Stress Management

No matter who you are or what you do, stress will always be part of everyone’s life. However, not everyone deals with it the same way. Some people cry, others listen to music, and I take naps. I don’t know the perfect way to deal with stress, but practicing breathing exercises helps a lot too. I personally was never told how to handle stress, it was just something that was never mentioned or really shown in my family.

Growing up with a single mother was difficult, but not seeing her or having her around was even harder. I guess I can say I got my sleeping habits from the way she acted around us on the daily basis. When my mother would get home, I assume stressed and exhausted from work, she would simply go to her room without acknowledging any of my siblings, or myself. There she would stay locked up and away from us until her night shift came around. Then, right before leaving, she would cook for us, if my oldest sister hadn’t done so already. Growing up with a person who didn’t know how to handle stress made it hard for me to even show how much stress I had, let alone talk about it. My family was very conservative and we never talked about these issues before, we actually barely started talking about our childhood and how meaningless it was compared to other kids and our nephews.

However, it would have been wonderful if my siblings and I would have had these talks sooner in life, like when we were all struggling in life and keeping it to ourselves. Talking about it now doesn’t make a difference to me because I have already been through everything and had to deal with those things by myself. I can understand the fact that my mother was very stressed from having to provide for six kids, but she could have at least sat down with us for an hour or so to at least try and make us understand why she wasn’t there for us. My mother didn’t even know how to talk to me when I got older and now that I’m basically full grown, she tells me she made a huge mistake pushing us away, but it’s hard for me to fully accept her just because I never saw her as a mother figure. I really believe that everyone should have someone to tell them how stressful college and life can be, because walking into it blind-folded can really hit you hard.

I obviously know my academic status looks terrible and I believe it has a lot to do with the way I manage stress. I know I could get so much more done if it wasn’t for the way I handle stress. Stress is something that I know I will encounter each and every day I’m preparing for my future. Learning to cope with it in a proper way is essential. Stress management is really important for everyone, especially students who are normally the ones that don’t know how to handle it. Stress management can make the difference between a happy life and quitting everything a person has ever wanted.

Looking back at all the stress, I am definitely glad I’m not the only person who has that problem around here. Students really stress themselves over a lot of things that others just seem to brush off. For example, the competition for grades and the need to perform, but forming relationships with others is especially stressful and fearful. The fear of failure represents more than failing academically, it is also the fear of failing as a friend and a daughter. There are times that life gets really difficult for people and some of us don’t know how to react to it, so instead of coping with it we just push others away without thinking about how it hurts them.

There are a few ways to cope with stress, like meditation, emotion-focused coping, and mindfulness meditation. I don’t know for sure if I could really focus enooough to try these new coping mechanisms, but I know for a fact that I could stick with simple meditation. Meditation is the only one I would do, because it could be done anywhere and basically any time. It’s really easy for me to get stressed in a room with a lot of people, even if everyone is completely silent. Just being surrounded by people is very stressing.

In conclusion, stress is something very difficult to deal with, but it is something we can all learn to cope with. There are families that talk about these kinds of situations, but there are also families that would rather pretend that these kind of issues don’t exist or don't acquire to them. Unfortunately, they are wrong. Stress can happen to anyone at any time during the day, week, month, and year. Stress is not something that we can run away from, not even if you do drugs or “drink” your problems away. The only way to get rid of stress is to cope with it, and that is something every parent should teach their kids no matter where they come from or what their parents taught them about it.