On the topic of stress...

In my mind, stress is categorized into a group with other negative emotions including despair and frustration. Although there is a term called eustress which refers to beneficial stress, I don’t generally think of stress as positive since it has never improved my performance in an activity. Even in situations where some people might assume stress would be helpful, like before a sports game, the stress causes me to make mistakes that I wouldn’t usually make in practice while I’m calm. Recently in my psychology class, we learned about the Yerkes-Dodson law, which states that there’s an inverted U-shaped relation between arousal, on the one hand, and mood and performance, on the other. For each of us, there’s an optimal point of arousal where we perform the best, though it differs for different people. I think that my optimal point is probably lower than most since I tend to perform much worse in high-stress situations.

Some people argue that stress can motivate you to start working on an assignment that is due soon. Although I have seen this effect in others, stress has never played that role in my life because the onset of my stress is very delayed. For example, if there is a big volleyball game coming up, I won’t feel any pressure until I’m standing at the net waiting for the first serve. Even now, when I have a calculus exam tomorrow, I don’t feel any stress yet, but I know I’ll feel a little nervous tomorrow when we are waiting for Ms. Boca to pass out the tests. I probably would think of stress more positively than I currently do if it began early enough to serve as a motivator for me to study for exams and get stuff done.

Another reason why stress might have a negative connotation in my mind is that I can vividly remember having some test anxiety my freshman year during math exams. I don’t know how many other people have experienced this, but I would feel kind of helpless while taking the exam and I would have to read the problems multiple times before I could think of a way to approach it. Since freshman year, I haven’t experienced test anxiety very often. Although I wish I could share how this transformation happened, I don’t really know the answer myself. My guess is that part of the stress may have been induced because I hadn’t fully grasped the material. Since then, I’ve learned what methods of learning work best for me which has helped me better prepare for tests and reduce some of my stress.

Since I’ve realized that stress plays a predominantly negative role in my life, I have consciously taken steps to minimize it. One thing I’ve noticed that helps to greatly reduce and sometimes even prevent stress is by getting enough sleep. When I have a lot on my to-do list, I feel the need to stay up late and cross them all off the list. However, whenever I give up an hour or two of sleep, I’m noticeably less alert the following days, making me less productive, and thus increasing my pile of work and consequently my stress. Throughout my years at Uni, I’ve gradually learned how to handle my stress, and I’m at a point now where stress doesn’t play a major role in my day-to-day life.

Do you personally perform better under stress? What are some ways you’ve tried to minimize stress?

-Kristine