Stress. We think of it as bad. Stress is terrible. We “suffer” from stress. We must find a way to reduce stress.

Actually, not all stress is bad. The response that we call stress - also called the fight-or-flight response - is automatic and immediate when we sense that we are threatened by something or someone.

Physically, our heart rate and blood pressure are likely to increase. As a result, we may find that we have increased agility and strength. Our reactions are faster.

If you have read other articles on this blog, you already understand that stress is not the perceived demands or threats made on you. Stress is your response to those perceived demands or threats.

You reduce stress by altering your response to perceived demands and threats. In this article, we give five stress management suggestions – ideas for practical stress management.

Sustained Stress

Years ago, response to threats or demands was not sustained, as it may be today. It was essential for our survival, so threats and demands were faced, response was made, and people went on with life. In today’s society, stressors such as family relationships, finances, and work seem to be prolonged. They stack up against us. They seem at times to plot against us.

Reduce Stress for Health

We need to reduce stress for the sake of our health. Sustaining the response too long can cause complaints such as anxiety, depression, diarrhea, insomnia, irritability, and other distresses. We need to reduce stress even though the causes (stressors) are not reduced.

Tips to Reduce Stress

1. Tip #1 to Reduce Stress

Search out the stressor. What is the threat or demand that seems too great? Is someone else making demands, or is it your own perfectionism? List the causes of your stress response.

2. Tip #2 to Reduce Stress

Mark the things that you can change. You may not be able to change your employment, but you may be able to change the way you plan your work. You can reduce stress greatly simply by planning out your day.

3. Tip #3 to Reduce Stress

Just say “No” with sincerity and firmness. When it is not necessary to make a commitment, and you cannot handle it, politely refuse.

4. Tip #4 to Reduce Stress

Learn to recognize your individual stress signals. Your body will tell you when stress is building. Do you get a headache? Do your neck and shoulders begin to ache? Do you feel nervous? Stress signals are not the same for everyone. Learn your signals and reduce stress with brief exercise or by changing activity.

5. Tip #5 to Reduce Stress

A well-rested, exercised, healthy body is better prepared to reduce stress. Take care of your body and it will be in better shape to handle the chemical changes brought about by stress. Increasingly, studies are showing that a fifteen to twenty minute nap in the afternoon will reduce stress and boost productivity.

No Blame

Basic to any plan that will reduce stress is a refusal to blame the stress on others. Others can make demands. Others can threaten. Only you can decide how you will respond. A positive response will reduce stress.

University students are often said to be under great stress. This is especially true of those matriculating into university. The first year can be filled with stress as you respond to stressors such as…

1. leaving home
2. new friends
3. new environment
4. heavy study load
5. new ways of learning
6. papers and difficult exams
7. part-time work

The list goes on and on. The things on the list do not constitute stress, but your response to them will be either beneficial stress or debilitating stress.

Student stress management is a vital part of healthy university life. You may even be required to take a course in student stress management. You may attend workshops in student stress management. The bottom line is, however, that student stress management is up to you.

Student Stress Management Tips

Elsewhere on this website, we discuss a variety of tips for student stress management as well as personal stress management. In addition to those, here are a few more tips for student stress management.

* Focus on the stressor, not the stress. If the stress is your response to a paper that will soon be due, focus on the paper, not on your feelings about the paper and the due date.

* Consciously channel your “fight or flight” feelings into productivity. If you feel overwhelmed by an upcoming exam, channel the adrenalin energy into preparation for the exam.

* Use toys to reduce physical stress. “Executive” desk toys such as swinging balls, metal puzzles, and miniature pool tables really do help handle the frustrated responses to stressors. Squeezable balls also help.

* Use a stress diary to record your day in 15 or 30 minute intervals. Note when you feel stressed and identify the stressor to which you were responding. After a week or so, read through the diary and consider better ways to handle the stressors you encountered.

Best Student Stress Management Tip

Perhaps the most important student stress management tip is to plan every day. Plan before you go to bed at night. A planned day will be less likely to make unusual demands on you emotionally, mentally, and physically. Those unusual demands are the stressors to which you respond. Student stress management works best when you are proactive, anticipating them.

Purchase and faithfully use planning software or a notebook. Categorize things you want to do according to their importance. Which are most likely to help you toward your long-term goals? Mark them with an “A” and mark others accordingly. Then decide the priority of each activity planned for the next day. Scheduled classes will have a priority of “1″ but you might assign only a “5″ to your laundry if it can wait another day or two.

After you have planned your day, go to sleep knowing that you are more in control. Unusual demands may come at you despite your plan, but you will be better able to handle them if you act according to plan.

As we have written repeatedly on this blog, stress is often misunderstood. Many people think stress is the unusual demands made on you. They believe stress management is management of unusual demands.

* A parent may believe that family stress management consists of someone making the children perfect.

* An employee may think that work stress management is a simple matter of the employer reducing the work load.

* A self-employed entrepreneur may judge stress management to be within his or her grasp by demanding less of self.

* Students are inclined to suppose that student stress management resides solely in educators’ power to reduce assignments.

Missing Link

The missing link in each of these beliefs about stress management is a proper definition of stress. Stress is never the out of the ordinary demands that you yourself make on you. Nor is stress the demands that someone else makes on you. Stress is not the unusually large pile of dishes or extra huge baskets full of dirty laundry. It is not the screaming of children who today, for some odd reason, refuse to play nicely together. Stress is not the “in box” filled with a huge, time-sensitive project. The definition of student stress is not every teacher assigning a paper, all of which come due on the same date.

Defining Stress

Stress is our response to unusual demands. The response may be positive, producing beneficial “eustress” or good stress. The response may be negative, creating debilitating “distress” or bad stress.

Successful Stress Management

To be successful, therefore, stress management must go to the root of the problem. That root is your attitude toward life in general. It is your belief about life.

* If you do not believe in God, or you believe God has no control over demands made on you, you are more likely to fight against those demands. You may get angry at people or circumstances that force unusual demands on you. You may take it as a personal affront. You view it, consciously or subconsciously, as a loss of power. You cannot control your own life the way you want to, because someone else is tossing in unusual demands. You react negatively in an attempt to regain full power. The result is stress – distress.

* If you believe in God, and recognize that He is in control of everything that happens to you, including unusual demands others make, your response to those demands will more likely be one of willing acceptance. You trust God to allow into your life only what you can handle. You rely on God to make you able to handle the “over-the-top” demands. You do not see it as a loss of power on your part. You see it as a part of what God wants you to do. You react positively as a happy, faithful child. You turn potential debilitating distress into beneficial eustress.

Those with the second understanding of life are far more likely to achieve successful stress management. By going to the root of the problem – their view of the world and their place in it, they are able to respond appropriately.

The key to successful stress management, therefore, is a proper understanding of God and our relationship to Him.