Stress is anything that negatively affects your natural balance. Everybody would want to avoid all stress if possible. We should recognize that a little stress is not a bad thing. A little stress will boost your concentration, motivate you and assist you to maintain a high physical and mental resilience. However, chronic stress will make you feel anxious, overwhelmed, exhausted, and forgetful about essential things. Studies indicate that 90 percent of visits to the doctor are illnesses caused by stress. There are many ways in which you can reduce stress in your life. Some of them are long-term techniques while others are short term. Techniques such as biofeedback and counseling are long term-and require one’s commitment. Therefore, you might not be able to feel the change for several weeks (Baghurst & Kelley, 2014). There are several possible self-stress relieving techniques.
The first self-stress relieving technique is diaphragmatic breathing or merely belly breathing. Children usually breathe from their stomachs till when they grow and start being beaten by the constant stress of life. When somebody is stressed, your chest becomes tight, and most times you tend to breathe rapidly, and your breathing becomes shallow. When you sense danger rapid breathing activates your “fight or flight response,” and your muscles tighten ready to respond to danger. Therefore, when you are undergoing stress, you should take deep breaths from your stomach to help you relax your muscles hence alleviate stress. Meditating can also help you relieve stress. In fact, it is one of the best methods to reduce stress. When you meditate, you become less reactive and more resilient to stress. Meditating decreases the number of neurons in the brain’s amygdala (are associated with stress, anxiety, and fear). Through meditating, you will be able to clear your mind and deal with the negative thought that caused the stress. Moreover, you will stay focused on the present, hence avoid worrying about what will happen in the future of what has passed. Meditation is divided into different forms. Mindful meditation, one which is of choice for those facing unusual stress, is the best for stress relief (Baghurst & Kelley, 2014).
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Dancing exercises can also relieve stress. Physical exercise of any type will reduce stress, but dancing is the best especially yoga. An estimate of 15 million Americans attends yoga classes to reduce stress. Yoga reduces the rate of breathing, increases the heart rate variability and lower blood pressure. Guided imagery is also one way through which you can reduce stress ( Waghachavare et al. , 2013). The technique uses one’s innate visualization power to improve performance and achieve goals. Guided imagery is mostly used for healing, behavioral changes, and stress reduction. Through guided imagery, one can release emotions and thoughts that are negative, gain mental clarity, achieve either business or personal goals, and improve their self-esteem.
The fifth method of reducing stress is self-hypnosis. According to Sharma & Rush (2014), hypnosis can be defined as a trance-like state that is characterized by increased suggestibility, heightened imagination and extreme relaxation. Self-hypnosis is when you put yourself in a state of hypnosis without getting help from a hypnotherapist. For instance, when you find yourself entranced by ocean waves, this is self-hypnosis. The technique is helpful in relieving anxiety and other stress-related disorders. The seventh method autogenic training. Autogenic training is a form of self-hypnosis which teaches you how to regulate functions like breathing, blood pressure, and heart rate. Autogenic training calms down stress response that is overactive. It is similar to meditation in that they both put you in a relaxed brainwave state. The sixth stress relieving technique is personal biofeedback. Besides relieving stress, biofeedback is used by physicians to treat mental illnesses and disorders that are brain-related. Biofeedback is expensive and takes a lot of time for viable results to be realized. However, personal biofeedback is useful in measuring body functions using personal devices that are designed for this.
A person who is stressed has tight muscles. As muscles become tighter, the stress increases. Progressive relaxation of muscles is a technique that is simple and involves systematic relaxing and tensing specific body muscles to break muscle tension and stress. Stress can also be relieved through the technique of emotional freedom (tapping). The technique involves stimulation of meridian points using fingertips. You can use tapping to relieve anything that hurts you either physically or emotionally. Doctors have established that just a session of tapping will lower the level of cortisol, the stress hormone, by almost fifty percent. Aromatherapy uses essential oils taste to relax and heal specific mental disorders. There are many essential oils whose scent relieve stress. Lavender is the most versatile essential oil (Baghurst & Kelley, 2014).
Sharma & Rush (2014) notes that everyone has his or her thing that they do when they feel stressed or sad. For some people, their hobbies are their greatest stress reduction strategy. However, this should not involve drinking beer and letting your stress eat you up as you sit in front of the TV. Nature walks in parks also help in relieving stress. Other times stress can be caused by overworking and lack of enough sleep. If the cause of your stress is lack of sleep or too much work, you should at least reduce your workload and get more sleep. Through this, your muscles will be relaxed and hence reduce your level of stress. Lastly, stress can be reduced by taking green tea, instead of coffee. Many people can get through their daily activities through the artificial energy boot that they obtain from drinks that have caffeine. However, caffeine can increase the stress hormone in your body and reduce brain chemicals for calming down. In fact, there are four known psychiatric disorders whose cause is linked to caffeine. Therefore, drinking coffee to relieve stress is wrong and should be avoided. Instead, when you feel stressed take a cup of green tea.
Waghachavare et al , (2013) acknowledges that the life of a student is also difficult and is accompanied by dozens of stress. There are some situations, especially during examinations, which make you feel your levels of stress have gone high. Some people also become sick and unhappy at this time. The good news is that there are many techniques that will help you relieve stress quickly. If these techniques are regularly practiced, they have a great potential of relieving stress permanently. Many students do not have the money to go to a psychiatrist and enroll for sessions that help them relieve stress. There are suitable techniques which are not expensive.
Relieving stress involves activities that make you relax and clear your mind. Because a student in college does not have family responsibilities to take care of, the causes of stress can be relationships and education issues. Therefore to avoid stressing situation, one should control their life on campus and balance their schedules in a favorable manner (Baghurst & Kelley, 2014). Further, as argued by Baghurst & Kelley, a student should learn how to manage their responsibilities properly, achieve their targets and still have a relaxing time. Also, students should realize that everybody has limits which are all different. They should, therefore, work within their limits and not overwork themselves to achieve ambiguous targets. Another stress relieving technique for a student is taking short breaks in between classes. During the breaks, stay outside, either walking in the school park and listening to music or sitting in a quiet place to calm and clear your mind. Proper time management will help you do all your responsibilities on time with no pressure or stress. Procrastination will affect several sectors of your life, like the quality of assignments, mood, and sleep. Therefore, a student should avoid carrying forward responsibilities until last minute as this can create physical and mental stress (2014).
Students have a lot of time to spare some for physical exercise. Physical exercise like yoga classes, salsa classes and games will occupy your idle time and hence avoid indulging in unhealthy relationships. Also, exercises will help you burn the stress-energy generated in class (Sharma, 2014). Additionally, Sharma (2014) points out that a student should ensure that they have had around 8 hours of sleep every night. Students are fond of depriving themselves sleep to watch movies and do other activities forgetting the importance of that sleep. Many physical and mental problems are caused by sleep. Mindful meditation will help a student learn a variety of ways of working skillfully without anxiety and stress that is related to college life. Some students relieve stress by writing and reading books and journals. For instance, starting your journal will help you understand yourself, what you feel and make better decisions and relevant changes in your lifestyle.
References
Baghurst, T., & Kelley, B. C. (2014). An examination of stress in college students over the course of a semester. Health promotion practice , 15(3), 438-447.
Sharma, M. (2014). Yoga as an alternative and complementary approach for stress management: a systematic review. Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine , 19(1), 59-67.
Sharma, M., & Rush, S. E. (2014). Mindfulness-based stress reduction as a stress management intervention for healthy individuals: a systematic review. Journal of evidence-based complementary & alternative medicine , 19(4), 271-286.
Waghachavare , V., B. (2013). A Study of Stress among Students of Professional Colleges from an urban area in India. Sultan Qaboos University Medical J ournal, 13(3), 429–436.
