Coping with

Stress in Middle
and Late
Adolescence
•LEARNING COMPETENCIES:
•Identify causes and effects of stress in
one’s life.
•EsP-PD11/12CS-If-5.2
•Demonstrate personal ways to cope
with stress and maintain
•mental health. EsP-PD11/12CS-Ig-5.3
Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:
•identify causes and effects of stress in one’s life;
•describe some activities that can manage stress; and
•demonstrate open-mindedness in dealing with
people who experience stress.
Recognizing Stress

The first step in learning how to manage stress

is to learn how to recognize it. Understanding
how stress affects you helps you understand
what you can do to manage your stress. Write
your answer in your journal notebook.
1. Write down the stressors that are in your
life right now.
2. Prioritize your stressors from most stressful
to least stressful.
What do you understand about “stress?” Have you
experienced stress?
Dictionary definitions do not quite capture the meaning
of stress as it is seen and experienced in the world of
work. One of Webster’s definitions describes it as an “…
emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension.” A
practical way of defining stress is the feeling one gets
from prolonged, pent-up emotions. If the emotions you
experience are pleasant and desirable—joy, elation,
ecstasy, and delight—you usually feel free to let them
show. They are not suppressed. Therefore, positive
emotions do not usually cause stress. Negative
emotions, on the other hand, are more often held inside.
They are hidden. You suffer quietly and you experience
stress. Do not confuse positive situations with positive
emotions. A wedding, for example, is a positive situation
that often brings about the negative emotions of anxiety
and tension. So stress can exist in great situations.
Keep Stress Under Control
There are many effective ways to
handle stress. Of course, you can’t avoid
stress—in fact, you wouldn’t want to avoid
all stress, because you’d never grow.
However, you can manage your life so that
you survive the emotional downtimes
without allowing stress to engulf you. Also,
you can work to eliminate controllable
stress factors, such as running late or not
getting enough sleep. But when stress is
constant or too great, your wisest option is
to find ways to reduce or control it. You
need not, and should not, live your life in
emotional stress and discomfort. Stress can
be successfully managed. Here are some
suggestions that may help.
Understand the Causes of Stress
Understanding why you are under
stress is important. This may seem
obvious, but it requires deliberate,
conscious effort to pause and simply
ponder your situation. By now, you are
familiar with the stress response, the
emotional or physical symptoms of
uncontrolled stress. Now you need to
try to discover the stressors, the
factors that create the stress in your
life.
Analyze your Stress Factors and Write Them
Down
Write down your response to stress. For
example, you may write down, “I feel tired most
of the time. My lower back seems to ache all
through the day and night. I miss deadlines and
run behind schedule.” Analyze stress responses
and consequences, and consider each item, and
ask why. “Why am I feeling tired? Why does my
back ache? Why do I run behind schedule?
Carefully consider each answer, because the
answers will reveal stressors, such as deadlines,
anxieties, trying to do so much, managing time
or money poorly, or poor health habits.
Deal with the Stressors
Develop techniques to deal with the
causes of stress. The longer you
avoid dealing with the stress
factors, the more the stress will
build up. If tension comes because
you have put off an unfinished task,
restructure your priorities so you
can get the task that you have been
avoiding out of the way and off your
mind.
Learn to Work under Pressure or
Unusual Conditions
When you can’t reduce the
stressors, you need to manage your
stress response. Almost everyone, at
least at some point, has to meet
deadlines, keep several jobs going at
once, resolve problems that come up,
and do extra work when necessary.
However, when the pressure mounts, you
can relieve it. Relaxation is key—but most
people must train themselves to relax
when the pressure is on.
Some tips to relax when under pressure are the following:

§ Stop for a moment (especially when you feel your muscles

tightening up) and take a few deep breaths.

§ Do a relaxing exercise. Swing your hands at your sides and stretch.

§ Take a “power nap.” Lie down and totally relax for a few minutes.

§ Find time to do the things you enjoy.

§ Leave your study area for a while to take a brisk walk.

§ Find a quiet place to read a magazine or novel during break or at lunch.

§ If possible, look at some peaceful images such as forests, beaches, etc. These
images can initiate a relaxation response.

§ Look up.
§ Keep something humorous on hand, such as a book of jokes.
Stress Management
Stress and change are part of our lives. We all talk
about stress, but we are not always clear about
what it is. This is because stress comes from both
the good and bad things that happen to us. If we did
not feel any stress, we would not be motivated to
do anything. Too much stress, however, can
negatively impact our mental wellness. It also may
put students at greater risk of becoming involved in
risk-taking behaviors. In senior high, students are
becoming increasingly more responsible for their
own use of time. Often, they are beginning to learn
how to manage multiple tasks and expectations e.g.,
academic work, extra-curricular activities, family,
friends, and work. Learning how to prioritize tasks
and breaking them down into manageable steps are
important skills to learn for managing stress.
Causes and Effects of Stress
Just as there is a great variety of emotions you might
experience, there are many possible manifestations of stress –
in your private life and in your working life. The following are
some words that describe the emotions associated (as cause
and effect) with stress:
 Anxiety  Tension
 Pressure  Anger
 Misery  Panic
 Strain  Dejection
 Desperation
Prolonged stress can be devastating; burnout, breakdown,
and depression are some of the potential results of long-
term, unmanaged stress. By wearing a mask, you may
expect to hide stress caused by problems in your personal
life and not let them influence your performance on the
job. This will probably not work. The more you try to hold
your emotions in, the greater the pressure buildup will be.
Everyday frustrations cause stress buildup
From the time you wake up until you go to
sleep, you may be confronted with a
succession of stressful situations. Managing
to get yourself (and possibly a spouse and
children) out of bed and ready to face the
day can be a challenge to your patience and
ingenuity. Driving to school or work can be
harrowing – especially if you are running
late. You may experience frustration in
arranging to get the car repaired. You may
face conflicts in school or at work, such as
coping with unrealistic deadlines,
equipment failures, or unexpected bad
weather. If part of your job is selling, you
may experience feelings of rejection when
most of your customers say “no.”
 A series of stressful and
frustrating experiences
throughout the day can cause
you to lie awake at night in
emotional turmoil – unable to
get needed rest. You face the
next day with less emotional
and physical stamina. After
another stressful day and
another night without rest, you
may have even less emotional
strength and stability. Therefore,
stress buildup, if not resolved,
continues day after day.
Problems in our personal lives can be devastating
Surviving the normal, everyday stress described earlier can be
difficult. But far more serious and painful circumstances can create
long-term stress. More serious stressful circumstances may include
separation from loved ones, personal illness or illness of a loved
one, death of someone you care about, or conflict with a spouse or
close friend. Other major causes of stress are problems with drug
and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, care of children and elderly
relatives, chronic mental illness, injury, physical handicaps, and
even moving to a new home if you have lived in the same place for
more than 10 years. The list goes on.
Managing your personal finances can be
another stressful experience. This can be a
problem no matter your income level, but it is
especially difficult if you must support a family
and do not earn enough to live comfortably.
Unpaid bills, unwise use of credit, and budget
limitations can make life difficult.
Common cause of stress is dealing with life’s transitions
This is especially true when a person must cope with too
many transitions all at once. For example, Ellen has just
completed a program in fashion merchandising. She is
eager to get started on her new job. Her mother is ill and
requires care. Her father died a few months ago. Ellen’s
common requires that she relocate to a town 100 miles
from home. The move, a new career, and a change in
family relationships may cause excessive stress for her. Too
many changes have arrived at the same time.
 Stress Response
Your stress response is the collection of
physiological changes that occur when you face a
perceived threat—when you face situations where
you feel the demands outweigh your resources to
successfully cope. These situations are known as
stressors.
When your stress response is triggered, a
series of changes occur within your body.
They include the following:
•Redirection of blood away from
extremities and instead to major organs.
•The release of cortisol and other
hormones, which bring other short and
long-term changes.
•The stress response is intended to give
you a burst of energy so you are able to
fight off attackers or run away from them
effectively.
•This helped our ancestors, who faced
numerous physical threats, to stay safe.
•However, now our threats tend to be
less physical and more associated with
our way of life—a challenge to our
status, a demand for performance, etc.
In addition to giving us a set of changes
that may not match our needs as well (it
might be more effective for us to have a
burst of mental clarity or wisdom than a
burst of physical strength, for example),
the stress response can actually cause
harm if it leads to a state of chronic
stress—that is, if our stress response is
triggered, and then our body doesn’t go
back to its normal state via the
relaxation response.