How to Manage Your Stress This Semester

By: Rebecca Nasca
Posted In: News

Every college student has been there: Sunday night at the computer, frantically typing, hoping your teacher won’t be able to tell you cross referenced your “book” sources from the “look inside” feature on Amazon.com. Of course the paper is not your only worry. You never finished book six of Plato’s Republic or studied for your Spanish quiz. Your adrenaline is pumping and your blood pressure is up. The computer screen blurs and you can’t think strait.

If you identify with this description, you have experienced stress in some form or another. According to the American Institute of Stress, your reaction to an immense work load on a Sunday night or terror before a test is the successor of man’s earliest “fight or flight” instincts. When faced with an extreme, dangerous or out of control situation you body immediately goes into “defense mode,” shooting your heart rate up, and giving you boosts of energy which the body does not handle well, unless you are running frantically in the opposite direction you’re your perceived terror. This reaction causes what we call stress.

Ann Coppola, a Senior at Salve Regina University and a double major in Special and Secondary Education, recalls being extremely stressed over a paper she had to write in her sophomore year. To calm down, she took an hour walk down the cliff walk and to the beach. “I know we don’t have time to do that all the time, but I had to do it,” she says.

Definitely don’t have an hour? Melissa Bortugno, who holds a masters degree in holistic counseling and works as the Assistant Director to Salve Regina University’s Academic Development Center, regularly works with students on several techniques for stress management, namely progressive muscle relaxation, breath-work technique, and meditation.

Bortugno describes progressive muscle relaxation as similar to performing a “body scan.” The exercise takes only five minutes and can be done in a chair at home or even your seat in a test room. Simply focus your attention on relaxing first your toes, then your calves, then your thighs, and progressing all the way up your body to the shoulders and neck.

Breath-work technique also requires only the chair you are sitting in. When students become so overwhelmed their breath is catching, Bortugno encourages them to practice this method which forces your body to take deep breaths through the diaphragm rather than short breaths from your chest. Place your hands either loosely in you lap or over your stomach and take a long deep breath in. Hold the breath for a moment and, forming your mouth into a small “o” releasing the air out slow and controlled over 10 to 15 seconds. Repeat until your breathing has normalized.

Bortugno says meditation, preformed for as little as five minutes, is “essential for knowing your body.” Find the same position as you would for the breath-work technique, careful that you are supporting your weight rather than leaning back against your chair. Bortugno says this “allows you to read your body better in a tense situation” and controls your muscles rather than allowing them to relax. Either with your eyes closed or focused on one spot on the floor; gather all of your thoughts into one place in your brain. Be mindful of your thoughts. Consider them and then slowly release them. You will probably find stray ideas still pop in. Do not judge the new thought, simply push it away and continue your focus.

“The mind, body and spirit are absolutely connected,” says Bortugno. Therefore, meditating daily for 5 to 20 minutes can do wonders to refocus your energy and tackle the task at hand.