Stress Management
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In college, at work, and at home, now and in the future, you’ll be faced with what can seem like never-ending pressures and demands. Stress management, the fourth category of the Bar-On Model, depends on two skills:
- Stress tolerance. Recognizing the causes of stress and responding in appropriate ways; staying strong under pressure.
- Impulse control. Thinking carefully about potential consequences before you act and delaying gratification for the sake of achieving long-term goals.
Don’t Blow Your Top There are good ways and bad ways to vent frustration. Having it out with another person and eating a gallon of ice cream are poor strategies. Going for a walk or a run, doing yoga, or “talking it out” with someone you trust, however, will help you deal with the frustrations that are common to college life without making things worse.