Stress Log Issues - Essay Example

? Stress Log By Your Teacher’s Your Institute’s Stress Log (Assignment Part I) Day I had to wait 30 minutes at the bus station, as the bus was late. The fact that the bus driver was surly made matters worse. However, I did have my phone with me, so I stayed busy. I had an altercation with a friend over a misunderstanding, though I did walk away before it could get any worse, so that seems to be the silver lining. I called my parents to find out one of them has developed high blood pressure. Day 2: I met the friend I had an altercation with yesterday, apparently he is still resentful. It is frustrating that people are not willing to let go of even the smallest of things. I had some extra studying to do, as we were given an assignment, so could not find any time to call parents or hang out with friends. The plans I had made with my friends had to be cancelled, resulting in them being disappointed in me. Through no fault of my own I am the “bad” guy. Day 3: The overloading of studying continues – apparently I misread the due date of an assignment, it is due tomorrow. Now I have to forget about anything other than this assignment. This caused me to skip my regular sleeping hours, and only sleep three hours instead. I have a feeling this will make me cranky and short-tempered tomorrow. Day 4: I went out to discover that I had left my phone at home. I called my parents and got into a quarrel with them over them blaming me for not caring enough to call, despite finding out about my mother’s blood pressure. I am getting tired of explaining to them that being in college means I am busy now with work. I am not exactly having a party here. My parents’ attitude of being so demanding does have its toll on the level of stress I feel every day. Studies are stressful enough, and I do not need accusatory emotional blackmailing to add to it. Assignment Part II The wait at the bus station was stressful only for the period I was waiting. I did not have to get anywhere, so upon primary appraisal; it was merely harmful in the present. I had my phone, and I called my friends up, so I could cope with it (secondary appraisal). Therefore, the phone was a buffer for me. I relieved the stress by utilizing the waiting time in calling up my friends and chatting to them about pleasant things and mutual interests. The fight with the friend on the other hand (keeping in mind that it continued to the next day) caused quite a bit of stress. It might result in our relationship being strained or even ending, at least as we know it now. However, secondary appraisal revealed that I could find an opportune time to go to him and explain how it was a misunderstanding. So my stress was reduced. Thus, the thought of reconciliation and clearing up the air acted as the buffer for me. My mother’s health, however, was serious. It was not only negative in its implications, but it entailed that she shall have to take medication and special precautions throughout her life. It will be a challenge as all of the family will have to take part in this. There is enough literature available for us to overcome this challenge and help her in her time of need. We can guide her along the medication as well as life style changes. The feeling of having it under control did relieve my stress. The self-confidence I felt in being able to work my way through this and take my mother along acted as a buffer for me. The accusation by my parents, however, regarding me taking my mother’s health too lightly was too much to bear. It caused a lot of stress. We have underwent similar discussions before, where I have had to tell my parents that I am studying for a degree here, and that means that sometimes I do not have time to call or check in on them. This feels like such a challenge because I feel this will continue for a long time and there is not much I can do to make them understand my position. The feeling of hurt that my parents feel, or the feeling of neglect, is not something I can take away, therefore, the level of stress with regard to this is quite extreme. There is not much that can be done to reduce my stress in this matter. The misreading of the due date for an assignment caused me to stay up almost all night. I had to make the whole of the assignment in one night, and not one week. Though it did elevate my stress level to quite a degree, however, I was really happy to see that I had more than enough capability to cope with it. The fact that I managed to complete my assignment is testament to the fact. I was up to the challenge posed by the situation. Though this event was extremely stressful at its onset, however, the realization that it posed a challenge that I was able to overcome helped reduce the perception of stress. I took it as a challenge rather than as a source of stress. Overall, whenever I feel I have control of the situation, my perception of stress lessens to a great degree, helping me in cope with the situation. Assignment Part III I noticed that most of the time I cope with my stress on my own. I would not say that I am optimistic in my approach always; however, a certain sense of confidence that I have in myself and my abilities does seem to help a lot. I would rather approach the matter head on and not avoid it. When I discovered that I had misread the due date of my assignment, I could have avoided the problem by faking sickness the next day as students do sometimes, however, I chose to challenge myself and approach the stress fully. However, sometimes, as with the event of misunderstanding between me and my friend, I noticed that I can have somewhat of an avoidance style too, though, that was just for a brief period of time, to allow both of us to cool off. I am planning on going to meet him and clarify the misunderstanding, which shows that I have more of an approach style. What is more, I have a problem focused coping style in most scenarios. But the way I handled my mother’s illness shows that I have an emotion focused coping style too. Though even in that scenario, I relied more on a problem focused style (I was thinking about how to get my mother relevant data and literature about her disease and how to help her cope with her illness by gaining more information about it ourselves). Overall, my coping efforts were quite successful; I find that avoidance does not work well with me, whereas the approach strategy works really well. However, when it comes to matters of the family, the approach strategy is not always successful, nor is a practical problem focused coping style. There is bound to be a lot of emotions involved in any problem or stress having to do with family or other loved ones, and things are not going to get solved through an analytical problem solving approach. Social support has helped me a bit in coping, as in the case of discovering my mom’s illness, I did talk to a few friends about it, and all of them offered support. This ranged from listening to my problem as well as to offering practical advice regarding how to deal with the illness, and how to help my mother transition into the new life style that she will have to adopt. However, I did not turn to religion to help for these matters. I am not a deeply religious person in the sense that I do not turn to religion to relieve my stress. I am quite a practically minded person and I think that all problems need to be resolved by people themselves, and we should not look for shortcuts. Therefore, for me at least, religion would not be an effective support system in a time of stress. I feel that learning stress management techniques would definitely improve my coping. I feel that training in relaxation would help me a lot. I would like to stay relaxed throughout the stressful period. I tend to get a little stressed at the outset, and though ultimately, through some coping style or another, I am able to overcome it, however, I would want to learn to relax. While writing this log, I discovered that writing about my stress also relieves it, so I would like to continue doing this in an effort to train myself to reduce my stress. Read More