Handling Stress: What are Students Doing Wrong?

College has many stressful situations, whether is is staying up all night studying for finals or waiting to hear back from your dream internships. To deal with such stressors, some resort to unhealthy habits such as sleep deprivation, eating less than usual and even falling into depression.

Shay Morris, a sophomore human development major, has experienced many stressful times at Howard. "I believe that school itself is just a stressful situation, I am almost always stressing over something school related," Morris said.

Morris has been through situations during finals that have impacted her emotionally and physically. Not only does she get less sleep, but her eating habits are drasticly changed.

"First semester I lost weight around finals and second semester I gained crazy weight around finals. It affected my habits because I wasn't as social. I become very frustrated and sometimes mean around finals. I'm a lot more on edge and irritated, as well," Morris said.

Although, stress may have positive outcomes, such as keeping us alert and aware. It can quickly turn negative when the stressors become continuous challenges we have no time to fix. Medical experts refer to this as distress.

Distress can lead to severe headaches, high blood pressure, upset stomach, chest pains, and problems sleeping. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, college students may attempt to cope with their stressors the wrong way by increasing their alcohol intake, and abusing drugs and tobacco.  Instead of relieving the stress, these substances can possilbly generate more problems then they fix.

Dr. Ivor Livingston, the professor and chair of the sociology department, specializes in social and medical sociology. He wrote a book about stress specifically for students which explores types of stress, the source of the stress and how to deal with stressors.

"Stress affects health, diabetes, HIV Infection, and Hypertension. Stress doesn't cause everything, but it makes a lot of things worse," said Livingston.

Years ago, he was influenced by a point he heard made long ago, "90 percent of the time that we go to see the physician is lifestyle-related. 95 percent of the times we go are stress-related. This seems to mean that our stress is controllable and possibly preventable."

He believes there is a specific formula that explains stressors and how they impact the body. The formula is "E+P=R". The "E" stands for the exam, "P" is the perception of the exam, and "R" is the result or the outcome.

"The only variable we have control of is "P" our perception," says Dr. Livingston.  

There healthy ways to respond to stress, but many people cannot identify them.  

"If you are better prepared, you are more likely to do better on the exam and the stress you are likely to experience during the exam is low," Livingston said. "Don't rush! Come early and prepare yourself. Compose yourself when you are taking the exam.

The trick about taking exams is, don't beat yourself up over one question," Livingston said.

Gender does not impact the way the body responds physically, but it can impact one's emotional response.

"If you are more emotional you are more likely to become more distraught during an exam or a question, which will certainly cause the ‘R' in E+P=R to change," Livingston's theory states.   "All of our bodies react the same way, either male or female, period. The only variable is what triggers it –the emotions. The body goes through the same physiological process."

For Morris, stress can either help or hinder her when it comes to academics. "Sometimes I get too stressed and just give up resulting in a bad grade on a test and or homework, but most times, because I am a top notch procrastinator, I find that stress enhances my ability to do better in class. It makes me work hard and fast to rid my life of the stressful class or professor."

According to WebMD, stress can begin to affect the immune system over time. Constant stress can condition our bodies to get sick more often and can even make those who suffer from chronic illnesses, such as AIDS, even worse. Overdue stress can also affect our hearts causing high blood pressure and abnormal heartbeats. Long-term stress can also cause arthritis in our muscles, mostly in the lower back, neck and shoulders. Our reproductive system can suffer as well causing low fertility, problems during pregnancy, and painful menstrual periods.

Experiencing stress is inevitable in many situations, the most important factor is, how we deal with stressors.

"I would suggest that students slow down and remember that whatever it is you're stressing about, is not the end of the world," Morris said. "Breathing and trying to find the good in the situation, or simply finding whatever it is that makes you happy and tending to that for a while to take your mind off of whatever it is that is making you stressed."