Hello, My Name is Stress
The fall semester of my sophomore year of college, I found myself stress incarnate. I felt as if I was drowning. I was enrolled in seventeen credits for the second term in a row, and I was beginning to feel like that was a bad decision. My hands shook every time I went into an exam because I was afraid that I hadn’t studied enough. At my job, I had been designated the task of training five new student workers. My heart would beat so fast whenever I thought about disappointing my office manager. Every night when I went to bed, I noticed that my entire body was sore. I was so tense all day that my muscles wouldn’t relax until I went to sleep.
The months passed, and I grew fearful that the amount of stress that I was experiencing on a daily basis was beginning to take a toll on my health. I needed to do something about it. Since most of my friends are advocates for meditation, I thought I’d give it a try. It didn’t take very long for me to realize that meditation was not for me. Most of my attempts to find inner peace went a lot like this: I would spend twenty minutes fidgeting – trying so hard to remain still – and then use any excuse to do anything else.
If I had seen Kelly McGonigal’s TED talk, “How to make stress your friend,” I would have spent that semester feeling courageous and confident. McGonigal, a health psychologist, states that we need to stop fearing stress. Since we tackle stress in a variety of situations, both personal and professional, we need to start thinking about it is as our ally. It’s what pushes us to accomplish our goals.
After watching “How to make stress your friend,” I immediately began to change the way I think about and approach stress. Now, I refuse to let my worries buzz around in my head. When I get overwhelmed with school work, I remind myself that learning is my passion, and that I wouldn’t want it any other way. I tackle my day one task at a time, and no longer feel overwhelmed when I look at my seemingly infinite To Do List. During those times when I feel as if I won’t be able to accomplish my goals, I think of McGonigal’s TED talk. I think of how my stress exists to help keep me motivated.
No longer is stress my enemy; it is my champion. It encourages me to take on – and conquer – any challenge. I recommend that you watch McGonigal’s talk, so that you may learn to master your reaction to stress, instead of being overwhelmed by it.
April Contreras is a junior at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is majoring in psychology and minoring in neuroscience, and has been a member of the Interactive Measurement Group since Spring 2016. She plans to go to graduate school to obtain a Ph.D. in clinical psychology with a specialization in neuropsychological testing. Her research interests include neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders, as well as their effects on emotion and personality.