PSYC-110N Week 6 Assignment: Managing Your Stress (GRADED A)

Managing Your Stress 2 Everyone has dealt with stress at one point or another in their lifetime. Stress is the body’s reaction to certain changes that require not only adjustment, but also response. The human body reacts to these changes with different reactions such as; physical, mental and emotional responses. Stress may occur for any given reason or at any given time and some popular examples of times that stress occurs the most is preparing for an exam, dealing with family problems and even going to a job every single day. Even pleasant events can cause stress like planning a wedding or a retirement party for your loved one. As stated in the text, “For people to consider an event stressful, they must perceive it as threatening or challenging and must lack all the resources to deal with it effectively” (Feldman, 2019). Individuals deal with stress in a variety of different ways, some good and some bad. For example, many individuals surround themselves around loved ones or talking to a therapist. As for others, they may turn to alcohol or lash out at others in emotionally or physically violent outbursts. How do you cope with stress? For me, personally, I tend to turn to social support from others, especially my family and close friends. Social support has shown to document not only mental health benefits, but also improved immune, cardiovascular health and decreased depression and anxiety. My predominant coping strategy seems to be “problem- focused,” meaning that I tend to target the problem or situation that is causing stress and try to limit the amount I put on my body. Social support from others not only allows one to release the emotions and thoughts that they are feeling inside, but it allows for growth and new ideas on how to handle a similar issue moving forward. “Problem-focused strategies aim to remove or reduce the cause of the stressor, including: Problem-solving. Time-management” (McLeod, 2015). Typically, one dealing with stress will go through a process called “general adaptation syndrome.” General adaptation syndrome suggests that certain responses to stress follow similar