Kicking Stress to the Side

Senior Staff Writer

   Dark, wet circles darken the armpit area of your shirt. Your heart thumps hard in your chest as your stomach rolls with nervousness. Notes and study guides lay scattered across your desk as you ask a neighboring student if they have an extra scantron. You wonder if you even brought a pencil. As you frantically thumb through your notes trying to soak in that last bit of information, the professor walks in with the stack of tests. You suddenly feel the overwhelming urge to pee and your last meal begins to bubble at the top of your esophagus.

   The professor stands behind the podium at the front of the room and asks for everyone to put away their things. You shove all your papers back into your binder and lay it underneath your desk. As she starts handing out the tests, you go through the information in your head.

   Cruel and unusual punishment? Is that the 6^th amendment or the 8^th? I think it’s the 8^th? No … maybe it’s the 6^th? The 14^th? The 28^th? Is there a 28^th amendment? I don’t think there is! But … what if I’m wrong? I don’t remember!

   Believe it or not this happens to many students during finals week. The first step to prevent forgetting information before your final is to determine if what you’re experiencing is stress.

Stress Symptoms

   Everyone experiences stress at some point in their life. Whether it’s related to your job, relationships or finances, stress can take a toll on you both physically and mentally.

  Symptoms of stress include:

•          Headaches – Certain types of headaches can be related to stress. If you are experiencing tension headaches, then stress could be the cause.
•          Frequent Colds – Stress affects your immune system and causes vulnerability to illness.
•          Sleep problems – One loses sleep due to stress making sleep less restorative.
•          General Anxiety - Anxiety does serve an important function for survival, but if you’re feeling anxious much of the time, it could be because you have too many stressors in your life or it may indicate a medical condition like generalized anxiety disorder. If you experience an increase in anxiety, you may want to talk to your doctor.
•          “Fuzzy” Thinking - Your body’s stress response pumps your body with hormones that make it possible for you to fight or flee quickly. When triggered in excess, this stress response can actually cause you to think less quickly.
•          Feeling Frustrated – When a person is faced with many demands at the same time, the result is increased irritability and frustration.
•          Lowered Libido – Stress causes one to become too tired to be intimate with their partner.

   Mark Spencer, dean of the School of Arts and Humanities, said students should start preparing for an exam several days or even weeks in advance and study some of the test material every day.

   “Students who wait until the night before will likely find themselves stressed out and tired.  The student who prepares in advance can simply review the test material a last time the night before and then get a good night’s sleep,” Spencer said.

Stress Management

   While one stress tip asks for one to avoid stressors, an important question comes to mind.

   How can you manage stress when you can’t avoid the cause?

   Though stress management lists can be lengthy, I decided to choose the ones I’ve found to be the most helpful.

   Stress management tips include:

•          Eat right
•          Get plenty of rest
•          Exercise
•          Handle important tasks first and eliminate unimportant tasks
•          Take a break and meditate to slow down “mind-racing”
•          Reduce the urge to be perfect
•          Don’t stress when expectations aren’t met
•          Do yoga exercises
•          Do relaxation breathing

   Richard Kluender, dean of the School of Forest Resources, reflected back on what he did when he attended college. He said when test time came; he went through his notes, and then wrote on another sheet all the most critical points, formulas and concepts. Those critical points became his study notes.

  “For math and quantitative courses, I would make up mock tests and give myself time trials to improve my speed at just working through the required computations,” Kluender said.

   He also said he used acronyms to give him the first letter of various concepts with multiple aspects or steps since some material just has to be memorized. Kluender advised using colored markers and reading the text several times to help you remember key issues.

Excessive Stress

   While many students may experience symptoms of stress, 40-percent of college students’ stress evolves into depression and over 1,100 students commit suicide each year.

   Cameron Dabaghi, a junior at Yale University, left a suicide note in his dorm room before heading to New York, where he apparently plunged to his death March 30 by jumping from the 86^th floor of the Empire State Building. His note said he was sorry and he would be jumping from either the George Washington Bridge over the Hudson River in upper Manhattan, or the Empire State building.

   There were seven other people on the observation deck at the same time, and one person tried to talk to Debaghi as he climbed over the barrier, but was unsuccessful.

   If you find your stress level out of hand, please visit the Counseling and Testing Services office located on the second floor of Harris Hall. The Counseling and Testing Services office provides a wide variety of specialized counseling and testing services to University of Arkansas at Monticello students.

   All services are free and confidential in nature. Appointments can be made in person during the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday or by telephone at (870) 460-1454.  Drop-in counseling is also generally available to accommodate students in crisis or emergency situations, or for short consultations.

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