My Stress Journal

After completing my stress journal for five average week days, I reviewed them to try and find some patterns and to learn a few things about myself. In an average week I run into a lot of different problems that cause me stress. Stress can be defined as tension on the mind or body due to outside factors. In general, a person could be stressed by anything from a late homework assignment to having a baby. I tend to be fairly well at coping with my stress and using it in a positive way, however, there were times when I slipped up and gave in. To try and help myself deal with my stress better, I have learned some coping tools. Coping tools are methods used to calm down and deal with your stressors, they can be emotion or problem based and can range from deep breathing to list making. During my stress journaling, I realized that my own forgetfulness and irresponsibility were my main stressors. I wouldn’t wake up for classes for time or would forget about assignments that were due or plans that I had made. I have no one to blame but myself for these mistakes and I am silly to stress myself out so much unnecessarily. I have always had these tendencies, along with procrastinating when I have things that I know I need to get done. Generally when these types of things …show more content…
The most obvious emotional symptoms I had was feeling overwhelmed to the point of crying. I was so sad about gaining weight on top of everything else that I broke down and cried. The crying itself was a physical symptom, but the sadness and inability to control my feelings was an emotional symptom. Getting very irritable and tense was another emotional symptom for me. When I was stressed or worried about something I would snap on anyone around me for the simplest things, like being in the way or talking to me when I was trying to focus. This in turn makes my roommates and other people want to avoid me on my bad