Stress and Coping
Stressors experienced
Though performing housework chores may appear simple, I find it a major stressing factor. This is, perhaps, because I have to juggle between the chores and my challenging studies, thus making me strain in balancing the activities within the time limited.
Health behavior and the stressors
My unhealthy behavior of avoiding physical exercises is strongly related to the stresses I experience. In particular, during examination period, I am not able to engage in any physical exercise despite being aware that physical activities are therapeutic and help lessen the stress.
I usually perceive physical exercises as a waste of time which could otherwise be used for studying. My thoughts are thus the etiology of the unhealthy behavior of avoiding exercises. Stressors mostly distract me from performing any duties, even predefined ones. When I feel distracted, I have developed a habit of chatting for hours over the phone. I know that chatting does not eliminate the stress, but it provides me with a means of escaping from the stressors, albeit for a little while.
Coping strategies and their effectiveness
Planning and emotional support are the main strategies for coping with the stress factors. In planning, I usually schedule all the tasks I intend to accomplish in writing. This compels me to adhere to the schedule and enables me to prioritize my tasks. Planning is an effective remedy since it gives me an opportunity to appropriately manage my time, hence dispelling the fears of time wastage.
Emotional support is also another effective strategy in managing the stressors. Accompanied with my family members and friends, I do not develop the feelings of boredom and loneliness because I feel encouraged.
Health behavior and coping
By applying the strategies to cope with stress, I am able to allocate time for physical activities. The more I engage in exercises the more I feel relieved from the stressors. This is because the exercises reveal me from boredom and make me feel happy, thus giving me positive feelings. Exercises also provide me with the opportunity of applying the strategies to cope with my stress and enhancing my abilities of dealing with the stressors.
Self-efficacy
I managed to attain a score of about 78 in all the exercises. I anticipated improving self-efficacy as I put more efforts to improve my workout. My self-efficacy was nevertheless affected by two situations that made me score a zero. The two events happened when I had a lot of work at home, and my friends came to see me.
To increase self-efficacy, I utilized Bandura’s two strategies, which were the vicarious experience and physiological states. In vicarious experiences, I leaned on my mates who encouraged me to follow them as they were studying yet had time to engage in activities like gymnastics.
This helped me avoid becoming depressed. In physiological state strategy, I refined my thoughts to recognize that studies were not exhaustive, so I should have spared energy for other activities. This boosted my ability to handle stressors. Another important strategy that I employed was verbal persuasion when visitors were around. This made me more active and become appreciated with positive remarks. This encouraged me to work hard and boost my confidence.
Headspace Program
Headspace is a mental health program developed in response to the need to improve accessibility and effectiveness of healthcare to the youth suffering from cognitive and drug-dependent problems. The program targets at young people aged between 12 and 25 years. The initiative encourages the youth with cognitive disorders to seek professional help. The program also empowers the communities to be able to respond in time to the issues in focus.
This is done through provision of education and trainings. The healthcare concepts of this program are established on the realization that adolescents do not meet mental health needs that must be addressed in their development using the available local resources (McGorry et al. 68). The program works by creating friendly platforms where the suffering youth can seek for help.
Works Cited
McGorry, Patrick, Tanti Chris, Stokes Ryan, Hickie Ian, Carnell Kate, Littlefield Lyndel and Moran John. “Headspace: Australia’s National Youth Mental Health Foundation- Where young minds come first.” The Medical Journal of Australia 187.7 (2007): 68. Web.