Stresses induced by modern day living habits takes a serious toll on the well being of families everywhere. Deadlines to meet at the workplace, financial obligations to be met at the homefront, relationship issues, parenting issues and the like have caused a lot of havoc in a lot of people’s lives. News articles and magazines are filled with stress induced fatigue and stress induced senseless actions taken by people in all kinds of stressful situations. And this stress is not limited to any specific geographical region, any specific people or any specific age group. Stress seems to be affecting not only adults in the prime of their lives, but also the elderly and children of both sexes male and female. Management of stress is extremely important at this juncture in our society and unfortunately this is not something that is taught in schools and universities. While this article cannot encompass all aspects of stress management, we will deal here only with one aspect of stress management and that is addressing the source of stress.

Stress management is usually associated with yoga or meditation and other relaxation exercises. While mind calming techniques such as deep breathing and calming scene visualizations do play an important role in stress reduction, in the opinion of the author, stress reduction is different from stress management. To associate stress reduction with stress management is akin to saying reducing your household expenses is the same as home finance management; sure reducing the expenses will certainly help, but that is not management. Stress management invokes the use of techniques to manage stress, with the full awareness that you cannot lead a stress free life in the modern world and run to the mountains. Hence the first step in stress management is the acceptance that there will be factors that push your limits and introduce stress levels in your day to day life. Now, once that is accepted, you can proceed to manage it. Management of stress involves first of all finding the source of the stress and addressing the source rather than the result which is the stress. For example, because there is a tight deadline for you to meet for some project at work, you may get stressed; in this case, the source of stress is the deadline at work; you need to manage your resources, time, people, etc to ensure that you will meet this deadline and you would have managed the stress effectively. Another example here; let’s say you are in the process of buying a house and your finances are really not in great shape to purchase this house; you are getting stressed all over. In this case, you need to identify that purchasing the house is not the source of stress, rather it is your bad financial management that is the culprit; you have one of two choices, you can face the reality and back off buying this property until you get all your financial ducks in a row or you can opt to buy a lesser valued home. The house project may suffer, but you would have mitigated the stress from buying the house when your finances are terrible. As you can see from these two examples, addressing the source of the stress many times involves being completely honest with yourself and facing reality the way it is instead of hiding behind the curtain of imaginary bliss.

At what age do students have the greatest stress? Young parents might say preschoolers have the greatest stress. They are leaving their parents for the first time, and have many reasons to be afraid. Older parents say middle school students have the most stress, having just entered adolescence. Still others will cite secondary school as the time of greatest stress. Most agree, however, that the stresses of university life are very great.
Stress management among students in universities is a hit-or-miss matter. Some universities schedule optional stress management classes, but students often lack the time to attend. If they have the time, they lack interest. Stress Management Keys
Specific keys will open the door to better stress management among students in universities. Some of those keys are being used, but others are lost or neglected. Without them, stress management is limited for the students. We will not attempt to list here every key, or to put them in any given order. Rather, we would like to suggest stress management keys that may be lost in the rubble of today’s society.
1. Clear definitions: Effective stress management among students requires clear definitions of words such as “stressor,” “stress,” “eustress,” and “distress.”
Students who do not understand clearly what stress is cannot be expected to succeed at stress management. They may be trying to manage stressors, thinking they are managing stress. The outcome may very well be increased stress rather than stress management.
Stress management among students in universities can begin only after they understand that the extra demands made upon them are stressors, not stress. They then must understand that their response to those demands constitutes stress. Finally, if they are to get a grasp on practical stress management, they will need to know that there are two kinds of stress. One, eustress, is beneficial. The other, distress, is detrimental.
Students who understand these concepts, and embrace them, have unlocked the first door leading to stress management.
2. Action Plan: With a firm understanding of the definitions, students are ready to formulate a stress management action plan. They are ready for the proverbial locking of the barn door to prevent the horse’s escape.
Armed with the knowledge that stress is the response to stressors, students can learn to control that response. They can determine to take specific, proactive steps to prepare for stressors. They can, in a sense, ambush the stressors as a step of stress management.
3. Stressor Identification: An important part of the stress management ambush is to learn to identify the enemy. A focused tertiary student will see stressors and know them for what they are. Every university student has stressors. All of us have unusual demands made on us. The key to stress management is to identify those demands as stressors.
In universities and colleges, stressors take the form of unaccustomed activities. Sharing a room with a stranger makes demands on a student. A new form of study is demanding. Financial resources and potentially new dating standards can be stressors.
Whether students are in Italy or Iowa, they are free of the constraints of home, and that freedom is a stressor. Freedom makes unusual demands on one who has not had it in fullness.
All of these and about 2000 more are stressors that a student must identify in order to engage in stress management.
4. Turning Distress into Eustress: Another key that helps unlock the doors to stress management is that of turning distress into eustress. Students often act as victims of their stressors. They believe they can do nothing but suffer. Stress management requires that they learn to turn a potentially negative response to stressors into a positive response.
Eustress, the beneficial stress, is what carries an excited, happy couple through the whirlwind of preparation for a large wedding. From the moment of the proposal, the couple may be surrounded by stressors. Extra demands, unusual demands are being made on them. Yet they are not depressed. The demands do not weigh heavily on them. They embrace them, and respond with smiles. They accept the challenge of getting everything done well and on time because they choose to accept it that way.
The same type of response can be enlisted on other occasions that call for stress management. Much of what students view as negative stress can be turned around, energizing them to excel.
Is this a false, rosy-tinted view of stress management? Not at all. Does this negate principles such as deep breathing, exercise, healthy diet, and regular sleep? No. As we said, this is not an attempt to provide every key to stress management. It is an effort to look at keys that are being neglected.
Stress management among students in universities can be stripped of many programs, drugs, and therapies if these keys are used well.

The absolute BIGGEST challenge that entrepreneurs, artists, authors and other creative geniuses that come to me for help is productivity. Some know they need help with time management techniques. Others are struggling but they haven’t discovered that poor time management is the source of their frustration.By asking a few questions, I zero in on the source of their misery, and evaluate whether they can benefit from the special time management techniques I teach. I just look for certain things they have in common.4 Things All Entrepreneurs, Authors and Other Creative Geniuses That Need Time Management Help Have in Common:- They are amazingly creative yet they feel like underachievers because even though they generate brilliant ideas with jaw-dropping ease, they struggle to act on them.- These “live-wire” geniuses are adventurous, ambitious and energetic. They’ll start a hundred projects, but then bog down because of indecision, procrastination or a feeling of overwhelm. – They search relentlessly for new time management tips and try anything to improve their time management skills regardless of past struggles, but standard, “common sense” time management techniques just don’t work.- Despite their best efforts, they’ve accumulated a never-ending To Do list (I call it their To Do “book”) and they’re frustrated with time management techniques that don’t work.These thrill-seeking rebels share another characteristic. Each was diagnosed with ADD or ADHD as a child, has adult ADHD, or exhibits many adult ADHD traits. Their brains work differently than most people. But, as soon as they turn on to my counter-intuitive time management techniques they experience a dramatic turnaround almost overnight.See, you have to understand that your productivity depends on your mental and physical energy. Yes, you produce less when you’re tired, but your energy levels fluctuate far more than you realize. How Your Energy Levels Affect Your Productivity- At times, you have ample mental energy. You can laser-focus on anything that interests you, you’re amazingly productive, and you keep going long after other people are exhausted.- Other times, you have plenty of physical energy, but your brain is also racing. You can’t concentrate. You’re eager to move and go through short (physical) tasks with ease.- You need time to recharge. Your brain isn’t a plough-horse, plodding sedately. It’s a racehorse, capable of stunning bursts of power and speed. Like a racehorse, you must recharge between races. – You also have your own unique energy fluctuations between these that create periods when you’re better at some tasks than you are at others.Your energy fluctuations follow an identifiable pattern. When my clients track their energy level fluctuations at work and at play, within a week they have an accurate map of their daily energy levels, and the pattern repeats almost identically from week to week. As a creative genius, you’ll always have many tasks on your To Do list! You effortlessly think up cool things to do or important things you should do. But you have to commit to do those tasks at a specific time by moving them from your To Do list to your agenda. Unfortunately, the large, unstructured space of your blank agenda often leads to indecisiveness and procrastination. Think of it as writer’s block for time management. A Time Management Technique That Will Add Productive Hours to Your Day and Cut Your “To-Do” List Down to Size GuaranteedYou need a way to categorize and prioritize your tasks. Traditional time management techniques group tasks by importance. But assigning letter and number combinations to signify priority loses its effectiveness when you have 47 “A” tasks, at least six of which are important enough to be an “A1!” Instead, you should group your tasks by the energy required.Now, here’s the secret to doubling your productivity and cutting your To Do list down to size. Use the map of your energy fluctuations to match tasks from your To Do list with a time when you typically have the ideal energy level for that task. Almost effortlessly, you’ll give your productivity a huge shot in the arm. Match your activities with times when you have the ideal energy type and level for maximum productivity doing that task and you’ll tear through your To Do list like a tornado.