Stress - a growing health hazard!

Stress is a common situation felt across nowadays. With growth in population, competition, the pressure of striving through has made space for stress in everyone's life including students. Student's life was used to be one of the best time in life but due to a lot of competitive activities, exams and assignments to make a better future for them. Lot of academic work can make student tired and not getting any free time can make them even worse. This type of situation can cause stress in their life. 

Lets dig in history, how people started identifying stress in their life. It all started in 1936 by Hans Selye a pioneer in biological stress research.  He borrowed the 'Stress' word from physics,where it is described as a force that produces strain on a physical object. By correlating the meaning; Selye proposed that stress was a non-specific strain on human body that caused irregularities in the normal bodily function.

Nowadays, students have become more prudent about their career and sets goals to achieve in future. And the goal comes with a lot of responsibility like deadlines for assignments, research papers, competitive exams, interviews and lot more. There has to be a specific planning to be a part of each and every activity and exams related to your goal. And without planning on goal, stress's few symptoms like irritable nature, blood pressure, trouble in sleep and lack of concentration's negative effects like lower marks in exams, disqualification in project or competition will occur on the goal. These negativeness can ruin one's future. 

When there are a lot of activities to do and time is little, students tries to cope up with stress by different mechanisms observed. 

Denial- A verbal or mental feedback to self, by saying ' There is not any major problem, a solution will be found sooner or later.'

Avoidance-A human behavior wherein you compensate the emotional stress with a positive engaging task, and keeping yourself occupied. 

Substance use - May include substances such as drugs, alcohol, caffeine, food but with caution of the overdose. 

But instead of coping stress, students should learn to handle the stress, 

A- Achieve Control - Control over the situation, confront the problem, face it and try to resolve it. 

B- Be Active-  Involve yourself in regular exercises, meditation, yoga, sports, an active body with an active mind ensures things at peace. 

C- Connect-  Get yourself engaged socially, connect with the people around you. 

D- Do Learn-  Keep learning new skills,learn new activities, explore the world around, it will provide confidence. 

In the end, always believe in yourself, believe there lays a solution to every problem, believe everything is for short phase and situation would soon change, your belief would help you to live a de stress life.

The author of the article is Dr. Shivani Vaid Assistant Professor Sigma Institute of Physiotherapy in Sigma Group of Institutes Vadodara.