Stress Management
iStudy would like to acknowledge Kathy Maxwell for revising the content of this tutorial.
Purpose
Students, workers, and parents—actually almost everyone—experience a substantial amount of stress. Not all stress is bad. It is perfectly natural and an important part of life. This kind of stress is called eustress. However, stress in its negative forms, or stress that continues for too long (distress), can affect health, productivity, and one's outlook on life.
Stress can manifest itself physically and psychologically. Life changes or events play a big part in the amount of stress that is present. Increasing one's knowledge of stress and how it is perceived is an important part of managing it. Therefore, the more you know about yourself, your habits, your strengths, and your weaknesses, the easier it is to take control when possible—or cope and manage when it isn't possible.
Goals and Objectives
The goal of this tutorial is to introduce you to the things that cause stress in your life and to help you acquire basic skills for managing stress in your academic, professional, and personal life.
Upon completing the Stress Management tutorial you will be able to:
- Describe different kinds of stress and their effects.
- List and prioritize stressors.
- Use and explain ways to manage or cope with stress.
Activities
- Read about a student who is experiencing stress.
- Activity 1: Stressors and Stress Triggers
- Activity 2: Signs of Stress
- Activity 3: Stress Diary
- Activity 4: Stress Worksheet
- Use the "Activity 5: Prioritizing and Strategizing" activity sheet to list the ten things that caused you the most distress during the week, and then rank them from most to least stressful in terms of how much trouble they tended to cause you.
- Activity 6: What have you learned about stress?
Note: All external links in this tutorial will open in a new window or tab.
