How to Deal with Stress at School

So you just got finished studying till 2 a.m. for a biology exam and now you have a term paper to write. It’s due in 12 hours.

Yes, college students can stress about a number of things. Their lives can be filled with it.

According to The American Institute of Stress, eight in 10 college students say they have sometimes or frequently experienced stress in their daily lives over the past three months.

If you are attending college, how to deal with stress at school is a must. That’s because the college life is almost a perfect storm when it comes to stress.

For many students, it’s their first time away from home. There’s the pressure of selecting a career and then performing well in class. There’s the deadline of term papers and cramming for exams.

There are usually roommates to deal with, often with different schedules. Quality sleep can be tough to come by, especially if you’re living in a dorm. What can seem like constant socialization with no quiet time can also bring anxiety.

Stress management for college students can be as important as any class on their schedule. How to handle college stress and how to manage school stress are both key parts of academic success.

According to information provided by the University of Florida, the competition for grades, the need to perform, campus relationships, career choices, and many other aspects of the college environment cause stress.

Stress can lead to physical symptoms such as:

• Muscular tension
• Colds or other illnesses
• High blood pressure
• Indigestion
• Ulcers
• Difficulty sleeping
• Fatigue
• Headaches
• Backaches

Stress can also bring with it an array of emotional symptoms such as:

• Depression
• Anger
• Feeling Overwhelmed
• Mood Swings

If that’s not bad enough, stress can create cognitive problems such as:

• Forgetfulness
• Unwanted or Repetitive thoughts
• Difficulty concentrating

If you’re looking for ways of reducing stress, the meditation and yoga programs offered at the Isha Institute of Inner-Sciences have been effective at reducing tension and improving mental clarity.

According to Isha founder and renowned yogi Sadhguru, stress is not a result of challenging college courses or a hectic social life. Sadhguru says stress arises from within due to our inability to properly address certain situations within ourselves.

Sadhguru discusses stress in an article entitled “Stress is not because of work” that was published in 2007 in the Navhind Times/ Panarama.

“When I first landed in U.S. a few years ago, the one word that I heard everywhere was stress management. Why would anybody want to manage their stress?” Sadhguru wrote. “I can understand if you want to manage your money, your business, your family, your property. But why would anybody want to manage their stress? It is because you have established a whole culture of believing that stress is a part of your life. Stress is not a part of your life. It is not the nature of work that you are doing which is causing the stress; it is just that you have no control over your systems. You don’t know how to function smoothly within yourself. That is why you are stressful.”

Sadhguru points out that people react differently when faced with a challenging situation such as a final exam. While one person may study for the exam for an hour each night, another might wait till the last minute and try to cram for eight hours straight.

“Have you seen, in many situations, one person would be very stressed out and another person would go through it effortlessly?” Sadhguru wrote. “So stress is not arising because of the situation. Stress is arising due to your inability to manage your inner situation. If your mind, your body and your energies could take instructions from you, and behave the way you want them to behave would you make yourself stressful, no matter what’s happening around you? You are making yourself stressful because you have not kept a control over your fundamental faculties within you.”

By incorporating aspects of yoga and meditation into your daily life, Sadhguru says you will gain greater control of your mind and body. With greater control, you will no longer experience the physical, emotional and cognitive fluctuations that are a byproduct of stress.

“Your body, your mind, your emotions, and your energies – these are the vehicles with which you are traveling through your life,” wrote Sadhguru. “Without any understanding about it, without any control about it, without any subjective experience about it you are trying to live your life; it is an accidental existence. When you exist accidentally, and then if you manage to get somewhere in life it would be an accident. So you need to do something about this, you need to get a grasp of your body, mind, emotion and energy. If this does not happen you will live life by accident. You will always hope the situations will work out well. If you are seeking to expand the scope and play of your life, if you are seeking challenging situations, then you have to do something about the way you function.”

The Isha Institute of Inner-Sciences has a wealth of programs available to help you gain better control of your faculties and handle difficult situations without the anguish and dangers of stress.