Brandan Shelley

PSY 1010

11/1/18

Semester stress project

Before taking this class I knew I had some stresses in my life. I knew that they were

apparent and that overtime they would go away. I never thought that some of my stressors would

be in my life as a constant. I also didn’t think of the impact it would have on my health. School

has been one of my biggest stressors throughout my whole life, being in college really didn’t

change that. When I started college I kept telling myself last semester wasn’t so hard. So, I push

the next semester even harder. This isn’t the greatest idea over all, the more classes I took the

more stress I would have and the worse my grades would be. However; school was just a part of

my stress. In my five years at SLCC I got married, and bought a house. Now my finances

became a stress and so has taking on the responsibility of another person and try to make their

lives better too. With all that has happened in my life I needed to find a way to manage my stress

and how to be happier.

I would like to first mention a phrase my past professors told to me when struggling in

the past. “You can stress about work at work, but once you get home there is nothing you can

change. So to stress about something that isn’t in front of you is pointless”. This statement hold

true in almost every aspect in life. From school to finance to your job. You can stress about it all
when you are there, but when it has passed there is nothing you can do to change it, stressing

about it changes nothing.

I chose three stressors that consume my life and I have tries multiple ways to elevate

them. There have been a few good ones and others that have really caused me to stress even

more. The ones that have worked out are I feel any one can do. The first is exercise. This can be

the silver bullet to most people but for me it is the best way I know to fight stress. The second is

meditation; this comes as a surprise because meditation can be classified as so many other things.

Finally; talk to someone, when you express all your stresses to someone it gives you gratification

and possibly an answer to change things.

When it comes to exercise I am getting my blood flowing so that my focused is back.

Throughout our whole day our peak focused happens when we wake up and then rapidly

declined throughout the evening, it does pick up after about six o’clock and dips back down. So

when we exercise we bring up our heart rates that increase our attention time allowing us to be

more effective during class or work. As for myself, when I work out I noticed it helps with my

focus, but also distracts me form stress I exhibit throughout the day.

Meditation is any form of time given to person that doesn’t require thought or deep thought. This

can range from early morning coffee, sitting by you at lunch time looking out the window to

actually meditation; this form required a complete withdrawal form phones and human

interaction. Where you sit in an area close your eyes and focused on the heart beat and breathing.

For myself I tried to take the old fission approach. I would sit in an empty office room at work

and listen to a tempo counter on my phone as I sat and breathed. I had to change areas after a

department meeting came in while I was meditating.

 Finally talking, many psychologists use this form to get an understanding about your life

but they also have their clients talk because it gives the client a positive reaction. When someone

listens and understands what a person goes through than the person with the stress feels

understood and in turn has a positive emotional reaction that fallows. I chose to talk with my

wife about the stresses of school and how hard the semester is. When I explained my situation to

her I could see her reading the situation and using her past knowledge to understand the situation

and help direct me in a dissection making process.

The more I practiced these skills I found issues and solutions. When I first exercised it

was only for 15 minutes a day and I felt like I wasn’t getting the chance to break away from the

daily stresses. They kept returning or would stay in my mind all day. One way I changed this was

by changing the amount of time spent working out. I switched my lunch schedule to where I

would eat lunch on a 15 minute break and limit screen time on my phone and use my 30 minute

breaks as a time to exercise. This helped me by giving me more time away from work to focus

on something else. I than started to bring workout clothes with me so. When I changed into these

clothes my mentality changed and made me think that I wasn’t at work anymore but at a gym.

Just to clarify my work has a fitness center in side its building for employees.

Meditation was a hard; it was hard to justify when I should meditate and why I needed it

in the first place. When I first tried to meditate I tried it in my car before work. I would sit in my

car and focus on my breathing and heart rate. I would try to meditate for five minutes

unfortunately I would run into situations where I was running late for work or people thought I

was asleep in my car. I than did research and found out that for proper meditation you need 10 to

20 minutes of undisturbed meditation to be effective so I decided to go into an empty meeting

room after work to meditate. When I meditated I would is a tempo meter on my phone to
provide an ambient noise, this way I wouldn’t focused on several sounds but to the tempo meter

and my heart beats . Doing this after work I wouldn’t need to think about work because I was

already off and no one would be using these rooms after hours any ways. I did try to do this

every day but then cut it down to Tuesday Thursdays so I could focused on home work and time

spent with my wife.

Like what we learned in class stress can trigger a number of medical problems.

These problems can span form mental exaction and head aches and anxiety to more serious

illnesses such as high blood pressure, compromised immune systems and even heart attacks.

Meditation is a key suppressor to stress and in some cases is even seem as a medication

suggested by your physician. Research studies have been conducted to see how effective

meditation is for the mind and body. One such study was conducted on patients with Alzheimer’s

syndrome. Alzheimer’s is a disease of brain cells, where the mylone sheath deteriorate and

signals can’t transmit to other cells. In the study patients that practiced meditation throughout the

day had showed signs of improved mental function and others were able to prolong the rapid

decline in memory loss.

Meditation is also good for your skin and immune system. Another study was conducted

to see the effects of the common cold. There was a control group who didn’t receive any

vaccinations, a group that did and another group that would meditate. Each group was exposed to

the flue strain and the study was observer for a number of weeks. By the end of the study the

group that meditated showed the same or higher immunity to the flu with that of the group that

received a vaccination. The control group however didn’t fare as well. Fortunately after the study

was over, all groups received the vaccination.

 Meditation is a great way to limit stress but can do so much more. This can than be

argued for medical science. If we can stay healthy by meditation than do we need to take

medication in the first place? Unfortunately meditation and mental illness is still a growing fluid

with some hospitals and even health providers having misconceptions to if it’s even a real

medical condition. I do home that more hospitals and clinics choose to favor for meditation. I

feel it might be a better choice than to take medication.

Work cited:

 King, Laura A. (2016). Experience Psychology, Third Edition. McGraw-Hill Education

 Innes, Kim, and Terry Selfe. “Meditation as a Therapeutic Intervention for Adults at Risk for
Alzheimer’s Disease. Potential Benefits and Underlying Mechanisms.” Meditation as a
Therapeutic Intervention, vol. 5, 2014. Directory of Open Access Journals,
doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2014.00040/full 10.3389/fpsyt.2014.00040.

 Black, David, and George Slavich. “Mindfulness Meditation and the Immune
System:” Mindfulness Meditation and the Immune System: vol. 1373, no. 1, June 2016, pp. 13–
24. Academic Search Ultimate, doi:Academic Search Ultimate. SLCC Library