August 2011
34 posts
3 tags
What Stresses Students Out?
What is stress? It is this feeling that you have when there are all kinds of challenges and things happening to you at the same time. It may come from different things that you are up against and if will affect both your mind and your body.
The things that stress teens out the most are school work, parents, friends’ problems, social relationships. On top of that, for teens, drugs in the...
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Stress: What Does It Feel Like?
Fear and stress many times feel the exact same way. The reason is that both are affected by that Fight or Flight mentality. Every teen has had the challenges that range from the big test next week, to the disagreement (major fight) with your parents. It may have been a lost cell phone or the kid that is constantly picking on you in school. It could be worry about your weight or health or...
Recognizing the Signs That You May Be Stressed
Everyone of us, teens or adults have felt our body and mind react to stress. Some people will tell you that they hold it in and keep their feelings to themselves, while others wear their feelings on their sleeves. Either way we know when we are stressed out.
While there are some things that seems to stress everyone out, there may be things that stress you out and not another person. Some...
Coping with Stress: How Do You Cope?
Trying to stay on top of everything that we have going on in our lives can bring that stress that we have up to a level that feels more than just challenging. We can start to lose our physical energy, our sharpness for thinking and very generally lose our edge. Many of the illnesses and diseases that are prevalent today are said to be furthered and worsened by stress. How do we deal with our...
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Coping with Stress Part 1: Using Distractions
In our last report on stress we talked about the 3 different ways that some of us cope with stress in our lives. They were distraction, avoidance and escapism. Each of them get progressively more harmful to the person practicing them. However to some degree the use of distraction can offer short term relaxation and can prove to be helpful, as long as it does not get out of control.
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Coping with Stress: Avoidance As Coping Tool
One level higher than distraction for coping with stress is AVOIDANCE. As one 14 year old said, “when I don’t want to do something, I go online.” That is probably true for a number of adults too. We can get lost in the online world and even have an excuse saying we are doing research or something else.
When it comes to the higher level of avoidance, procrastination is very high on the list...
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Coping with Stress: Escapism As Coping Tool
When you have reached the limits of your abilities to cope with stress in your life, you may still be embarrassed, scared or so overwhelmed that you start taking part in escapist behaviors to try and feel better. For teens this may be skipping school, running away from home. For both adults and teens there may be a turning to drugs and alcohol, lying to people to avoid responsibility and it can...
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Reduce Stress: Do Something Physical Part 1
Without getting all scientific on you, there are many reasons that physical activity is great when you are feeling stressed. First when you are stressed out your body produces cortisol and that can make you feel even more nervous and anxious, even to the point of feeling sick. Getting active will use up some of that cortisol and that will help to reduce the nervous feelings.
Just as important...
Reduce Stress: Foods That Increase Stress Part 2
We have all heard that ‘you are what you eat’. While we don’t eat stress, what we do eat can stress the cells in our body and brain, and they do know the difference between what is good for them and what is really just filler material – that most of the time is easier to get and can taste good. If we do not give our bodies what it needs you cannot be at your best, physically or mentally.
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Reduce Stress: Learning to Relax Part 3
I have a t-shirt that I bought in one of the islands in the Caribbean that says, “It is good to do nothing and then to rest”. Just as it is important for us to have good time management skills and to work hard, it is also just as necessary to practice calming our mind and being still. For many it is very hard just to be still, to not be doing anything, to just relax. Relaxation is about being...
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Reduce Stress: Learn To Be Assertive Part 4
It may seem that being assertive has little to do with how stressed we may be feeling, but in fact if we are feeling out of control or not having enough input in decisions being made about our life, we can become very stressed about those situations. This could be happening with friend, teachers, family or at work.
Now every age group is going to have different levels of responsibility or even...
Reduce Stress: Build a Support System Part 5
Have you ever felt a little down on yourself and really not sure who you can talk to? Or maybe you have the feeling that this is a problem you should be able to handle on your own. Sometimes we are not even really sure that there is anyone that would really understand. When we are feeling like that – we may get very anxious and stressed out about what to do.
Our support system, safety net,...
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Reduce Stress: Set & Reach Your Goals Part 6
Stephen Covey calls it, “Begin With The End In Mind”. We are going to call it, Know and Like Where You Are Headed. One of the largest contributors to confidence and feeling good about yourself, is feeling like you are in control of your destiny. Much of the anger and stress felt by both teens and adults is the lack of direction and commitment to an end result. Unfortunately we get so busy...
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Reduce Stress: The Practice of Time Management...
How is it that other people seem to fit so much into their day, while I struggle with getting the necessary things done? I make a list of all of the things I have to do – but it never seems that I get anything done on it, or not nearly enough!
I have too much to do!
We all know the feeling of “having too much to do”. Sometimes it is because we have over-scheduled ourselves or because we...
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Reduce Stress: Don't Try To Be Perfect Part 8
I would like to start this article off with a copy of a post done by a young lady that wrote about being a perfectionist and the affect on her life. Now before you read this, be assured this is not out of the norm. This past year I was a part of a forum on stress at a local high school, and just the idea suggested by the panel that it was OK to be less than perfect in all aspects of your life,...
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Reduce Stress: Making Good Decisions Keeps You In...
When you are younger most of your decisions are made for you by others. As you get older, you are making more of your own decisions, and along with that privilege come the responsibility for the consequences for each of those decisions. Life is all about choices, and we all learn that it is about every choice that we make.
If we choose to eat poorly it will affect us both short term and long...
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Reduce Stress with Positive Thinking Part 10
Sometimes life comes at us so fast and hard that we feel like we are in a fight, a fight for our lives. When it seems that nothing is going our way, when everyone is picking on us, when nothing is going right – that is when we become the most stressed out. We start using words like – never, all the time, everyone, nothing – words that are negative about ourselves and our situation that make it...
