We all experience this wonderful thing called stress, especially as college students entering the professional world. I have always known that my body is in a constant state of stress. Going to school and working full-time while also trying to enjoy my 20s has caused me to be constantly overworking myself. When taking the personality quizzes, I learned that I have a higher level of stress than most, which I was not surprised by. When evaluating the stressors in my life, the most significant things that I encountered recently were job, lifestyle, and location changes. I recently made a big move from Oregon to Chicago, which caused a lot of additional stress in my life.
I learned that I tend to use problem-focused coping, which is helpful when the problem I am facing is controllable, but not very helpful when I have little control over the situation. While I was initially confused by this, I can see where this fits in my life. I feel like I try to control the situations even when I can’t. I have learned recently that some problems are just not that simple to solve, and I have to just wait for things to play out rather than causing more stress by trying to solve an unsolvable issue.
I was surprised to learn that my impatience/irritability score was at 53. I would have thought it would have been a lot lower. I feel like I try my hardest to not let myself get upset about things that are happening externally, and I feel like I am a bit of a pushover about most things. I try really hard to avoid conflict and always make sure that everyone is happy, even if it costs me.
Moving forward professionally, I know that I will need to find healthier ways to cope with stress rather than just keeping myself busy. I often find myself being more stressed over the fact that I’m not stressed about something else. There are a lot of ways that stress and mental health are related to poor job performance and lack of regular attendance. In this week’s lecture, we learned about how companies provide additional benefits like paid leave to help prevent the burnout and mental health struggles that may come with the stress of your job. It is important that employers are flexible and care about the well-being of their employees so that they are providing a healthy work environment.