Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Stress: Story of My Life

I found chapter 7 to be very interesting especially when it came to some moderators of stress. Lately, stress has been a reoccurring theme in my life. I finished senior year of college with no degree because I am in the teaching program so I have to stay an extra year, my living situation has changed and I now have my three year old neice (who I love to pieces) living with me, my family is always stressful, and worrying about finding a job after I finally graduate is always stressful. All of this besides the fact I am taking three summer courses and working full time.

The book talks about stress moderators. I find that some of these things, I do with out even realizing. For example, social support. The buffering hypothesis is when different forms of social support help to buffer the harm of stressors. I have an amazing group of friends and an amazing family and when I am in stressful situations, all I have to do is call one of them and they lighten my mood and take some of the stress away. When I am stressed, I tend to lash out at people and shut down. Before this happens, I try to talk to one of my loved ones and do something to get my ming off of what I am stressed about. Then, once this happens, I re-evaluate what I am stressed about and usually, it does not seem as bad as what I made it out to be. This could be an example of distancing because I distance myself before doing anything before I act on the situation.

What interested me most what the idea of appraisal as a moderator and the study they conducted. I am facinated with the fact that they could turn such gory situations into less stressful just by changing the music and talking about the situation differently. Everything can be taken different ways and how things are appraised is how things are determined as stressful.

2 comments:

  1. Being a student is extremely stressful! I am constantly feeling the pressure to exceed to an extremely high level in all of my classes. There is nothing wrong with being motivated to do well but is sure is stressful! I am in the process of job hunting for a grown up job and from what is seems like if you are motivated to do well in life stress is just apart of the deal.

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  2. Being a student is absolutely affected by outside stressors, added to that the looming question of "will I ever find a job?".. ugh. I too am a teaching student; about to complete my final semester. While I am soo excited that my 7 year stretch being a throwback student (I'm 32)will finally be over; I wrought with concern over the job market. I posted about stress as well because so many of my friends who have held successful jobs (some making salaries exceeding 100k+) are jobless and without leads. So, while being a student is stressful.... I think I want to stay in college a little longer and not face the music the economy has presented us.

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