Every college student knows that with work comes stress. The higher the workload the more we as students feel the weight of the world pressing in around us, causing our bodies to react with flight or flight mechanisms. The same hormonal responses that allow our bodies to run from a bear or lift a burning car off of a friend are what permit us to adapt to workloads day after day. Knowing that our bodies have ways of managing such high levels of stress, whether it be physical or mental, is vital to understanding the management of stress in our lives.
Stress comes in two forms: Positive and negative. This is something most students have come to learn throughout grade school and the beginning years of college and isn’t going to make the “evening news”. The positive and negative forms cause different effects on our bodies that can be broken down into either the flight reflex or the fight reflex. When stress is negative, our tendency is to run away from it, or “flight”. This flight can come in many forms including lack of motivation, missing work, not turning in assignments or simply doing less than one is capable of. Positive stress however, causes us to “fight” for what is important to us, even when we think the work might be too much for us to handle. This stress causes us to buckle down and pull those all-nighters and give our hundred and ten percent effort even when the world seems to be crashing down on us. The importance of knowing the difference between the two types of stress, while beneficial, is greatly limited unless we are able to decide which type of mode our body will switch to when those fifteen page papers hit during finals week when our phone breaks and we miss our shift at work. Unfortunately, we cannot choose how our body will react to life’s circumstances, but we can choose what stimuli reach our mental palette.
This is where the secret of loving what you do comes into play when dealing with stress. When you are doing what you are passionate about and enjoy, what would be interpreted by your body as negative stress, will tend to become more of a positive stress to the body. While a massive term paper might cause negative stress to some, for those who love to write a paper of that magnitude brings about a more positive feeling workload. The end result of all these words thrown on a page is this, doing what you love is not only important for our mental health, but curtail to a positive lifestyle. When the end result of something we do truly brings us joy, the work to get there is almost transparent. The secret to a healthy lifestyle isn’t always in getting rid of all stress, but rather allowing the stress we surround ourselves with to be something with an end result that brings us joy. When we replace the negative stress in our life with more positive stress by pursuing what future college goals allow us to follow our passions, life turns from bearable to positive.
So as finals this semester head full speed at us students, take a minute to remember why we are taking these finals in the first place. Putting school in the perspective of being a stepping stone to achieving what truly will bring us joy one day, allows us to turn the negative, “flight” stress of school and life into a positive “fight” stress that will allow us to reach our true passions and desires in our life. It might be today, tomorrow or three years from now, but as long as we fight for doing what we love, our work seems to slowly melt into play; this is where a truly positive and fulfilled lifestyle begins to blossom.
RA Josh Watkins