Month: February 2017

After having complete the Holmes-Rache Inventory scale I totalled up my score to be 69 over the previous year. This gives the implication that I have a relatively low amount of life change and a low susceptibility to stress-induced health breakdown. I feel quite relaxed about my score and also quite relieved that my stress levels are not too high. At this stage in my life I am relatively happy with how things are going and have minimum stress levels. However,  I feel that there was certain things I am stressed about that didn’t appear in the Holmes- rache inventory test such as the thought of my first year university exams looming over my head. I often over think the idea of these exams and put myself down as I always think the worst in exam situations. By worrying and constantly thinking about this I instantly become stressed and get stressed about being stressed and usually end up a teary mess.

In addition to this, I am constantly stressed about my university, work and social life and maintaining a healthy balance between all three of these. I always find myself tied up and worried that if I don’t spend enough time on one of these aspects I will not only let myself down but other people as well. By keeping up with my university work during the week I usually make time for my family and friends at the weekend and relax during this part of the week. Work is another aspect that I can easily come stressed about as I am constantly forced to complete over time by my boss and I feel they are unaware of the high demand of work my course at university has.

Despite this, there are many combats I do to relieve my stress and try to forget and over come what I am stressed about. My most important combat to stress is listening and talking to my friends and family about my problems and worries. I like to talk about my problems with people who have experienced or experiencing similar problems to myself as we can provide each other with support and advice. I am aware that my friends and family are always there for me in time of need and do there best to support me and make me happy.  I often find myself listening to music while tidying my room or before I go to my bed at night, this allows me to calm down and really think about my worries as well as making me happier. Another combat I use frequently is exercise. I make time to go a walk or go to the gym during the week in between university and work to release my stress by exercising and staying healthy. By exercising I instantly feel better about myself as it allows me to take my mind off my worries in life and focus on keeping myself fit. One stress combat that I use that is almost like a guilty pleasure is online shopping, this takes me mind off things and allows me to treat myself when I a feeling down.

 

After taking the Holmes Rahe Life Stress Inventory, I scored a total of 62 points falling under the category of having a relatively low amount of life change and a low susceptibility to stress-induced health breakdown. I feel obtaining this low score and being in this category is correct when relating my life events to stress. Being 18 years old I have not experienced many life changing events that have caused me trauma or affected my health.

However regardless of my age I deal with stress and pressures that affect my mental state everyday. The biggest stress related event that has occurred in the past year was my transition from school to university. I feel a mass amount of pressure to succeed in my course as failing will impact and slow down the process of me becoming a teacher. Jumping into a new level of education and learning to juggle heavy work loads has definitely affected my mental state and made me feel overwhelmed to the point of having feelings of anxiety. Also being committed to a part-time job has triggered more stress as I need prioritise work over studying at times.

My age also relates to my stress. Young people have so many pressures these days, one of which I dominantly deal with is the pressure to maintain a social life. I have many important commitments in my life and I find it difficult to fit in having fun and taking time off. Having support of friends and significant others are good buffers of stress therefore it would benefit me to have this social support. Social support allows people to feel cared for, esteemed and have share companionship.

Strategies which I personally use when to buffer stress is enhancing my physical fitness through doing vigorous exercise 3 times a week. I feel this helps my mental state improve and relieve the stress I feel throughout the week. I also use my supportive relationships with my friends and family to get advice and encouragement from them when I feel extremely overwhelmed.

The purpose of this article is to investigate the effects of social support, hardiness, challenge, and the control on the relationship between stress and depression.

Stress has a major impact on a person’s life. In some cases stress can be positive, for example having nerves when carrying out a presentation may aid you and show that you care about presenting well. On the other hand, stress can have a massive negative impact on a person’s health, such as anxiety and mental breakdown’s. To combat stress social support is very important. Social support is the degree to which a person’s basic social needs are met through interaction with others. This is extremely important in combating stress because engaging with other people can allow people to relieve their stress through speaking or even from a sense of touch.

Depression is another factor that negatively affects a person’s health. There is no positive effects of having depression. To conquer depression, social support is also very important. Being able to interact with family, friends and helpful networks are essential in make a person feel more important and less alone.

Being unable to have control over your life has a negative impact of a person’s health because it can cause things such as stress and depression. Being unorganised and out of control can lead a person to become very anxious and more likely to have a mental breakdown. A way to allow control in a person’s life is to keep updated with workloads, for example when you are in University.

 

 

After completing the Holmes – Rahe stress inventory, I scored 236 points which put me in the middle category which suggests I have a 50% chance of a breakdown in the next 2 years. This gave me a revelation that I need to start adapting some stress dealing mechanisms as I have a lot of stress on myself and upon thinking, am not good dealing with it. This score has given me the realisation that I should start taking more care of my mind and body and start letting myself rely on help from others to avoid the outcome that this test is suggesting i am at risk of. However, I felt that the test was aimed at older, more independent individuals and a test targeted for young adults could be more accurate. I also believe that stress can be due to temporary issues, for example, at the moment I am planning my trip to New York for the summer. This stress will be gone in a few weeks.
i believe that the majority of my stress derives from being a student and this test did not state anything about that as so I believe it was fairly inaccurate. Another area that brings me a great deal of stress is my part time job in a hotel and by working I have limited my time for social activities, studying and time for myself – neither of these factors are mentioned. A sign of my stress is my sleep pattern. On an average night, I get around 6 hours sleep and this is due to stress and late nights from work which means I have to stay up later to complete any outstanding work that I have.
To combat the stress in my life I am going to try and take some more time to relax. I am constantly trying to please and see other people and so I am trying to go to uni, work out, see my family, my friends and my boyfriend. By trying to please everyone, I often run down myself and so I am going to try and take an hour a day to have a bath or a nap to recuperate myself.

After completing the Holmes Rah Score Stress rating sheet, I scored a total of 152; which I’m told ‘implies a 50% chance of a major health breakdown in the next 2 years’. My biggest stress related event accounting to this score was the death of my papa just under a year ago. I was very … Continue reading Holmes Rahe Score Reflection – 27/02/2017 →

when doing the Holmes Raye Inventory I got a score of 208 which puts me in the 150 to 300 points category where I  have a 50% chance of health breakdown in the next 2 years.  This is a clear indication that there is a lot more stress in my life than I was initially aware of

When receiving this score I was generally surprised as I like to think I am not a person that get to stressed out about things. However on reflection of the questions asked I realised that 6 of them apply to myself which had relatively high points attached to them. Although this is the case I feel like overall I handle my stress well and do not often feel extremely stressed

Over the last year there the most stressful things I have had to deal with have primarily been a family death soon after family illness.   Although through out them both I have been able to stay focused and positive. The other things I sometimes stress about it university work and money(not having enough).

The main way I combat my stress is by communicating with my family as I know they are my biggest safety net and know they all just want the best for me so are happy to listen and offer advise. Along with this I also find comfort in going to the gym to clear my head when things get especially stressful. When going to the gym I almost always bump into someone I know who usually is able to make light heart of things.  Another way I would be less stressed in my life would be to try make better my time management as I can often worry when I forgotten about something due with either university or work.