By CARMEN KHOR
Sunway University
Degree in Mass Communication

STRESS is not an alien term to anyone. As teenagers, we often put up with stress on a daily basis. I remembered how my mom used to tell me without hesitating to repeat it over and over again: “Those days, we could not even afford a hand phone. Even if we did, they would not fit into our pockets. You are so lucky nowadays.”

I do not give two hoots about my mother’s rants as much as the next teenager, but what she said does apply. Being born into a fortunate era has made most of us more vulnerable and easily threatened by obstacles.

Just think about it, every little thing in our daily lives appears stressful to us. Woke up 30 minutes late on a Chemistry test day? Stress. Got to school and realised you did not study section 3.5 on page 154? Stress. Could not find a single 2B pencil in your bag during an PMR objective test? Stress. Had a public fight with your girlfriend in the hall right after your test without knowing what you were fighting about afterwards? STRESS.

It is simply too easy to trigger that little stress button at the back of our minds. It all builds up to form stressors, and stressors, of course, cause stress that encourages people to act out in unfavourable ways. I would like to share a story about a friend of mine, Amanda (not her real name), and her battle with stress at its worst.

At the tender age of 13, Amanda suffered from health issues and was hospitalised for months. After getting back to school, she found it difficult to cope with her studies, social life and her health problems.

With the accumulated stressors firing at the same time, she eventually became depressed.

“I stopped eating regularly. My body reacted to that and it didn’t help me recover at all,” she said.
While chatting with Amanda about her experience, she confessed that the first step to overcoming stress is to learn about it.

With a pen and paper, Amanda drafted a list of events that caused her stress. Eventually, the list extended into a stress diary, where she would regularly keep track of things that exerted stress in her life. She found things to be more manageable when she realised what she was actually dealing with.

James, on the other hand, has always been a people pleaser. He found it difficult to say “no” to people, for whatever reason. And although that extraordinary attribute has landed James over 2000 friends on Facebook, he admits it is stressful constantly fulfilling what others expect of him, even when he has too much on his own plate.

Learning to reject with reason was his way of coping with stress. Prioritising and time management helped as well, as it helps you determine what is most important, and what you should avoid fussing over.

For example, realising that the Chemistry test tomorrow is vital to your studies will steer you towards making the right decision to turn down the barbeque party with your friends. By doing so, you’d have ample time to go through section 3.5 on page 154 at least three times, wake up 30 minutes earlier on the test day and packed extra 2B pencils, all nicely sharpened; finish your test 10 minutes earlier and not bump into your girlfriend in the hall. What seemed to be a strenuous and hectic day would simply turn stress-free without us having to completely reconstruct our lives.

Stress is born in the brain and it wounds the brain. Therefore, another effective option that I personally like to combat stress is to stay positive. You may be thinking “easier said than done”. I agree.

But by mentally convincing myself that there are some things that I cannot control, I can minimise potential heartache when it comes to dealing with dissatisfying outcomes. In simpler words, I learnt how to let go by attempting to reframe problems and looking at the bigger picture.

We have to also understand that stress isn’t always the enemy. Positive stress helps us strive, and can act as motivation. But as we all know, too much of a good thing gives an opposite effect. We should never let stress conquer our minds or be the excuse to bring out the worst in us.

As entrepreneur and lifestyle author Bill Phillips said, “stress should be a powerful driving force, not an obstacle”. Don’t let stress dominate you; be its master. Have a happy stress-free life!