Students experiencing stress is not a very new or discreet matter nowadays. Almost all students are exposed to short term or long term stress at numerous points of their tenure as students. Career related competitions, school or college pressure, parent expectations are just some of the potential sources of stress and the list can be quite long.
As a student you cannot do much to minimize or eradicate the sources as they have their roots deep into our socio-economic structure and education philosophy. But as an individual student there are some things that you can do or follow to make yourself less exposed to the stress and make yourself more tolerant to the stress which you ultimately fail to prevent. This is a series of articles where I would discuss various ways and methods of better stress management for students that are researched and recommended by various sources and experts in this field.
There is an extensive amount of information and publications on stress and its management from many different sources. From the domain of psychology to Indian Yoga philosophy, from religion to spirituality there are everywhere discussion on stress and methods of its management. I would try to focus and discuss on some of the important concepts but it is not possible to discuss all the ins and outs of a theory so vast and deep in one or more than one articles here. That work would need the space and scope of a treatise for justice to be done. But for the benefit of students and teachers of KridhaTutor, I am trying to portray some light on the subject. I would also try to sketch a list of implementable procedures which can prove valuable for successful management of stress.
Not only students and teachers of KridhaTutor Consultancy, but these series of articles are hopefully expected to be immensely beneficial for all students, parents and teachers and even also to those people who are not currently associated with education anyway.
Before getting into any stress management process it is necessary to understand what stress is and how it becomes a problem for us. Before solving a problem, awareness about the problem with proper information is required. In the case of stress management, this rule is very important. It has been seen that proper awareness on issues of stress can become a potential therapy of that stress itself. In case of mental or psychological issues like the stress and its management, the requirement of right awareness is perhaps more than essential. Without proper awareness, any attempt of solving such issues of stress is bound to create a lot of errors and ultimately disasters.
What is Stress?
Stress is a complex physiological and psychological process involving multiple organ systems of our body for the purpose of altering and modifying our default homeostatic state to achieve adaptogenic responses to external or internal stimuli which are beyond the level of normal toleration limit or stressor threshold. Thus from the above definition you can understand that stress is not supposed to be as negative an issue as it is normally referred as. It is an essential process which is originally meant for protecting us from stimuli surges from both internal and external sources by creating an adaptogenic shield within our system. Now let me explain the definition in some depth. If we can notice then we can find some important keywords in the definition. They are like
Before further proceeding with the theory of stress and its management, it is necessary to get a good idea about these terms and understand the implications of the above definition properly. Let me start the explanation of the keywords starting with the last one. Normal Toleration Limit or Stressor Threshold There are numerous stress factors that act upon us from time to time in our life. Some have got their source outside our body and mind whereas some originates right from the inside of our body and mind. Whatever be the type of the stressor and source of the stressor, our body and mind is well equipped to neutralize that stress to bring back the state of equilibrium again. That may take some time and some resources but usually it is achieved.
This happens as long as the stressor stimuli stays within the toleration limit of that particular individual for that particular stressor. Thus we can find that both the stressor and the limit of toleration are variables. Stressor variable is made of 2 components like the source and the intensity. The source again has 2 components like whether it is from internal source or external source. The type of stressor is usually implicated by the source itself except may be in a few rare cases. Likewise the toleration is also a variable. It depends on the individual person and not only the person but it is also a time dependent variable. The same person exhibits different toleration levels at different times due to multiple factors. One factor can be age, another factor can be health condition, another factor can be socio-economic variables which also changes with time, even time dependent changes within the family also can alter the stress tolerance levels of the person. Thus it shows that there can be many time dependent variables that keep affecting the stress toleration levels and thus makes it a direct and indirect time dependent variable. Thus when analyzing stress of an individual and formulating management processes for the same, it is necessary to keep these time dependent variables in mind. Later I will discuss some cases on how identification and implementation of such variables can have significant influences on the design of relevant and effective stress management procedures. External and Internal Stimuli Stress can be internal or external depending on the source of stimulation. As I said above, whenever a stimulation goes beyond the level of toleration then that can become a stress factor. External stimulation includes temperature changes, living conditions, job and professional sources, family conditions, injuries, and so on. External stimulation includes temperature changes, living conditions, job and professional sources, family conditions, injuries, and so on. Internal stimulation includes inflammation and other disease conditions, hormonal stresses, nervous sources, psychological sources and so on. The demarcation of internal and external sources of stimulation becomes intersected in most often real life cases. Most of the external stimulation ultimately translates to internal as well and thus both the sources create some kind of systemic integration which acts almost together. For example, any external injury after its initial trauma gives rise to internal inflammation which continues for a longer stretch of time. Thus we can see how an external source gives rise to an internal cause as well. Similarly, most of the cases of internal psychological sources have got its triggers to some external sources. Though there are cases in psychology where stress can occur purely internally as in cases of some kinds of obsessive disorders or schizophrenic disorders. For example someone may have a phobia of height, and feel stress at heights as low as even 10 or 20 feets. That’s not external in nature as that height is not to be feared under normal conditions of human toleration, but that particular person may feel very insecure and uncomfortable to stand in a terrace of that height also. Understanding the original source of stress and its inter-relations of the other types of stress can provide a good key towards efficient and successful stress management techniques. Default Homeostatic State Next I will jump to discuss our default homeostatic state briefly. Our body and mind are equipped to keep them in balance and at a healthy state conditionally we take care not to expose them into intolerable situations or stimulations. This automatic trend and tendency to maintain good health can be understood as homeostasis and the state of health is homeostatic state. Our body and mind are equipped to handle changes and stress upto a certain degree and within that degree homeostasis is usually not disturbed or just disturebed temporarily to return back to its stable state after a certain small time lag. This is normal and not a big problem. But the main problem starts when such events become frequent or quite high in intensity. Both the frequency and intensity become very critical in such cases. Such occurrences create a long term effect which is medically called a chronic effect and that disturbs or sometimes destroys our natural homeostatic state. That becomes a great problem and exactly at this point we start getting damaged by the stress.
Alter and Modify Homeostatic State to Achieve Adaptogenic Responses When our body and mind faces conditions that are beyond normal toleration limits then that generates an excess stressful situation which can damage and sometimes almost destroy our natural default homeostatic state. But our biological and psychological system has some more arrangements to prevent that from happening. The stress then triggers a series of biological as well as psychological processes by which they try to alter our homeostatic state to generate an adaptogenic change in our system. That is how we usually achieve a new homeostatic state which is more equipped to handle that stress in future. For example, you are exposed to excessive heat under the scorching sun for a long stretch of time. Under normal conditions that single day event is enough to make you very sick. Initially you may be feeling very exhausted and uncomfortable. But after a stretch of time, say a few days, you can develop a new state of tolerating that stress without much trouble or physiological or psychological damages. But it will be very unwise to think or consider that kind of adaptogenic changes as always beneficial or desirable. Upto a certain level it does provide you a shield from the excess of stimuli by altering your homeostatic states and creating new adaptogenic responses. But our physiological and psychological systems are too complex and deep than just visualizing things at surface depth. In many cases, such adaptogenic changes can be at the cost of some other physiological or psychological benefits. For example too much heat on your brain can bring homeostatic changes where you compromise your intellectual and creative faculties. Even too much heat can have negative effects for your overall endocrine and reproductive capabilities. Have you heard of the event of brain damage in case of high fever? Why is that so? Because our brain is very sensitive to excess heat. So though you achieve a new adaptogenic response to excess heat but you can never be sure what cost you already had to pay for achieving that. Even many people develop different cancer due to excess exposure to heat and sun. Cancer is also an adaptogenic change. But a defective one. So one adaptogenic response to a very unusual stress today may be the cause of a certain cancer 10 or 20 years later, you can never bet against that. So it is always better to understand the biological and psychological limits of the human body and a certain level of excess stress can be useful to become strong with respect to adaptogenics but too much can become very costly in some apparently visible or invisible ways. So it is always better to understand the biological and psychological limits of the human body and a certain level of excess stress can be useful to become strong with respect to adaptogenics but too much can become very costly in some apparently visible or invisible ways. Involve Multiple Organs This is very evident by now I suppose. You can see that any stress can affect many organs including systems like the nervous system, endocrine system, cardiovascular system, digestive system and up to our psychological system.
Complex Physiological and Psychological Process Our physiological and psychological systems are already very complex and most of the secrets are still unknown. Stress involves multiple processes and organs of our body and mind, so naturally it is supposed to be a complex process which is still almost beyond our understanding. More research and studies are required for unveiling even a little more about our system so that our understanding of stress and how it works at different times and different organs gets more clarified to our very minute understanding. The more we understand the nature and working of stress the better we can find ways to manage that stress.
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