Stress

Stress is something that all college students deal with. For me, it has become a part of my everyday life. There are many things in my life that cause me stress. So since this weeks topic was stress, I thought it might help to first identify the top 3 things in my life that cause me it. My list is as follows:
1. School/Grades/HW/Test
With the school year coming to end, I feel like all of my classes are getting tougher. Final projects and such are getting thrown at me in every class and I get SO stressed out when I feel overwhelmed.
2. Being in a sorority
Being in a sorority is extremely time consuming. I am always stressed out by all of the events we have to attend, and time we must spend at the house. I love being in a house, but it just gets stressful when you always have things to do on top of school.
3. My future
I have no idea what I want to do with my life. Especially with the Career/Major exploration project happening, I have realized that I'm still undecided and need to start seriously focusing on what I want to do.

So the strategy I tried this week was "10 Minute Vacation". I have a very short attention span, so I have found that strategies that include chunks or breaks are very beneficial to me. This week in PSY 205, I had a powerpoint presentation and outline due. I started with the powerpoint presentation. I would create two slides, and then take a 10 minute vacation. During this first break, I went to youtube.com and checked out some funny videos. This was really helpful because it took my mind off all of the work I still had to do. I worked hard, and then got to treat myself. Then after the 10 minutes was up, I went back to working on my powerpoint for another two slides, and repeated these steps till my work was finished! Since I am a visual learner, I really enjoyed the 10 minute breaks because I got to take my mind off my work and focus on something visually appealing. I finished my outline in the exact same way. I would work out a paragraph or two, then take a 10 minute vacation on one of the websites. Youtube was my favorite because I find it the most entertaining.

Because I found the 10 minute vacation so useful, I decided to try it in MAT 121 as well. We had an exam on Tuesday, and I really needed to spend a lot of time studying for it. I would study for an hour, and then treat myself with a 10 minute vacation to youtube again. I found my stress level was greatly reduced by doing this because I would be so focused on my work, and then I would get to have a brainless 10 minutes where I had nothing to focus on but funny videos. I am definitely going to keep up with this strategy for the remainder of the year.

I learned a lot of great ways to relieve stress this week. My stress level has gone down immensely, and I hope it stays that way. If I just remember to breathe, and use the strategies we learned in class, then I know I'll be living a stress free life in no time!

Who isn't stressed?

I don't know one person who isn't stressed right now. With the year coming to a close, everyone's trying to squeeze in time with friends and having fun before we all leave behind our first year of college. Oh, and on top of all that fun, comes a price, finals. We're only two weeks away from finals and the end is coming fast. It's easy to look forward to events such as MayFest and Block Party, but the only thing I'm focusing on right now is acing my finals...and that's where the stress comes in.


I could rant all day about the amount of stress I have, but 1. that
would be whining and 2. every college student is under stress. So, to calm myself down and keep sane these last couple weeks, I've adapted a few strategies to manage my stress. The first is A Day at a Time. How it works is before you crawl into bed every night, write down on a post-it note, or even just a piece of plain paper, 5 things (or more) that are stressing you out (It doesn't have to be academic related, although I guarantee at least one of your five will be school related). Writing these stressors will not only make you feel just a little bit better, but it will also organize your priorities. For me, eliminating stress is my number one priority. For my Day at a Time sheet, I pretty much ranked what was making me most stressed (1-5). My chemistry exam is Wednesday and that course as a whole stresses me out, so that being said, it is listed as my #1 stressor; then CLS project, finals, summer job, and my GPA follow.


As Dr. Blumin said in class, you're always going to have stress, but you need a way to deal with it. There are many ways to deal with stress and the Stress Reduction Plan is one of many ways to cope with stress. What this plan entails are activities that you can resort to when your overly stressed. There are many options under this plan including:

Physical Activity
Pamper Yourself
Change Environment
Share It
Enjoy
Get Help

The two categories that I find most helpful is Physical Activity (running) and Enjoy (watching a movie). These two activities help me regain my focus and calm me down after a long day. Also, listening to music is another great way to unwind (especially after an exam).

Identifying and directing your stress in a positive fashion is the only way I can deal with stress that comes along with everyday life. A little motivation doesn't hurt either.

The Dreaded and Feared Stress!

In CLS this week our class studied and learned plenty about the dreaded and feared word of stress. Not only is stress a word most people do not like to hear constantly, but it tends to be a daily feeling and behavior as well. As a college student stress is a typical struggle and extremely common. Personally, I found the entire first year of freshman year highly stressful with the fact that everything is new and paving a new path is always tough to come by at first. I came to Syracuse at the beginning of the year with an open slate and far from home, and I still feel like I am so stressed out all the time trying to juggle academics, friends, clubs, and the simple things that I want to do. Even though I am stressed about the mass amounts that college brings to my life, what stresses me out the most is ironically the fact that I am constantly stressed…making everything worse all the time. Thankfully this week CLS taught me several techniques to use when I am stressed out how to manage my stress.

Most of my stresses come from my academics and the fact that I never know where I am going in life. Considering I am undecided at SU a lot of what I do depends on my grades and figuring out what interests me. Since I applied to Newhouse I get stressed out about my current courses because I want the best grades I can get in order to be accepted into Newhouse. However, at the same time since I am so undecided about my interests and my future I stress out so much about my grades and getting assignments completed to the best of my ability and I reflect if all the stress is really worth it. There are stress management strategies that I used and those were mainly for everyday life as well as courses such as CLS and Psych 205.

This course of CLS has a huge amount of busy work and assignments constantly going on, which at times gets rather stressful, therefore I approached this week with the strategy at a time technique. Towards the beginning of my days I will sit down and think about everything I need to accomplish for that day and even more throughout the week. The technique is called “A Day at a Time” and I create pretty much a to-do list at the beginning of my first class that I have that day. For example, on Monday I created “A Day at a Time” schedule and started off writing down the classes I had that day. After my first class and in between my second class I wrote that I need to go to the library and work on homework. So therefore I wrote class, library, class…then since I have a generous gap from about 2 pm until 6 pm I wrote down all of the assignments I would need to complete for that day and into the week. I wrote down that I needed to finish all of my CLS homework for Wednesday including my journal and extra assignments. I even needed to start thinking about the last project which is the career project and I need to travel to locations in order to gather documentation for that assignment, which I find stressful. I also wrote that I would prepare for my night class on Mondays and study the material. “A Day at a Time” allows me to visually see what I need to get done, and this helps because I am a visual learner. Then, after

I write down my tasks I need to physically do the task, furthermore supporting that I am a kinesthetic learner. Not only does “A Day at a Time” help tremendously with accomplishing schoolwork for the day and week ahead but I always make lists even when I don’t have classes because there are so many things I need to get done in one day that it helps me stay focused and in line. I feel more than productive enough with a technique like this and I recommend this strategy to anyone during anytime.

The second strategy that I used was creating a stress diagram. This strategy is used for more of gathering all the tasks in my life together and being able to see what needs to be juggled and what is most important to me. However, before I discuss how a stress diagram is awesome for every aspect of my current life, I used this for my Psych 205 class. Since Psych 205 requires plenty of assignments I needed to see which assignments were causing me the most stress and what is my first pri

ority and so on. The assignments for that class usually fall on the same day or within the same week. I needed to go out of my way and complete psychology experiments by the end of the class, I have homework assignments due, and then furthermore I have an exam during the week and then a quiz following two days later. On top of that, since the exams are very difficult I like to complete as much extra credit as I can and this puts an even larger load on my plate. I created a circle and figured that the exams are the most important so I divided the largest piece and labeled that “Exam.” Then, the second largest task is the homework assignment followed up by the quiz. The smallest portion was the “SONA” psychology studies because I recently completed the required amount.

The stress diagram is a great way to divide up my life because at first I bullet point what I find most stressful in my life and then I divide up my circle pie chart into categories and which has the highest stress level. The most stressful aspects of my life right now are as follows: my major/academics, a summer job, papers/end of the year projects, and sorority/social activities. I drew my circled stress diagram and the largest portion which takes up half is my major and academics. I am putting this first because as I wrote in the beginning of the blog I am undecided and choosing classes for next Fall is difficult for me because I do not even know if I will still be in Arts and Sciences or Newhouse…therefore my ways of thinking academic wise are always changing. The second largest portion of my diagram is papers and end of the year projects. I am so overloaded with around two papers and two projects that it is stressful to complete everything at the same time. Another large portion within my diagram is a summer job, I am not sure where I will be working yet this summer but I do have ideas so that is a work in progress. About even with my summer job is social activities and sorority business because that takes up substantial time and effort and always doing tasks and activities is stressful and tough.

DeSTRESSing

College can be a very stressful time. With the semester coming to an end and final exams and papers quickly approaching, I know that I can feel my stress levels slowly starting to rise.

The first step to me combatting the stress before

it gets too overwhelming is to make a Stress Diagram. First, I list all of the things that I am worried about: school related, family related, or anything else. Once I've listed those I make a pie chart. In the pie chart I divide up the space and give each stressor a specific amount of space. The more space a stressor takes up, the more

stressful that situation is to me. After everything is placed in the pie chart I can see which stressors need more attention and which ones I should try to take care of first- if possible. In my

case, my uncertain future and my GPA/ Newhouse are my biggest stressors. There's not a lot that I can do about my uncertain future right now and same with my GPA/Newhouse. The next largest stressors are COM 107 and my summer jobs (or lack thereof). These two are much more manageable. I was able to make a plan to get help with COM 107 and also make a list for possible summer jobs. As somewhat of a visual learner, seeing just how much something is bothering me is a helpful way to figure out what to do. My first instinct would be to take care of the little, small things, that really aren't that big of stressors to me. I will definitely continue to make the Stress Diagram because it helps me to prioritize.

Stress is inevitable. What helps is knowing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Having a Stress Reduction Plan is a good way to remind yourself of that light. I know that sometimes when I have two or three exams to study for I can get overwhelmed and feel like that's all there is going on. I know that I need to take "study breaks" to remind myself that there are other things going on and yes those exams are important, but I need to take care of myself too. The best cure to clear my head is to go for a run outside or play fieldhockey. Those activities take my mind off of my stressors and let me just escape for a little bit. If I can't get outside sometimes it's just helpful to talk to my mom or my boyfriend. They're good people to bounce ideas off of and also to distract me for a while. If I only have a little time to try and de-stress buying a new song on iTunes is one of the best two second things. It's amazing how one song can change someones mood. I love plans and the Stress Reduction Plan will definitely continue to be used. It's a great reminder during those stressful times that you need to just take a few seconds of every so often and clear your head.

There's less than a month left in the semester and yes I am a little stressed with classes wrapping up and deadlines approaching, but with the two tools I mentioned above, I know I'm prepared to handle the stress to come.

Procrastination at its Best

I am a procrastinator, who isn't? I feel like the whole world has a little bit of the procrastination bug in them, somewhere. When I was listening to the lecture this week, I realized that I didn't really fit in with the categories but that some of the stuff Dr. Blumin was saying, I could totally relate too. I am not one to sit around and do nothing, or find things that I have to do before I sit down and work. I just choose to not even open my work till the very last minute I need too. Like I will not sit down, look over what needs to be done for the weekend, and then get back to it. If I take out my work, it is because I need to take it out and do it. And I will. But that just never actually happens. I think it is because I feel like, once I have been to the class and showed up, that that was a lot of work in itself.

This needs to change though, so this week I made a list of things to do, and then I gave myself a reward, for what I would do when I accomplished all of the things on my list.

I had to go my blog for CLS, and then read for my Design History class, before the lecture. And since this her class is just reiterating the textbook, reading before hand comes in handy for the class. Then, lastly, for my major, interior design, I have to know a lot about adobe, and maybe of the kids know all about it, so it can really help me to know more about it. So, I sat down and played with it for a few hours, so I could get the hang of it. My 2D assignment, uses adobe, and then I was able to go and quickly get that project done as well. My reward for all of this was giving myself an online shopping date, because I have been looking for a cute watch for a while now.

Also, I made a list of my time wasters, and what tasters I avoid to make it easier for me to get my work done. By doing this, instead of going on facebook, yahoo, and stumble apon, I turned the internet off, and just used Word, and Abode. This helped me get my work done quicker without those extra distractions.

Overall, because I am a visual learner, making a list of what I need to do and writing it out, really worked for me, and I think I will continue to use these strategies in the future.

Now or Later? The Art of Procrastination

I used to think that I was a chronic procrastinator, until Wednesday's class when Dr. Bulmin described the various characteristics of a chronic procrastinator. Now, I may not be a chronic procrastinator, but I definitely have learned the art of procrastinating.

In high school I could get away with it. The assignments we had were relatively short and there weren't that many of them. Unfortunately, college makes this routine a little difficult. First semester I took three writing intense courses that were all on the same paper schedul

e. This meant that every five weeks I had three major papers due. I never spread the work out and I was always cramming my writing in until minutes before the papers were due. After spending the past semester in College Learning Strategies I have learned how muc

h easier it can be to break up and spread out the work over a week or two. It really pays to not procrastinate.

One method I found particularly helpful was chunking the task. Often times the assignments we get in college aren't just a worksheet, they're papers or 30 page readings or exams on five chapters.With such large or long assignments, it's easy to get overwhelmed, and in my case to procrastinate until I have no choice but to tackle it all at once. Chunking the task makes it much easier to approach. Even before starting to study, read or write, you look at the task as a whole and divide it into smaller more manageable, less intimidating tasks. As someone who loves to make lists and check things off this is perfect. I can make lots of small tasks to accomplish and then slowly start to check them off. I am currently using chunking the task for my COM 107 research paper and it has really made the whole process fly by. I will definitely continue to chunk the task.

Last week we talked about motivation. I feel that motivation and procrastination really go hand in hand. You need to be motivated not to procrastinate. I tried the time waster chart earlier in the week. This chart helped me to see what I could use as motivation, or rewards for not procrastinating. In the chart on the left hand side I listed all of the things I do when I'm procrastinating and in the right hand side I listed all of the things I avoided doing like studying and other work. This is a good method for figuring out where you're wasting time and possible rewards, but I'm not sure how helpful it was at preventing procrastination. I know that even if I don't study for my NSD 225 exam, I'm still gonna Skype my boyfriend or go on Facebook. This method is probably best for the occasional procrastinator who has the will power and determination to stay away from Facebook or the television.

The year is almost over and I'm hoping I can hold off on procrastinating long enough to get through my finals.

My Worst Enemy

All through high school I was the biggest procrastinator. I would wait until the very last minute to get everything done. I would be up at 12:30 still not finished with a project the night before its due swearing to my self I wouldn't let this happen again. Sure enough I was right there again on the very next project. While I was able to succeed in high school doing this routine, college posed a bit more of a challenge. I was keeping this same habit for each project paper or homework that I needed to complete. I was able to maintain a decent schedule for myself but I could still be doing better. When I heard this week was about procrastination, I was looking forward to ways I could improve my work and the timeline that I completed it in. I am a linear learner so I like things to be laid out in front of me. Since I had two full drawings to complete for my Friday morning Foundation Drawing class I decided this was a perfect opportunity to use these strategies. On Tuesday I went home to get some inspiration for my drawings in the shop. So instead of waiting until Thursday night like I usually would, I started my drawing Tuesday at the shop. I brought out the chunking the task strategy to help with this large drawing. I split the drawing in half to help finish it. I completed the first half back at my house on Tuesday. I then finished the rest of it on Thursday. This is the completed drawing. I still had my other drawing to complete also. I had already done half of it in class so I only had the other half to complete on Thursday. I decided to use the Time Wasters strategy. I identified my Time Wasters as my T.V., texting my girlfriend, and visiting with my friends on my floor. So combat these I turned my T.V. off and moved the remote across the room, I told my girlfriend I had to complete this project for tomorrow so she wouldn't text me and I told all my friends on the floor that I needed to finish this drawing. This would leave me in my own element with little to no distractions. I was able to finish both drawings with enough time to watch a T.V. show before I went to bed. It felt very good not to be rushing at the last minute. Even though I enjoyed the feeling of having some free time, I still like the way I do things. I have done them for so long that it is just how I get things done. As an art student, I feel as though I do my best work under pressure. People may not agree with this statement but it has worked for me in the past and hopefully will continue to work.