Stress

Stress

Stress is a series of events or situations that one draws out negative emotions of frustrations, anxiousness, or even anger that endangers the life of the individual. Problems such as physical health issues, anxiety attacks, and severe emotional problems such as depression may arise if there are no coping methods to keep them healthy. There are two main types of coping strategies: problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping (Kassin, 2004). The purpose of theses strategies is to manage one's stress level. In problem-focused coping, individuals attempt to take those negative emotions out by eliminating the main source to minimize the threatening situation (Kassin, 2004). They modify their actions to cope with stress. In emotion-focused coping, the individual will try to remove the negative emotions to reduce the stress levels. These strategies introduce coping methods to either eliminate the main source of the problem or to reduce negative emotions.

Many people have different methods to cope with stress. One method is thought suppression, an emotion-focused coping strategy (Kassin, 2004). Thought suppression helps individuals ignore a particular thought. For example, an exam I took in biology was constantly on my mind, I was not sure if I did well. I then thought about going to the movies where it diverted my mind off of that exam. It seems as if people include information in their thoughts when they are told to ignore or disregard the information. Once someone suppresses their attention from the problem, then they have no more worries. Another technique I should take into account is relaxation. Meditation helps relax the muscles and can reduce stress related arousal. Mediation has been used successfully to treat heart attack patients (Kassin, 2004) and helps reduce a variety of stress-related disorders, such as chronic pain, hypertension, and etc.

Another way to manage stress is through aerobic exercise. By engaging in physical activities such as running, walking, or playing sports, it will help promote a healthy heart (Kassin, 2004). The stronger the heart, the more healthy the individual is, the healthier the individual, the longer he/she lives. Another way to eliminate stress is to have a self healing personality. An optimistic attitude will enable the person to have a higher self esteem as well as alleviating the stress levels. More positive comments about themselves will help resist frustrations through tasks even under severe and unpleasant