Managing stress
Jane Lundgren is studying her guides and is doing extra practice work before the test. This will take away some of her stress because she will be well prepared. Other ways to reduce stress can be deep breathing, yoga, and muscle tensing.
There are many things in an adolescents daily life that can cause tension.
“I feel that everyone is affected by stress at least once in their life and that it would be great to learn methods that can calm your nerves,” freshman Lalitha-Lavanya Konda said.
Stress is not always necessarily bad. In dire circumstances, it can get your blood pumping and heart rate beating, so you can avoid an incoming football hit or just be more alert while giving a presentation.
Stress alerts the “flight or fight” instinct that we have as humans. It emits adrenalin and cortisol into the body. These chemicals, if produced in excess, can cause many health problems.
Some of these health problems include high blood pressure, headaches, reduced eyesight, digestive problems, neck and back pains, skin diseases, nightmares and other serious side effects.
Stress can create a lot of negative consequences for teens.
“I get stressed a lot because I really want my grades to be all A’s, and that requires a lot of work and time,” Konda said.
Teens experience a lot of this stress over issues like studying for an exam, physical appearance, judgment or evaluation from others, classroom demands, self-expectations, situations that threaten self-esteem, and disagreements with teachers or adults.
People experience anxiety almost daily instead of remaining calm and coping with their problems. It is a state of mind. Individuals can be more stressed by overthinking situations. Luckily, they can also diminish their stress level with different techniques.
“I do yoga to reduce my stress; it helps take my mind off of things,” Konda said.
Two other easy-to-use techniques that reduce stress include deep breathing and tensing of the body.
Being stressed causes shallow breathing and restricts air from flowing into our lungs at ease. Deep breathing naturally turns stress into a relaxation mode. Just take a deep breath and see how you feel.
Musicians of wind instruments and most singers also have to utilize deep breathing to be able to get the best quality sound from their instrument.
To learn how to deep breathe it helps to establish a rhythm while breathing. It also helps to visualize a balloon slowly filling up with air and then deflating.
Tensing up all the muscles and letting the tension relief slowly also helps to try and eliminate stress. This releases the stored tension found in muscles on the body. It helps increase the ability to focus and concentrate.
Teens have many things to worry about, yet there are ways to decrease the stress and simple methods to use.
