Dealing with stress.

What is stress? Researchers define stress as a physical, mental, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension. This is, of course, very irritating, as it causes one to have to adjust and cope with something that you are not used to. In other words, should anything be comfortable, then surely there will be no need to stress about it. Life as a whole, would be difficult to imagine without the existance of stress. It is just not possible for one to go on living a day without any kind of complications that would fit into the definition of a state of “ physical, mental, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension”. Even the thought of picking out a movie to rent at the store would cause somewhat of a dilemma.


In any case, there are two kinds of stress that one can relate to. There is the all irritating bad stress, and then there is the mirror image of it, the good stress. In my opinion, there is no doubt that the presence of a little good stress would prove beneficial to me, or anyone in particular, as it causes me to not be as lazy. Or in better words, it helps me to think and better myself as a student and as a person. Take for example my studies. Without stress I would just be lazing about all day, because, obviously, I am, stress free, and nothing would bother me. However, in reality, you have got to wake up and smell the thorns. This is because my parents did not send me flying off to a foreign country a thousand miles away just to take a three year vacation. That would be just wrong, and not to mention a real waste of hard earned money. Therefore, one would apply stress, as it also naturally comes along with the workload that is becoming a law student. In applying this stress, I become a better student. How do I do that? I strive in competitiveness, and the stress drives me to work hard to achieve a better result than my peer. Of course, competing with peers would not be the best idea, as the one person you want to better in your entire life would be none other than the one who stares right back at you in the mirror.


In any case, stress changes a person. I find myself to be a very laid back person, if possible to exaggerate, one without a care in the world. Which is of course untrue in many levels, and therefore I may be living in denial. The issue is that, as a kid, I was never one to be spoilt by my parents. As being laid back and having fun is my entire personality, I do find it difficult at times to just get into the mood of having to do work, without some sort of incentive to it. This is where my parents come in. Informally speaking, they practise tough love. And a lot of discipline comes with the whole set. My parents would force me to do my work, and the incentive would be to not get punished for not doing it. Simple physics. Since it is not in my nature to be a hardworking person, and one to be consigned to manual labor, I find my self having to adjust to this new tension, which drives me out of my comfort zone, and is of course, extremely irritating. A good ending comes from it, as I find myself having to cope with this new constant stress by looking at it in a different perspective. At the end of the day, why do I do the work that I do, I question myself constantly. I clean the house because it is the place where I rest my head at night, and I would definitely not want to be living in a pig sty. Why do I do my homework and assignments? My work and my course, I do not do it because my parents made me, but because I want to be a 'somebody' in society when I leave the university life, that I can make full use of the life that has been given to me.


As I have just discussed, some amounts of stress is always good for you. Yet, when the stress becomes a constant thing and a long term issue, it will become detrimental to your being and your body will start to wear itself out. I guess before the stresses in your life start to become too much and affects your overall well-being, you have to do something about it, which is why the workshop regarding managing stress is extremely important, and I cannot stress myself enough. I do apologize for the pun.


The workshop laid out for us the various methods that I can use to deal with stress, but I will focus on a few that I find to be just the right method for me, and I shall comment on the other few. For instance, the six step approach. This is a method I find to be rather similar to the third person technique and the coping imagery, which I find to be quite useful. I do imagine when things get complicated, I should take a step back, and re-evaluate the current situation I am in. and then I find myself asking myself the questions I have been asking all my life. Why am I doing this? Am I a little marrionette, just following orders by the strings behind my back? No. Therefore I take charge of the situation at hand and think of it in a different point of view. Should it be this bad? As they always say, 'Look at the brighter side of things', and somehow, it just works. You begin to tell yourself, 'it is not so bad' and then I can tackle the problem at hand, and face the problem with a better solution and a better purpose.


For some reason, I do not find the time projection imagery to the all that helpful, honestly. In my opinion, whatever problems that I have now should not and must not be forecasted into the future, and should indefinitely be resolved at the moment. On the other hand, anyone should find the complimentary approaches to be more than helpful. This relates to taking breaks and exercise, just calm yourself down and take the heat off the moment. It is always better to direct your stress elsewhere than in a negative thing. If you are angry, why not direct your anger at an inanimate object, such as a punching bag? Or play squash, and visualize the problem you have as that tiny ball. I find that to be very helpful.


Realistic thinking would be the ultimate stress buster in my opinion. As I said earlier on, you step back and re-evaluate the whole dilemma you are in, and think of it in a better light. If you are pictured as a negative object, think of all the positive things you have done, and in no time you will feel ridiculous for having bad thoughts about yourself. I shall end by reflecting on a movie I have watched. A person tells his friend who is having a hard time that he should never forget who he is and how he had got there in the first place. He emphasised on calling on his confidence and inner being to be his first name, followed by a 'ness' at the back. So my name is Douglas. Therefore, no one will be able to take away my Douglas-ness.


Amen to that.

this is, the comeback.