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Stress Management |
Students, workers, and parents - actually almost everyone - experience a substantial amount of stress. Not all stress is necessarily 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.
The goal of this module 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 module 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
1. First, read about a student who is experiencing stress and complete the activity.
2. Next, download and complete these three PDF files.
The first (pdf) file, Signs of Stress , is your assessment of signs of stress that you show and how often you experience them. The worksheet lists many different signs of stress that you should be aware of in order to deal with them.
The second (pdf) file is a Stress Diary for recording descriptions of the triggers, the situations, your reactions, etc. to stressors that occur during the day. Use this form to record information about yourself for 6 days.
The third (pdf) file is labeled simply Stress Worksheet. It will help you summarize the data you collected in your Stress Diary and identify coping and prevention strageties for the stress involved. Complete this worksheet after you have recorded data in your Stress Diary for 6 days. 3. Finally, use the "Prioritizing and Strategizing" (pdf) 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. Write a short comment, note, or reminder about what you think the cause of each stressor may have been and how you can cope with it or eliminate it in the future.
Activity 6:
After completing the activity sheets listed above, look at your prioritized list and think about the following questions. Use the "My Notes" tool to type your thoughts.
Activity 7:
Check to see what you have learned about stress by completing Activity 7 (ANGEL Quiz).
The materials for the iStudy for Success modules were originally developed at the Jack P. Royer Center for Learning and Academic Technologies.
Additional materials were developed and assistance was provided by the University Learning Centers (ULC), University Park.
The ANGEL version of the modules is being administered by TLT. For more information about iStudy for Success modules, please contact yxc8@psu.edu.
The Pennsylvania State University ©2004 All rights reserved. Please read the entire license agreement before distributing the modules, and before modifying and sharing the content of the modules. This statement MUST accompany this module and all derivative works.
