This behavior change, on reducing my amount of stress has been very useful. It has not only helped my mental well being, but even my physicality. In the beginning of this change I was not fully giving my best version of myself, it was difficult to handle everything that was going on at school and within my personal life. I was getting overwhelmed and was having emotional breakdowns and was just trying to get task down and pushing my well being aside. As weeks went by there was little progress, some weeks were better than others. The tough weeks consisted of exams, large assignments and personal problems. School seemed to outweigh my stress more, so i made it a focus to just work on new methods to reduce my stress. I was able to form new studying habits and progress my exam scores, while also figuring out how to balance and plan a schedule. As weeks progressed I started to a apply these to by everyday task, and was also able to give myself the last week to focus on my personal being. I was noticing that with these positive habits, I was also trying to maintain health eating habits and personal time aside to do something I enjoyed. I was dedicating a day of the week to do something I like and not focus on school, normally Saturday, to just destress. With having a balance of everything I started to form better habits and make this a better routine for myself, decreasing my level of stress. I know now there is always solutions to deal with stress, and want to continue this journey on my own.
Week #5
This week was extremely productive, I felt as though I was getting the hang of how I best work when faced with drastic amount of stress. My overall attainment score is still at a 4 because I feel that I am getting into a routine on how to balance all of my stressors. I knew this week was going to be tough due to a exam and lab that was due, but I still wanted to make sure I had a balance for all of my assignments. My studying methods for my exam improved so much more, I learned that I work best with making flashcards but also repeating what I know outloud to someone else so it can stay concrete in my mind. This is something I most definitely want to keep in mind when studying for future exams. As for a lab that was a large portion of our grade, I realized that I needed to get it done and started work beforehand so the day before it was due I just needed to revise the final paper. Though I know it was one of my biggest task of the week, I still made room for all of my other classes to review notes for the week to continue to stay on track with all of my classes. Having the extra support from professors and my advisor continued to motivate me to reach for my goals. Unfortunately I was looking at my stress within a school setting but was not quite focused on my personal well being. I was disregarding personal matters because I felt like it was the best option for me, but instead it was physically/emotionally draining me. As for my well being I want to be able to take 30 minutes out of my day to just do something that relaxes me, and at least dedicate one day of the week where I do not think about school. I feel it will decrease my academic stressors and personal stressors.
