Stress and Behavior

Stuart Ditsler, Ivana Westcott, Matt Barry
12/9/99

Dr. Tietjen
Freshman Seminar

Stress affects humans in nearly every aspect of their lives. An individual will respond to any form of stress emotionally, cognitively, physiologically, and behaviorally. Emotionally one might feel anxious, nervous, angry, overwhelmed, or depressed. Cognitively stress impairs the ability to concentrate and to recall information. Physiologically heart rate and respiration increase, muscles tense, the pupils dilate, and the body releases nauseous hormones. Behaviorally humans utilize coping strategies, adaptive and maladaptive, to manage stress. The effects of stress have been especially evident during this week of finals. Some students have pulled multiple "all-nighters," some have gorged themselves on food, and others have retaliated to the slightest provocation. Meanwhile other students adopted more positive strategies, possibly exercising or organizing their time to decrease stress and anxiety. Regardless of the strategy, every student had to manage stress in some manner, including us. The following paragraphs are separate accounts of the ways in which the three of us dealt with stress this week,

Actually I have experienced very little stress recently. Throughout the semester I toiled to maintain high grades, so I felt prepared for the majority of my finals. As I studied, though, I did recognize some of the symptoms of stress. Most notably I felt anxious, annoyed, and restless. When I began to notice these symptoms, I would quit studying to avoid feeling overwhelmed. In response to these feelings, I participated in various activities. Three or four times during the week I played basketball with some of my suitemates. Other times I would remain in bed and read something enjoyable, usually one of my Calvin and Hobbes collections. These activities significantly diminished the stress that affected me, and resulted in a relatively tranquil and calm finals week.

My week was not as smooth as Stu’s unfortunately. Since I began this week knowing that I was going to be observing my body’s reaction to stress I think I was a little more conscious than usual about the right and wrong way to go about dealing with things. However, I found that despite the multiple warnings I received from not only other people but also my very own body, I often did not head to much needed advice. Several times this week I found that I put off studying until the last minute and ended up spending late hours trying to stuff unfathomable amounts of information into my head in a relatively short amount of time. I was also at a disadvantage because much of my final grade will depend on the papers and exams that I completed this week. This to me seemed to only multiply the amount of stress that I was feeling starting on Monday and lasting throughout my week. I realized on about Tuesday afternoon at work that my body was just physically exhausted and that I needed some sleep. Regardless of how much I needed to rest this idea didn’t really set well with my manager and I stayed at work until after midnight only to go home and have yet another night of starting my studying early in the morning (i.e. one a.m. or two Am.) This combination for five consecutive days definitely took its toll on me physically and mentally. I think after I get a chance to relax Friday afternoon, I may literally crash for a few days just to get my body, mind and schedule back in order.

My week started out on a bad note and got a little bit better each day as continued I through the week. I began Monday morning with basically three finals in one for my business concepts class. That was pretty hard, having to complete three separate tests in only three hours. On Tuesday I had a psychology test with lots of writing. This involved a lot of memory and I felt that the amount of studying that I had spread out over the past few days prepared me fairly well and I knew the information that I needed to. Stress didn’t really play much of a factor as the week went on. I prepared my final speech for Comm. 103 and attended a practice session for that. I continued to make observations for this project and scheduled ample time for Stuart, Ivana and I to get together to compile our results and work on the power point presentation. Overall, I feel that I was pretty successful in keeping my stress levels low for my first semester of college finals.