AfricanHealth

STRESS MANAGEMENT

      What is stress?

From mental health perspective “stress” is a negative emotional experience accompanied by predictable biochemical, physiological, psychological, cognitive and behavioral changes. Stress is the consequences of a person’s appraisal of whether his or her person resources are sufficient to meet life demand.

     Stress to a certain extent can improve our working efficiency and performance as well as promoting our personal growth. However, too much stress may give rise to a series of physical, psychological and interpersonal problems.

     Effective stress management is concerned of how to make positive use of stress and avoid its harmful effects.

Implication of stress

Excessive or prolonged stress may lead to:

Ø Peptic ulcer, hypertension ,insomnia, heart disease

Ø Nervousness, anxiety, depressed or agitated mood

Ø Decreased concentration, increased mistakes, and ineffective work.

Ø Increased interpersonal conflict and social withdrawal

Causes of stress

Identifying major sources of stress can help us to focus our efforts for effective problem solving. For student, some common sources of stress are:                                         Academic or career problems, e.g. heavy homework, school exams and limited career choice or difficulties.

Interpersonal relationship problem e.g. conflict with schoolmate, peers, and lover or feeling not being accepted

Family problems e.g. Arguments with parent, Divorce, and Severe illness of family members.

Environmental factors, e.g. change of living place, school and migration

                 Prevention of stress

Maintain basic physical and psychological health                  

 <Balanced diet

<Adequate sleep                                                                                                          <Adequate physical excises      

 <Balanced schedule of work and leisure

<Develop optimistic outlook on life e.g. being positive to life change, seeing                 demand as chance for growth

Enrich your skills and knowledge

<Learn new skills and knowledge so that life demand can be handled with competence

<Read more, Read other books outside your field of study and surf the need to know             what is happening within and outside your country. Do this with purpose and discipline     and at leisure, Joint interest group or short course to expand your orientation and personal caliber

Maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationship

<Actively share life experience with peers, faithfully teachers and parents

<Receive help from them, provide assistance to them appropriately.

Know, accept and improve yourself

<Appreciate your strength and merits

<Accept your weaknesses and limitation

<Set realistic goal for improvement

Tips on how to cop with stress

<Take initiative to gather relevant skill and knowledge

<Do relaxation exercises, e.g. progressive muscle relaxation, deep breathing exercise.

<Appropriately engage in leisure activities to refresh yourself e.g. listening to music, Seeing good messaging movies, playing various games

<Insert regular short breaks for tasks that produce accumulative tension and fatigue e.g.

      take a break of 20 minutes after reviewing study for two hours.

<Make active efforts to tackle the major sources of stress

<seek help and support from others

<Evaluate your effectiveness, improve inadequacy, acknowledge your progress and give

       credit to yourself

<consolidate successful experience

EMOTIONS

   Emotion are our internal feeling .Usually, our feelings will be triggered due to various life experiences .for example, we may be “surprised” and “glad” when receiving unexpected gifts or we may feel “disappointed” and “unhappy” owing to poor exam result. Appropriate variations and changes of feelings enrich our emotional experiences of daily life’s otherwise live can be boring.

    Emotions can be broadly categorized into two groups, namely; “Positive” and “Negative”

Positive Emotions can add energy for our active life such as;

<delighted

<satisfied

<excited

<appreciated

Whereas Negative Emotions may make us demoralized and withdraw such as;

<being upset

<afraid

<disgusted

<shamed

There are effective ways to manage emotions, such as positive thinking, active coping and making good use of social support. If we can manage our emotions well, we are more able to live happily and successfully and enjoy pleasant and harmonious social relationship.

DATING

During adolescence, the social circle of the youngsters will be broadened and dating will become one of the many social activities. Through this experience, they may neither terminate there dreams or get to know about themselves more and also learn how to get along well with others.

Categories of Dating

1.  group dating

·        it help to build up friendship and provide opportunity for self discovery

·        you can reflect on the problems and feelings identified during group meeting, and find out ways to accepts others and express yourself appropriately.

·         

Advantages

ü you can identify and understand more about your own strengths and weaknesses

ü You can learn about the psychological, differences between male and female, and in turn learn about how to get along well the opposite sex.

ü  

    2. Individual dating

              Individual dating may not just limited to dating between lovers. Individual dating may involve friends of the opposite sexes coming together for a common, interest or friends wanting to know more about each other and develop a good friendship

Attitude of dating

    <respect each other

    <be honest and be your own self

    <no cheating and do not take the advantage of other

Wrong motive about dating

     Dating per se is a good activity; but if you don’t have a correct motive, dating mat result in a lot of misunderstanding, moreover you may hurt others and yourself.

1.     peer pressure: Because most of your friends have a partner, you also want to have        

One.

2.     Fascination about love: due to ideal presentation in films and novels, youngsters      have a lot of dreams and fascinations about love and may want experience it.

3.     Wanting to be mature: some youngster think that individual dating represents maturity

4.     taking advantage : some youngsters indulge in dating because they can get some free entertainments

5.     to evade problems: youngster may use dating to evade other problems

6.      

ADVICE

      The mind of young people is continuously maturing, and their views, attitude and values will change with time. Therefore, it is not advisable to chose your partner casually or prematurely and miss out on the chance to widen your social circle. If you can not identify any suitable partner at this point of time, you should instead participate more in group activities especially religious activities. Through these, you will meet many people of deferent personalities; get to know your potential well before you start individual dating.

Avoid intimate relationship

    Young people should not get too intimate when they spend time along with their partners. Over intimate behaviors will lead to uncontrollable sexual desire, pre-marital sexual intercourse may result in pregnancy and many other problems, for examples, the responsibility of being a parent, the social pressure and the risk of school discontinuation.

Avoiding sexual urge

Which ever gender you are, sexual desire can be suppressed and controlled. You should not be afraid to say “no” to your partner. A person with principle would be respected. whenever you lost the privileged to say ‘no’, then you should be sure that such a relationship may crash sooner or later due to lack of trust and lost of virtue. If your partner is angry about your refusal, you should seriously consider whether he or she deserve your love.

 To avoid having sexual urge:

·        Avoid staying with your partner alone in dark and  quite places

·        Mutually agree on the acceptable level of intimacy, it is important to respect each other when making this agreement.

·        Avoid pornographic picture

      

SELF-ESTEEM AND SELF-CONFIDENCE

Self-esteem and self confidence are importance elements of a well-develop personality. Self-esteem of the perception of one worth, while self-confidence is the belief in one’s own ability. The development of self-esteem and self-confidence is influence by many things such as congenital factors, one’s character, family, schools, peers and religion.  Way to develop self-esteem and self-confidence

1.     Appreciate your strengths: list your good points and achievements e.g. being kind, sporty, reliable etc, and stick the list at an eye-catching area to remind yourself constantly.

2.     Be affirmed of your worth: every body is unique. Respect yourself and try to better equip yourself. Make full use of your capability and talent in your family, school and society.

3.     Accept yourself: Accept your appearance and developmental stage; in fact, having a good temperament is more important. Learn from other’s good behaviors and build up a positive self-image.

4.     Maximize your potential: join various social activities such as out-reach training programmes, interest groups, voluntary service groups so as to know more about your abilities and talents and develop your potential.