What May Cause Stress in Vista Students

At Vista del Lago there are many exciting upcoming events, including the homecoming parade, spirit weeks, night rally, football games and homecoming dance. These events always produce a huge turnout and students have a wonderful time.

However, with these exciting events coming up, midterms, tests and homework are also right in the mix of it all. In school, it is always very important to prioritize and focus on the things that need to get done first. Students need to focus on school midterms and work before these events to prevent stress.

“I think pressure from parents and not prioritizing school matters causes the most stress in a student’s life. Too much pressure from parents may also make the student want to revolt or go against them,” said Alex Beckman.

What Is Stress and What Does It Does to You

Stress is  the way your mind responds to any kind of demand, and both good or bad experiences can cause stress. The brain releases chemicals into the blood when people feel stressed by something going on around them. These chemicals give people more energy and strength, which is actually good if there is a potential physical danger to them.

But it can also be a bad thing if stress is from something emotional, like a family problem or catastrophe, and there is no outlet for this extra energy and strength.

Stress can affect your body in many ways. It changes your thoughts, feelings and behavior. Recognize your stress symptoms, to help get a jump on managing them. If you start to have stress and don’t act on it, you may find yourself becoming even more stressed and overwhelmed.

Ways to prevent stress

Power naps– Students have very busy schedules and always end up missing sleep. Not sleeping enough has a huge impact on the way people learn and function throughout the day. Students become less aware and their attention span cuts in half. Not getting enough sleep makes you less productive and harder to learn.

Exercise– One of the best ways to relieve stress is exercise. There are many easy things you can do to fit into busy schedules such as walking, biking to school, playing sports or studying with a friend while walking. By regularly exercising throughout your life you can fight stress and help you live longer and enjoy your life more.

Stay Organized- One of the main starts to stress is being unorganized. It will make you less productive and cause you to feel unprepared leading to stress. Tons of students have very messy desks at home or their backpacks are unorganized. This in most cases this causes students to forgot assignments, do them incorrectly or just completely forget about them. Missing assignments or doing them incorrectly has a huge impact on student grades. One way to reduce stress in a student is to have a quiet, non-distracting and clutter free study area. It will definitely improve your grades.

Eat Right-Many students do not realize this, but diet can boost mental and physical energy through the whole day. Not providing your body with the necessary nutrients you need during the day will deprive your energy levels and thought process.   Eating right usually isn’t the first technique someone tries when trying to cope with stress, but it can actually play a whole role! Eating right takes no extra time, and can prevent mood swings,getting light-headed and most importantly stress. 

Think Positively-It is very important to be optimistic because it will give you confidence and assurance, and in the end it will reduce stress. Thinking positively and optimistic will also bring better health and better grades.Teach yourself to think more positive and you will be able to accomplish more and more the harder you try.

“In order to prevent stress, I prioritize my school work and then my fun activities. This helps me stay organized and do well because I do the important things first. When finals or midterms are approaching it is the most important time to crack down, study hard and get the things I need to do done. This prevents stress and helps me succeed,” said Vista senior Dimitra Tsigaris.

Why Managing Stress is Important

Managing stress is very important because it helps students succeed in school and enable themselves to focus on other things such as sports, clubs or hobbies. Being able to stay organized and prioritize things that have to get done will help reduce stress.  It not only affects school, it also affects they way people treat their family and friends. Getting past stress will make you a happier person and way more fun to be around. Everyone in life will get stressed, but when and how you chose to deal with it can be the key to success.