What Causes Stress and Taking Breaks to Clear Your Mind
It is obvious that being overly stressed has negative effects on our minds. After reading a classmate’s blog on the same topic of stress relief and looking back at my own first post I realized I failed to talk about what actually causes us to be stressed. My classmate Haley Lang talked about this in her blog “Taking a Minute to Breathe”. On this topic, she says “I placed such high expectations for myself so I always overloaded myself with more than I could handle, leading to constant stress, and many break downs. Once we graduate and go on to our real career’s the stress levels will only get higher.”(Lang, 2017) This quote makes a great point about how stress, while outwardly is caused by things such as work or school or relationships, when it comes down to it is caused by us. It is caused by the expectations we put on ourselves to succeed. While probably not the intended idea of the quote it also shows us why these stress relief methods can work. If stress was only caused by outside factors we wouldn’t be able to have many ways to manage it without changing our lifestyles. But since it is caused by our minds there are steps we can take to control it.
When looking into stress management one of the most important things to look for are specific methods of managing the stress. One method I really liked I saw in an article on medium “Pressure Doesn’t Always Create Diamonds: Stress Management in the Workplace”. In addition to giving the authors own definition of stress and how it affects us she also goes into specific methods of stress relief. One specific method talked about in the article stuck out to me is something I have been doing all semester and will continue now with the knowledge that it actually helps. This method is taking 15-minute mind wandering breaks. The author says on this topic, “wide body of research on “the default mode network,” or the “resting” mind, reveals that mental downtime heightens creativity, aids memory consolidation, and even improves decision-making. Allowing ourselves to daydream in sustained chunks throughout the day helps us recharge, make sense of the day’s work, and keep stamina.”(Bisharat, 2017) Basically what this is saying that giving yourself short periods to relax and clear your mind greatly improve your productivity in the time you are working. Taking these breaks refreshes and recharges us. When I personally take a break, to clear my mind and let my self daydream, will usually put my headphones in and go for a walk outside. I’ve always noticed that it helps me clear my mind but I didn’t really understand the full perks of it until I read this article. Because of these perks I will definitely continue to use this method and will continue to look into other methods of stress management to try and talk about in later blogs.
Citations
Bisharat, V. (2017, July 03). Pressure Doesn’t Always Create Diamonds: Stress Management in the Workplace. Retrieved September 24, 2017, from https://medium.com/taking-note/pressure-doesnt-always-create-diamonds-stress-management-in-the-workplace-145938a392a8
Lang, H. (2017, September 21). Overcoming Stress- Taking a Minute to Breathe. Retrieved September 24, 2017, from https://medium.com/taking-a-minute-to-breathe/overcoming-stress-b402b5a8126b
