rent and cable every month, buying food for my self, keeping
our apartment clean so we can get our deposit back and things like maintenance around
the apartment. Living off campus does have some stressors but living in a dorm defiantly
has a lot more then you can think of. Not only do college students today have a great
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amount of stress but so do high school students. As I said before, I am a student athlete.
Along with the student stressors talked about above, comes the stress of being an athlete.
As an athlete, perfection is pursued all the time. We are taught to be a perfect person on
and off the field. Between volunteer work, getting good grades and trying to be perfect
on the field can really take a toll on a person. Football is an all around stress full game,
on and off the field. Meetings and studying game film adds stress to an individual who
plays football. Along with these things, injuries also play a big roll in being a stressor.
Injuries can bring your mood down and ultimately make you more stressed out. Between
the pain of the injury, rehabbing the injury and sometimes missing games or practice,
injuries can be a great stressor. Along with the student part and the athlete part, you can
see there is a lot of stress in my life to handle. Football does not always have to be
stressor, but it can be a stress reliever.
With so much stress involved in my life, it is difficult to find stress relievers. I
have tried many things before this class to try and relive stress and I have found things
that have helped, but also things that have not helped. One thing I have found to help me
to relieve my stress is working out. Being a college athlete, it is very important to be in
the best physical condition as possible. Working out has allowed me to do this but also
relieve stress that I have in my life. I have tried running and lifting weights as a part of
the stress relief. Both have been so helpful in trying to relieve stress. I have found lifting
weights as my number one stress reliever. There is something about exerting all of your
strength in something, that makes you feel good. Being angry (or stressed) and going to
the gym to workout can turn my mood around in an instant. Even though what ever is
stressing my out will still be there after the workout, it allows me to get away from it and
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take a step back. Working out makes you look good and feel good about your self, so
that’s the reason it is my number 1 stress reliever. One thing that I have tried as a stress
reliever was yoga. The first time I did yoga, it was an interesting time to say the least. I
did not enjoy it one bit and I felt very awkward doing the stretches. With lifting a lot, my
muscles are very tight. It is hard to be flexible but I do try. Yoga was not the way to go
with this. I felt very uncomfortable and I got frustrated quickly. I got frustrated quickly
because of the positions I was put in. Most I could not do correctly or to full extent. I get
angry very quick and I felt like this did not help me. This did not go over well with me.
This actually made me more stressful because I was not able to do these things I was told.
Before coming to this class, I was not aware of the many different things someone cold
do to relive stress. One thing I did not know anything about was meditation and deep
breathing. This was very new to me and actually surprised me. I have never learned or
tried either of these techniques. Before learning about them, I was hesitant because I
thought it would be similar to deep breathing in yoga. After learning about it, I was more
open to it. Before we did the deep breathing exercise, I have never did anything like it.
After we did it, I was actually very surprised in how much it worked. The deep breathing
exercise was such a shock to me. I would of never thought in a million years that it
would work on me. I put full effort into the exercise. I was shocked and glad that it
worked on me. After that day I continued to do this exercise. Every before I go to sleep,
I try to deep breathe for at least 15 minutes. This has helped me tremendously. It has
allowed me to clear my mind before bed. Doing this has been a great stress reliever
because I get all my thoughts out before I go to sleep. I have seen improvement in my
stress level and also my sleeping. Sleeping better has allowed me to feel more refreshed
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and not stressed. I am no longer worried about getting a better nights sleep or stressing
about not getting enough sleep. I am able to fall asleep faster and sleep better. I am glad
I was introduced to this technique because it has been nothing but positive for me. Going
into this class, I would of never thought that something like this would work for someone
like me. Also, watching the Dhamma Brothers video, I saw that meditation worked. It
really changed my perspective. I now know that there are many different techniques for
people to use to relive stress.
Before coming into this class, I was not educated in stress what so ever. I knew
that stress was a bad thing but this class has really opened up my mind. It has taught me
many things that I did not know before. The different techniques of stress relief has to be
the number one thing I learned. Also learning about the numerous different negative
effects of stress has opened my eyes. I would of never thought that it could be so
unhealthy for you. Stress is something we all deal with and I am glad that I have gotten
more educated on such a broad subject. Now knowing that stress is such a physiological
thing is crazy to think about. One thing that I really enjoyed in this class was learning
about our brain and our thoughts. I knew that our brain was a powerful thing but after
learning about it more, it helped me learn so much more about it. Learning that your
thoughts can have such a negative or positive effect on you was a great thing to learn
about. The Will Smith video really had an impact on me. It has changed my mindset on
a lot of things. I know look at things in life so differently. The things I have learned in
this class have really opened up my mind to different things. Between the stressors,
stress relievers, the techniques of stress, learning about the brain, learning about the
importance of sleep and also your thoughts have really broadened my horizon. I am glad
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I toke this class and hope to learn more about these things in the future.