College Strategies

Lesson 5: Coping with Stress, Midterms and Exams

Stress is a major part of a students life, the main goal of this lesson is to minimize that general stress as well as stressors directly related to exams.

The ID of Stress

Stress is going to be a daily fact of life for many people in college and the professional field. Learning to deal with it now can ensure you will live your life on low stress forever. First of all you need to recognize stress; if you have the following symptoms you are probably stressed:

-You eat more or less than usual
-You have trouble sleeping
-Are you isolating yourself from others?
-Are you complaining more than usual?
-Are you constantly running on coffee? Drugs? Tobacco?
-Do you have increased nervous habits? (nail biting, hair twisting)
-Do you suddenly have a short temper?
-Suddenly cry for not apparent reason?
-Tension, migraine, headaches? Upset stomach and problems retaining food?
-Are you suffering from diarrhea or constipation?
-Always tired? Even though you sleep enough?
-Are you having menstrual problems? Missed periods?
-No or less interest in hobbies, family, fun activities?
-Are you easily upset or do you have sudden mood swings?
-Having lots of nightmares? Frequent or recurring?
-Feeling swamped, overwhelmed, angry, and resentful? -Easily frustrated and increased fear of failure?
-Reduced confidence and feeling like everyone except you is doing ok?
-Are you having difficulty concentrating? And or a short attention span?
-Do you have repetitive thoughts?
-Do you continuously misunderstand what others say?
-Do you feel like you want to run away/escape?

If you have these symptoms you are definitely suffering from excessive stress. Your performance will suffer from this as well if you do not do something about it quickly! There are ways to lower your stress levels, and generally feel better about yourself. In the end it is all a cycle; if you are stressed and are underperforming you will feel bad and feel more stressed because you want to be doing better. If you in turn are doing ok this will empower you and you will continue to perform better.

It is normal to be occasionally stressed; around midterms and exams most people are irritable and have nightmares about the tests to come. That is absolutely normal. You should be worried when that grows out of hand and it becomes a daily fact of life for you. If you feel you are constantly stressed and never have any time for yourself you need to review your daily activities to find the source. Do you have too many courses? If that is the case, and you have a choice to drop one do it! One extra year in college is definitely worth it if you can be healthy.

Chronic stress can even lead to cancer, so if you are expecting too much of yourself do yourself a favor and be more modest. If you feel dropping that course would give you so much more peace of mind then what is holding you back? If you are in a program where you do not have a dropping-option and courses are preset, and then evaluate everything else you spend time on.

Do you have a job? If yes, are you working more than 10 hours a week? Right of the bat you should know that is too much. Even if you work less than that, being in a demanding program might force you to consider stopping all together. We all have bills to pay, but your future is more important and temporarily living cheap. Look around if you can borrow money from your parents or an institution to bridge the gap. In the summer you can work all you want and you will be making enough money to last you through the year. There will be a lesson on financial aid next.

If it helps keep an ‘activities diary’; designate a notebook in which you will write, for one week, exactly what you do at what time every day. This will give you so much more clarity where you are wasting time or spending too much time on a particular activity. Are you stressed out because you partied all weekend and now have to catch up? Then consider only going out on Friday night. One night of the week should be enough, because you need to find other relaxation methods besides going out to bars/clubs/etc.

Once you pinpoint what your largest stress factor is, it will be much easier to deal with. If it is a too heavy course load; see if you can drop a course. If you are working too hard then work less and make due with less money. If you are spending your weekly salary in the weekend propose cheaper ways of having fun. If you enjoy drinking then buy your drinks from the store and bring them home, it will save money. There is also going to be a lesson on how to save money later on in this course. If you feel you have too many family obligations, sit down with your family and discuss them. They love you so they want the best for you. Not being able to make it to Aunt Shirley’s wedding is something that has to be understood if you have a big academic commitment.

Go on the discussion board and talk about stress. What do you think are the big stressors in your life? What do you think you can do about it? If you are having trouble pinpointing your stress zones, go and talk to a college counselor. They are available for those reasons and others. It can be very useful to hear yourself talk and often it just takes that to realize where the problem is.

Listen to yourself; are you saying “I had to rush to get to work, because I had only ten minutes to get there after class”, even if you are not working too many hours you can get stressed by having to rush all the time. Discuss different hours with your employer in that case. This is just an example that can very well be applied to many different situations.