Stress Relief for College Students

“I’m so stressed,” is a common phrase repeated during this time of year. What exactly is

stress? Stress is a response our body has to anything that overwhelms or threatens the body’s

ability to maintain balance or homeostasis. Whether it be physical, mental, social, or emotional,

stress plays a part in most of our lives. The Harvard Medical School estimates that nearly 40

million Americans experience anxiety or persistent worrying. More specifically, 85% of college

students have reported feeling overwhelmed by the amount of responsibilities they had, and 30%

have reported stress has had a negative impact on their performance academically (“Mental

Health and College Students”, n.d.). College-students, at a point where various responsibilities

are built up, may find it beneficial to adapt practices to prevent stress such as meditation, positive

affirmations, and more. The aim of this lesson is to help ready college students for times of stress

so they may better handle it.

Stress can be divided into two categories: short-term and long-term. Both activating the

“fight or flight” mode of the parasympathetic nervous system, short-term stress activates the

release of epinephrine but long-term activates the release of cortisol. Although acute-stress can

be seen to be beneficial in times when enhanced performance is needed, over long periods of

time, “those same life-saving responses in your body can suppress immune, digestive, sleep, and

reproductive systems, which may cause them to stop working normally” (National Institute of

Mental Health, n.d.). In particular to college-students, a recent study found “increased heart rate,

blood pressure and anger are the main symptoms of stress on college students and because of

these symptoms their health and studies are getting affected” (Anusha, and Ramana, 2015).
Long-term release of cortisol is linked to other symptoms too: an inhibited the immune system,

decreased digestion, an altered reproductive system, and increased weight gain.

Being able to find alternative methods for reducing stress is important as chronic stress

can lead to unhealthy behaviors such as increased alcohol consumption, drug abuse, and irregular

eating patterns. According to the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, “higher

perceived stress was associated with greater intake of energy from fat, high-fat snacks, and fast-

food items as well as lower intake of energy from carbohydrates” (Barrington, 2014). Also, in a

study done on 54 freshman college students, they found that compared to the beginning of the

semester to the end, that all students experienced “increases in weight (2.5±6.2lbs), fat

(1.4±2.4%), and academic stress were noted in all students...while perceived stress (such as lack

of control over life-events) increased in females only” (Mansperger, Morgan, and Ludy, 2017).

Since obesity is a major concern to the American population, managing stress could be a key

factor in the attempt to resist gaining unnecessary weight.

College students are highly susceptible to stress, which makes finding effective methods

for stress management important. Kumar (2016) states that, “stress can cause immediate effects

like increased heart rate & blood pressure, anxiety, panic attacks etc. and long term effects like

hypertension, myocardial infarction, stroke, memory loss etc…”. Common methods for reducing

stress include exercise, yoga, deep breathing, and positive mantras. In a study conducted by

Kumar (2016), it was concluded that exercise showed a significant reduction in stress:

Systolic BP, diastolic BP, pulse rate and the respiratory rate also showed significant

changes. The probable reason could be attributed to aerobic exercises. These exercises

benefit the individual by strengthening the muscles involved in respiration, by facilitating

the flow of air in and out of the lungs. Thereby improving oxygen levels and the pumping
 efficiency which together is called aerobic conditioning. This helps in improving mental

health & reducing stress. (Kumar, 2016, p.73)

The great thing about exercise is that it can be any type of activity a person genuinely enjoys

doing. What feels good to one person may not feel so good to another and we hope that students

become curious and explore an activity that they’ve never tried before.

Yoga has also been proven to promote a reduction in stress, Hatha yoga in particular is a

branch of yoga otherwise known as “moving meditation”. Hatha yoga implements mindfulness

and encourages one to implement present-centered awareness, non reaction, and nonjudgmental

acceptance of one's present state despite physical or psychological discomfort. A study from the

University of Texas at Austin found that, “In combination with promotion of mindful awareness

and acceptance, hatha yoga, especially when practiced at moderate to vigorous intensities, may

promote habituation to distress in low-distress tolerance persons”(Medina, 2015, p. 289). College

students have become too familiar with the overwhelming feeling of stress and anxiety due to a

large workload, peer pressure, and the maintenance of a social life. It is important to remove

ourselves from these stress-inducing situations and take the time to be present and aware of the

movement of our bodies, the stretching of our limbs, the feeling of our chest rising and falling as

we breathe and bringing ourselves back when distracting thoughts pull us away from our

practice.

With final exams around the corner the prevalence of anxiety and stress are high. Many

college students fear that the results of a test will determine their morality and value as a student

and these feelings can contaminate confidence prior to an exam. “While a degree of stress and

anxiety can enhance performance, high levels can quickly impair task-specific functioning”

(Wilkinson, 2001). During stress provoking situations we tend to restrict our breathing which
decreases the amount of oxygen being delivered to the brain, and can trigger our sympathetic

nervous system to go into fight or flight mode, which increases our heart rate, respiratory rate

and the release of cortisol. Wilkinson (2001) goes on to say that, “The restoration of correct

breathing effectively negates the potentially harmful effects of low levels of carbon dioxide on

cognitive functioning. Normal breathing also lowers stress and anxiety, thus increasing

attention/concentration and allowing higher levels of performance”. In situational settings, such

as during an exam, students can incorporate these breathing techniques to relax and gather

themselves before moving onto the next section of their exam. One of the most effective

techniques for controlling breathing and reducing stress and test anxiety is through the slowing

down respiration technique. This technique focuses on slowing down the rate of breathing to 10-

12 breaths per minute, slowing down our breathing has been proven to lower our heart rate and is

probably one of the best techniques when preparing for mental activities.

As a group, our goal was not just to help the college students recognize their stressors but

also recognize the need to reduce the effect of those stressors. Our demographic, although

centered towards college students did contain many variables as different students of different

ages, cultural groups, races, and more were involved. We conducted a pre-assessment

questionnaire to determine what causes stress, what do they do to de-stress, what are their

constraints to destressing, what they do when they are faced with a stressor, and lastly, how often

they feel stressed. However, as seen in the survey completed, most students no matter their

background, experienced stress multiple times throughout the week. This presentation to de-

stress would then be relatable to a large percentage of the group. For this reason we chose the

Health Belief Model: a model based off the idea that people’s beliefs will influence the way they

behave. By sending out surveys we were able to examine their perceived barriers to de-stressing
and the various cues to stress such as school, money, time management, and more. Additionally,

through the surveys, seeing what methods were used to de-stress allowed us to manipulate our

presentation to increase the likelihood of their success.

Since are presentation is based off the Health Belief Model, it was important to present

the potential threat students would see the need to modify their behaviors. This was

accomplished through presenting the long-term effects of stress. Lastly, this model was

appropriate as is presented methods to increase self-efficacy and the likelihood of success. By

doing the yoga and positive mantras together we could help the students feel like they could take

the methods into their own hands when experiencing stress on their own.

Stress is something all college students experience. In choosing this topic, we didn't want

to make it a normal college class lecture. After discussing various options, we decided to

combine the traditional presentation style (Transmission) with involvement (Apprenticeship).

Transmission is the traditional lecturing/ presentation style which is utilized in college lectures as

well as most other forums. This philosophy started in 1949, originally as a single transmission

theory, but evolved into the Communication theory. Using this approach, the authors are

explaining to the students, exactly what stress is, why students experience street, and the effects

of stress on the body and mind.

We felt that presenting the topic of stress in the traditional transmission lecture would not

help someone avoid or get rid of stress. So, we incorporated the cognitive Apprenticeship model

in our presentation to allow us to show examples of how to relieve stress. We believe the two

best methods to relieve stress are couple of yoga exercises and a deep breathing exercise. These

two models will allow us to provide not only information, but practical solutions to the college

students, so they can walk away with ways to combat stress and focus on learning.
 Discussion

From the data collected, almost all of the college students survey reported that they feel

stressed over half the amount of days in a week. The number one answer was 5 days out of the

week followed by 7 days. Almost 100% of those students also reported that school/work was one

of the reasons for their stress. In a study done by Mental Health and College students, they found

that 85% of college students have reported feeling overwhelmed by the amount of

responsibilities they had, and 30% have reported stress has had a negative impact on their

performance academically. When looking at the results of the post-questionnaire, nearly 90% of

the students admitted a need to reduce stress and nearly 50% admitted to wanting to implement

some of the techniques we provided. From our research we had found that exercise caused the

release of endorphins, hormones that have been shown to reduce stress, relieve pain, and

decrease blood pressure; exercise also improved the muscles involved in respiration and

increased the amount of oxygen being delivered throughout the systemic system. Making sure to

emphasis that exercise is any activity/movement that you enjoy doing was important because this

gave students a wider variety of options and activities to choose from. Later that day, after

students had completed our yoga activity, we had many people telling us how relaxed our

activity made them feel, and that they needed to do this more often especially with a very heavy

loaded semester. Breathing exercises have also been shown to reduce heart rate, blood pressure,

and stress and are easily accessible tools to use during stress provoking situations such as before

or during a stressful an exam or presentation. We hope that by exposing students to new

activities, such as yoga and simple breathing exercises, it will influence them to use these tools

when they are looking to relieve some stress.

 The main limitation to the success of this project was scheduling. It was hard to get

together and practice the presentation as a whole. Since we knew about this project from the

beginning of the year, maybe starting a little earlier would have been a better idea. A pro for

Melanie was that we were to distribute work equally and all worked off of our strengths to make

and add to parts of the paper, handout, powerpoint, yoga and breathing exercise. A con was that

we did not fully focus on our audience, college students, during the presentation enough. We

talked about it a lot in the paper but during the presentation we did not relay a lot of the data we

found from research about college students and stress. For Natalie, a positive aspect was that our

group agreed on each step in the planning, execution, and evaluation. Together we came up with

questions we wanted answered and affordable solutions for our target population. A con was

there were too many areas of de-stressing that we focused on so we were not able to go into

depth the benefits of each. We mainly provided solutions not necessarily a lot of scientific

evidence. Ian felt that our group worked well together in gathering and preparing the information

for this project. The structure and information was geared correctly toward College students in

any level of education major or concentration. We gave some great examples of how to de-stress

and stop your self before you stress out. A con was that we could have used the audience more

in the presentation, we could had them give examples of why they stress and how they de-stress

or not destress which matches the info we collect before the presentation. We could have sighted

more evidence of each kind of stress relieve. We also could have giving ideas on what each one

exercise individually can effect in our body when we performing them. Kim felt that the group

was very efficient when it came to managing our time. Our message was clear and our audience

enjoyed learning simple methods/tools to reduce stress. However, we didn't get enough time to
thoroughly go through all slides and, like Natalie said, we could have narrowed down the most

important details to provide better information for our audience.

From this lesson, we have seen the main points of stress: it plays a large role in students

lives and poses a problem. You could say that it is just a part of the college experience. This

problem arises through negatively impacting the body in many aspects; physical, cognitive,

emotional, and physiological. It is important to deal with the stress in a healthy way in order to

decrease the potential of long-term complications. This lesson has been able to identify options

for students to relieve stress through the implementation of yoga, exercise, breathing, and

positive mantras which have been shown to de-stress the body.

 References

5 Things You Should Know About Stress. (n.d.). Retrieved November 26, 2018, from

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/stress/index.shtml

Barrington, Wendy E. et al. (2014). Perceived Stress and Eating Behaviors by Sex, Obesity

Status, and Stress Vulnerability: Findings from the Vitamins and Lifestyle (VITAL)

Study.

Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Volume 114 , Issue 11 , 1791 - 1799

By the numbers: Stress on campus. (n.d.). Retrieved November 26, 2018, from

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2017/09/numbers.aspx

G. Anusha, & P. Venkata Ramana. (2015). A study on symptoms of stress on college students

using combined disjoint block fuzzy cognitive maps (CDBFCM). International Journal of

Advances in Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, 2(3), 177-182.

Harvard Health Publishing. (n.d.). Anxiety. Retrieved November 13, 2018, from

https://www.health.harvard.edu/topics/anxiety

Kumar, S., Bhanagari, A., Mohile, A., & Limaye, A. (2016). Effect of Aerobic Exercises, Yoga

and Mental Imagery on Stress in College Students-A Comparative Study. Indian Journal

of Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy - An International Journal, 10(3), 69-

74.Mayo Clinic Staff. (2016).

Mansperger, Morgan, & Ludy. (2017). The Relationship between Body Composition, Stress, and

Academic Performance in First-Semester College Students. Journal of the Academy of

Nutrition and Dietetics, 117(9), A36.

Medina, J., Hopkins, L., Powers, M., Baird, S. O., & Smits, J. (2015). The Effects of a Hatha

Yoga Intervention on Facets of Distress Tolerance. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, 44(4),

288-300.

Mental Health and College Students. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://adaa.org/finding-

help/helping-others/college-students/facts

Spadola, Christine E., Rottapel, Rebecca, Khandpur, Neha. et al. (2017). Enhancing yoga

participation: A qualitative investigation of barriers and facilitators to yoga among

predominantly racial/ethnic minority, low-income adults. Complementary Therapies in

Clinical Practices Volume 29 , November 2017, Pg. 97-104

Wilkinson, L., Buboltz, W., & Seeman, E. (2001). Using breathing techniques to ease test

anxiety. Guidance & Counselling, 16(3), 76. Retrieved November 26, 2018, from

http://web.b.ebscohost.com.jpllnet.sfsu.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=2&sid=894c3105-

f70a-4802-98fd-

0017763b4077%40sessionmgr104&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLGNvb2tpZSx1cmwsd

WlkJnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=7267675&db=ehh
APPENDIX A:

LESSON PLAN: Reducing Stress

Duration: 25 minutes

Target Group: College students

Overall Goal: To increase awareness of the effects of long-term stress on aspects of health and

provide methods to reduce it.

Major Concepts:

● The Effect and Symptoms of Stress

- Physiological effect of Stress

- Emotionally, Mentally, Physically, Socially

● Ways to Reduce Stress

- Exercise

- Yoga

- Meditation

- Breathing

Icebreaker or Attention Grabber: (1 minute):

● Ask the students for a show of hands for those who are stressed?

Objectives and Learning Domains; Generalizations and Learning Experiences

1. Upon completion of this section, students will be able to take themselves through their own

breathing and yoga practice in order to reduce stress.

Domain: Psychomotor domain -set, guided response

Generalization: Yoga and breathing practices are methods of stress reduction.

Learning Experiences: (5-10 minutes)

● Have the students stand behind their desks and close their eyes.

● Manipulate the students with guidance through a breathing exercise.

● Using the Powerpoint, students will imitate the teacher in a guided yoga practice.

2. Upon completion of this section, students will be able to define stress, recognize the

physiological effects of stress, and the four main symptoms (emotional health, mental health,

physical health, social health) it has an effect on.

Domain: Cognitive domain -knowledge

Generalization: Chronic stress is harmful to the body.

Learning Experiences: (15 minutes)

Provide students with a Powerpoint presentation covering the following concepts

Define Stress:

● Stress can be defined as “the generalized, non-specific response of the body to any factor

that overwhelms, or threatens to overwhelm, the body’s compensatory abilities to

maintain homeostasis”. (Torres and Nowson, 2007).

Define the physiological effect of stress:

 ● Stress switches on the sympathetic nervous system inducing our “fight or flight”

response. The hypothalamus sounds the alarm and stimulates the pituitary gland to

release the stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol.

● Stress increases the heart rate, increases blood pressure, increases risk for heart attack or

stroke, inhibits the immune system, decreases digestion, induces weight gain, and alters

the reproductive system.

Define the 4 main symptoms of stress:

● Physical Stress: headache, eye twitches, backache, shoulder pain, grinding/clenching

teeth, and digestive issues.

● Emotional Stress: feeling anxious, irritability, depression, moodiness, low self-esteem,

and frequent crying.

● Mental Stress: short attention span, forgetfulness, lack/low productivity, pessimism, and

fatigue.

● Social Stress: withdrawal, isolation, reduced sex drive, projection, loneliness.

3. Upon completion of this section, students will acknowledge the benefits of exercise, yoga,

meditation, and breathing with stress reduction. They will also contribute through the creation of

their own personal mantra.

Domain: Affective domain -receiving, responding, valuing

Generalization: Yoga, exercise, meditation, breathing, and positive mantras contribute to stress

reduction.

Learning Experiences: (5-10 minutes)

 ● Present the students with various findings/research/studies conducted and their results

advocating the benefits of the effect of exercise, yoga, breathing, and meditation on the

body.

● Perform easy breathing exercise with the students.

● Show students the examples of positive mantras and advocate them towards creating their

own.

Teaching Aids and Materials:

● Powerpoint projector and screen

● Powerpoint Slides

● Handouts including attached tea bags

● Individual Chocolates

Summary: – Stress, the body’s response to factors that overwhelms the body’s compensatory

abilities to maintain homeostasis, influences the body’s physiological processes. Turned on by

the sympathetic nervous system, our “fight or flight” response causes the hypothalamus to

stimulate the pituitary gland to release the stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol. Long term

release of cortisol leads to increased the heart rate, increased blood pressure, increased risk for

heart attack or stroke, a defective immune system, decreased digestion, weight gain, and an

altered reproductive system. However methods such as exercise, yoga, breathing, meditation, and

positive mantras can reduce stress preventing such effects on the body.

Assignment: Have them write their own positive mantra on the back of the handout.

APPENDIX B

Pre-Questionnaire Survey

Created in Qualtrics:
APPENDIX C

Post-Questionnaire Survey

Created in Qualtrics:
APPENDIX D

Results of pre-questionnaire

i. Table and/or figures of survey data

How Often Do You Feel Stressed?

What Makes You Stressed?

How Do You Relieve Stress?

Constraints To De-Stressing?

What Do You Do When A Stressful Situation Arises?

APPENDIX E

Results of post-questionnaire:

Q1 - Will you implement any of the stress relief tips when you feel stressed?

# Answer % Count

1 Definitely yes 47.83% 11

2 Probably yes 43.48% 10

3 Might or might not 8.70% 2

4 Probably not 0.00% 0

5 Definitely not 0.00% 0

Total 100% 23

Q2 - Do you think it is important to lower stress in your life?

# Answer % Count

1 Definitely yes 86.96% 20

2 Probably yes 8.70% 2

3 Might or might not 0.00% 0

4 Probably not 4.35% 1

5 Definitely not 0.00% 0

Total 100% 23

Q3 - Will you use the positive mantra that you wrote?

# Answer % Count

1 Definitely yes 21.74% 5

2 Probably yes 47.83% 11

3 Might or might not 30.43% 7

4 Probably not 0.00% 0

5 Definitely not 0.00% 0

Total 100% 23

Q4 - Did you learn anything new?

# Answer % Count

1 Yes 60.87% 14

2 Maybe 26.09% 6

3 No 13.04% 3
Total 100% 23