This is Stress Management

Hey everyone! Yes, I’m back again, and with strategies that will help you sooth those feelings of stress. If you haven’t guessed it already, the topic of this week is Stress Management. The two strategies I decided to use for this week were the Stress Diagram and the Five-Minute Escape. I found both of these strategies to be very effective for me because they enabled me to relieve my stress from all my sources, including the sources of stress from outside of school.

The first strategy I chose for this week was the Stress Diagram. For this, I listed out my top five sources of stress for me right now. The ones I listed out were: Packing the right things (for my trip home this Friday), Getting the bus in time, and Acting Quiz and Performance I have in my acting class, finishing some projects for an internship position I’m trying to get, and working on and finishing my WRT 105 essay about standardized testing. I then took these stresses and labeled them from the most stressful to the least stressful, number one being the packing, and number five being the essay. I added these stresses to a pie chart and sized each slice to the size of the stress is causes me. For example, packing is my biggest stress right now and it takes up half the pie. This strategy showed me that a majority of my stress this week is coming from outside sources other than class. The only two classes giving me stress are my WRT 105 and my DRA 105 acting class, and they’re not even my biggest worries. I chose this strategy because I’m a visual learner and I like being able to SEE what my problems are, I think it just helps me to become less stressed when I can see all the things that are affecting me. I decided to use this strategy for this week because I’m going home and I’m feeling a lot of stress and pressure from a combination of things. I used this strategy particularly in WRT 105 and DRA 105 because those classes give a lot of homework assignments that are due over a long period of time, and I tend to procrastinate on them and get stressed out when I feel like I’m not getting them done. I think this strategy really helped relieve my pressure though. Now I have a list of things to accomplish rather than a list of things that are going to really stress me out, I think this strategy worked well with me as a visual learner because the pie chart is a visual way to see how the pressure adds up and compares to other pressures, showing me what I need to focus in on.

The other strategy I used this week was the Five-Minute Escape. I found myself using this strategy after almost every class I had, or in between classes or assignments when I had time to spare. I noticed this strategy was particularly helpful on Tuesday in between my WRT 105 class and my TRM 151. My TRM 151 class begins shortly after my WRT 105 class ends, so I used the time in between those two classes to try the Five-Minute Escape. I noticed I big change in the way I entered my TRM class, I felt refreshed, positive, and ready to gather all the new information I was about to receive. Normally I would just wait outside my TRM class, stressing about whether I forgot to study or do an assignment, then I would go into the class feeling overwhelmed and unmotivated to do any work, I just felt exhausted. The Five-Minute escape really loosens up your body, and gives you some time to focus on something else besides school, which is why I think is worked so well for me. I can definitely say I found the Five-Minute strategy effective because I didn’t feel stressed anymore before my TRM class, I felt re-energized and ready to work. I chose this strategy because I’ve always found physical therapy a very powerful tool in making me feel better. I’ve used similar strategies before, and I can say this one worked very well. Even though I’m a visual learner, I still found this strategy effective, I don’t think that type of learner you are matters when using this strategy, I think it’s one everyone can use, and in my perspective SHOULD use! It’s great. I think I will continue to use both the Five-Minute Escape and the Stress Diagram strategies in the future when I have anymore stresses and or feel overwhelmed with something I’m doing. Thank you all for reading, and remember, don’t let stress get you down, there’s always ways around!