Stress Less, Feel Better
Why is stress such a major factor in our lives? To answer this question, let’s explore how stress works and how it affects us. When you feel stress, your body releases stress hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline.1 Such hormones can speed up your heart rate and breathing. In addition, your muscles tense up, and your body readies itself for a fight-or-flight response — a primitive reaction in which you either combat the danger facing you or run away from it.
FOR DISCUSSION: Ask students for examples of times when stress has affected their health or finances. It may be helpful to start the discussion with an example from your own life to illustrate the connection between stress and health. What did they do to remedy the situation? What did you do to remedy the situation?
The fight-or-flight response was useful long ago in our evolutionary history. If a lion chased you, a surge of adrenaline would give you the strength to whack the animal over the head with a club or run away. Either move could boost your chances of survival. Today, many of us don’t regularly face the kinds of perils that call for a fight-or-flight response. However, if we keep experiencing that response, we get bombarded with the resulting physical changes, which can lead to health problems such as anxiety, ulcers, fatigue, weight gain, and depression.2
How can you avoid these problems? Start by understanding your own personal stressors, which are events and situations that tend to freak you out. To get a better sense of your stressors, look at the list of some common college stressors in Figure 12.1 and notice any items you experienced during the last year. Note that any event that intensifies your emotions and physical reactions — whether distressing or joyous — can be a stressor. For example, you can feel stress when you end a relationship or when you start a new one.
284
FOR DISCUSSION: Have students experienced any key stressors that aren’t listed in Figure 12.1? As a class, make a list of any other common stressors (including positive ones) that students have dealt with recently, and talk about how to manage these stressors using techniques from the chapter.
The good news is that you can manage stressors, and the most potent strategies for doing so involve keeping your mind and body healthy and your finances under control. First, let’s turn to two vital components of personal health: your physical and mental well-being.