College And Stress

            What can new college students do to determine their personal stress level? Each person must individually determine their own stress level, in order to find ways of reducing the stress level for the student.

            When students begin college, they often experience stress. Everyone should  pay careful detention to their level of stress to determine their own stress level.

            We learn from (Stress Self -Assessment, 2007) that,  “Several years ago author Richard Carlson created a very catchy title for his best-selling book, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…It Is All Small Stuff. He offered some important advice for our over-stressed society. We need to step back and relax. That is great advice. The problem is, not all stuff is small stuff. Some things are worth sweating over. The tricky part is determining what is really important and worthy of your energy and what is the “small stuff” that causes needless worry and decreases the quality of your life.”

            We are also told that, “One of the great challenges for successful stress management is determining what it is that causes you stress. A certain level of stress can energize and motivate you to deal with the important issues in your life. You want to focus your energy on those things in your life that are truly important. How do you determine what factors are causing unnecessary stress? Is my stress level normal?”

            You can sometime examine some problems that may be causing the stress. College students can sit down with pen and paper and try to sort out the stressful problems on paper, and determine what can be done to ease the stressful situation. Sometimes we can talk to others who may have also experience this type of stress and can offer valuable information and solutions.

            Students should also shape their learning style to succeed in school and avoid stress. Patterns in studying and developing normal habits can ease stress, tremendously. Whenever there is familiararity with a situation, then there is less stress involved. Once, a college students gets into the mesh of their daily routines, at school, then the stress level that is in question, will drastically decline.

            Besides, shaping their learning patterns, students have to realize the best ways for them to organize their time. Once the students knows his class schedule, and understands his weekly routines, they can then decide what is the best time for them to study, have social time and what is their sleeping pattern.

            Students can organize their time, effectively, which will prove to ease tensions related with school.

            After learning time management, students should experiment with memory techniques to become better readers. Memory techniques can greatly help the student, especially when it comes to studying for tests. The student can associate the question and answer to tests to something bizarre, which will surely cause them to remember the question when it pops up on a test.

            We learn a great way to remember, which will be highly effective for students in college when studying. (Intelegan Inc. 2007) “You form acronyms by using each first letter from a group of words to form a new word. This is particularly useful when remembering words in a specified order. Acronyms are very common in ordinary language and in many fields. Some examples of common acronyms include NBA (National Basketball Associations), SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus), BTUs (British Thermal Units), and LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). What other common acronyms can you think of? The memory techniques in this section, for example, can be rearranged to form the acronym “SCRAM” (Sentences/acrostics, Chunking, Rhymes & songs, Acronyms, and Method of loci).”

            We also learn when we are given this example. “Let us suppose that you have to memorize the names of four kinds of fossils for your geology class: 1) actual remains, 2) Petrified, 3) Imprint, and 4) Molds or casts. Take the first letter of each item you are trying to remember: APIM. Then, arrange the letters so that the acronym resembles a word you are familiar with: PAIM or IMAP.

            Although acronyms can be very useful memory aids, they do have some disadvantages. First, they are useful for rote memory, but do not aid comprehension. Be sure to differentiate between comprehension and memory, keeping in mind that understanding is often the best way to remember. Some people assume that if they can remember something, that they must “know” it; but memorization does not necessarily imply understanding. A second problem with acronyms is that they can be difficult to form; not all lists of words will lend themselves equally well to this technique. Finally, acronyms, like everything else, can be forgotten if not committed to memory.

2. Sentences/Acrostics. Like acronyms, you use the first letter of each word you are trying to remember.

            There are several different memory techniques that will help college students to ruduce their level of stress and each individual must decide which technique is most beneficial to them.

            Once students gain skills to store their information, they can develop skills and techniques to become better readers. Good readers often use educational tools as they develop better reading skills. Practice is the key and the most important element involved in becoming a good reader. The more a student practices his techniques, they better he will become.

            (Hindle, 1999) Tim Hindle offers that, “Stress can be eased by taking action.“ After students are familiar with storing information they have taken in, they must become efficient at taking notes. Notes will prove to be one of the most important necessities in college. These notes will not only help the student to become more familiar with the topics they are studying, but will also be crucial when studying for exams. Being prepared, and having good notes on hand, will eliminated huge stress loads for the student.

            Once students are accustomed to taking notes, they should become good at taking tests. The act of taking good notes will cause relative ease for the student when they are taking tests. By using the memory techniques, combined with good notes, the student should be able to obtain good scores.

            (Rouse, 2003) James Rouse tells us, “Doctors see many patients because of stress related factors.” Communicating with others will drastically reduce these visits.

            Once students become better at taking tests, they should develop the art of communication. Communicating with teachers is extremely important for college students. By talking about any problems they have incurred, the teacher should be able to talk to them about the problems they are having and help them. This close communication between the teacher and the student should add a finishing touch to the student reducing their stress level and becoming successful at college.

            (George, 2003) Mike George has a very interesting book called “1,001 Ways to Relax” which is a great book for college students.

             Alix Kirsta, author of the book “Book of Stress Survival”, also gives us many good ideas to reduce stress.

References:

George, Mike. (2003) “1,001 Ways to Relax”. Chronicle Books

Hindle, Tim. (1999) “Reducing Stress” DK Adult

Intelegan Incorportated. (2007) “MnemonicTechniques and Specific Memory Tricks to

            Improve Memory, Memorization.” Acronyms.

Kirsta, Alix. (1987) “Book of Stress Survival”. Fireside.

Rouse, James. (2003) “Health Solutions for Stress”. Galam Int.

Stress Self-Assessment. (2005). “Real People, Real Stories”. Determining Your Stress

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