Manage Your Stress

Estimated Time: 1.5 hours

In this section, we will explore the impact that stress has on your brain, and then we will discuss how to use breathing, mindfulness, and other techniques to manage your stress and improve your learning outcomes.

Meet John

John is a diligent and ambitious first-year computer science student. As his first term progresses, John finds himself increasingly stressed and anxious due to the demanding workload. He struggles with programming assignments, numerous writing assignments, and challenging theory concepts. Each day brings new deadlines, and he feels overwhelmed and unsure of how to manage it all. He has trouble sleeping because he worries about his grades and feels inadequate. Even during class time, his mind constantly drifts to the mounting pile of pending assignments. John feels isolated, seeing his classmates seemingly effortlessly handling the coursework, intensifying his self-doubt and anxiety. He hesitates to seek help, fearing judgment and not wanting to appear incapable. As his stress builds, his academic performance suffers, and he becomes forgetful, missing deadlines and skipping classes. John knows he needs to take action but feels lost and overwhelmed.

Impact of Stress

Managing Stress

There are a number of things that you can do to counteract the impact that stress has on your brain and body. The first steps are being aware of your stress levels and understanding the sources of stress in your life, then you can work on introducing behaviours into your life that help you reduce your stress levels.

The keys to managing stress that are explained in the above workbook include:

Tracking your stress levels
Identifying your sources of stress
Practicing mindfulness regularly
Being physically active
Practicing deep breathing
Doing pleasant activities

Reflection: Managing Stress

Breathing

As mentioned in the previous section, there are a number of ways to manage stress so that it doesn't negatively impact your mind and body. In the rest of this section we will discuss two of the methods, breathing and mindfulness, and then we will learn about some of the other methods in the next few sections of this lesson, i.e. Section 3.3 Food and Movement and Section 3.4 Sleep.

There are numerous breathing techniques that you can use to manage stress. In this section you will be introduced to three:

Altrnate nostril breathing
4-7-8 technique
Box breathing

You can watch the videos below and practice each technique to see if it helps you feel less stressed and more calm.

Mindfulness and Meditation

Finally, mindfulness and meditation are two of the most powerful tools that you can use to manage stress.

You can practice meditation by yourself with no tools or guidance, all you need to do is sit. However, if you want some additional guidance as you are learning to meditate there are lots of meditation videos and apps that you can use. I personally like the apps Calm and Headspace for a easy introduction into mindfulness and meditation. Headspace also has a fantastic Youtube channel with lots of different free meditations and breathing exercises. You will also notice that at the start of each of your weekly lessons, I have embedded a meditation video to help you focus before you start the lesson.

Practicing Mindful Meditation

In the stress management workbook you were introduced to a number of meditation practices that can be powerful tools for managing stress. Below is a list of these practices. You can refer to the stress management workbook for details on how to carry out each technique:

Mindfulness Meditation
Compassion Meditation
Body Scan Meditation
Mindful Eating
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Mindfulness Circle