RUNNING HEAD: UNIT 9 FINAL PROJECT 1

HW410

Stress: Critical Issues in Management and Prevention

Unit 9 Final Project

TJ Helms

HW410: Stress: Critical Issues in Management and Prevention

Beth Hart

3-9-2021
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Stress is a big deal in today’s world not just with certain groups or certain people but

everyone deals with stress and some people deal with more of it then others, but everyone has

dealt with stress in some point in their lives. Some people may be stressed and not even know

it because the signs of stress can start out very minor and grow over time. Some of the

symptoms of too much stress can be getting sick, decreased energy, insomnia, headaches, and

an overall low quality of life (Link, 2018). Some populations may even have more stress than

others, which is why we need to address this issue and help decrease stress in this population

that I am talking about which is the young adults, mostly college age young adults. I feel like

this population needs help with stress and learning ways to lower their stress levels and have

an overall better sense of being, especially with being in college and all of the other things

going on in their lives with friends pressuring them to other things. There was also a report

that about 60% of college students reported that they had stress levels so high that they

couldn’t get their homework done on more than one occasion (nyu.edu, n.d.). I feel like this

population of people needs help.

For college students, there are a lot of things that can cause stress, which stress is

caused usually by something or any external source that causes issue for the person being

stressed and stress can come in many different forms and pose different health issues. Some of

the things that can cause issues with stress for college students is the time crunch to get

assignments done, that is a time related stressor where the time is the stressor to the student.

Another source of stress would be being depressed whether it be from not getting good grades

from an assignment or some other issue, depression can cause stress to go up. A third stressor

would be higher levels of anxiety which can be caused by being in a new environment that
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someone is not accustom to such as a college student in a new town they have never been to,

they may feel anxious (Hansen, n.d.). A fourth stressor could be constant headaches from

studying all night or too much noise or something else and that can cause issues as well.

A fifth stressor could be that the college students aren’t getting enough sleep at night

and that can lead up to insomnia and the little sleep could be from studying all night from the

previous example. Another stressor could be that the student is lonely in this town and doesn’t

know anyone and is having issues making friends (Hansen, n.d.). That could also be another

stressor. A seventh stressor for this age group could be finances during and after school. One

financial issue after they graduate could be the potentially high amount of student loans and

the students could be worrying about how they are going to pay it off even though there in

college now and don’t have to worry about it for a while. An eighth stressor could be post-

graduation plans, or trying to figure out what they are going to do once they finish school

cause after that unless they go back to school for something else they are done with school at

this point (Hansen, n.d.). Another stressor could be relationships with family because they are

no longer near their family, they are in a town miles away and it could pose an issue to family

bonds with the student gone for months at a time. The last stressor could be overeating

because stress from depression and other things can cause people to overeat and gain weight

which is very bad and is a stressor based from a stressor (Hansen, n.d.). I remember having

some of these stressors when I was in college as well and they can cause a lot of issues but if

students learn to handle the stress correctly, they can lower the effect it has on their lives.

The above stressors can cause issues with a lot of college students and if these stress

related issues aren’t handled correctly, it can cause a lot of future stress related issues and

other bad things to the body. Also as stated before, college for a lot of people seems to be the
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most stressed they have ever gotten in their lives which is bad because people should be

getting stressed later in life as they get older, college students should be busy studying and not

getting stressed. Getting too much stress can put pressure on the body and can cause the body

to suffer of several health-related issues if not taken care of properly. Some of the health

issues related to stress are high blood pressure, aches and pains, issues with sleeping,

weakened immune system or becoming immune-compromised, and muscle tension

(clevelandclininc.org, n.d.). Therefore, I believe college students need to be learning stress

relieving techniques to help them learn how to diffuse stress and get better so they can focus

on getting good grades and not worrying about everything else.

There are some stress management techniques that I feel would be especially beneficial

to college students in particular and I have used a couple of these before myself when I was in

college and they helped me so I think it would help them as well. The first one is for students to

get organized and develop a strategy early on, on how to get assignments done so they aren’t

trying to cram everything in and get everything done at the last minute (Scott, 2020). The

organization will also help since the student has everything in order on how it needs to get done.

Having a day planner to write assignment due dates in will help keep them organized and avoid

missing due dates.

A second technique that could be used is regular exercise, which is beneficial to anyone

regardless whether they are in college or not. Weightlifting and physical exercise has a lot of

benefits but some of the more notable is the ability to reduce stress. It can also make people

happier and elevate mood levels as well (Scott, 2020). Best part is, any amount of exercise is

beneficial so if you can only run for 10-20 minutes, that is still good, and people will still get

exercise benefits. It doesn’t matter if it’s just 10 minutes or 1 hour there is benefits from exercise
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regardless how much is done. Some other exercising that can be done is tai-chi, yoga, running,

HIIT just to name a few.

A third strategy for reducing stress which is the easiest one is just to get more sleep.

Studies have shown that consistency of nights of sleep with less than eight hours of sleep over

years along with heightened stress levels can cause negative effects on the body’s overall ability

to function (Frothingham, 2019). As people know college students, especially ones in “party

colleges” tend to spend time being out until the late hours of the morning with their friends and

end up getting very little sleep which will add on to the stress levels they already have. So, in

short, if students don’t be out partying all night and do more homework and sleep more, they

would probably be less stressed.

I would implement the program through universities in the area, that would help

implement it to the students since that is where they spend a good amount of their time and they

have an easy place to come back to if they have any issues. There would be meditation activities,

along with fitness and yoga that would be scalable to all levels so everyone can participate, and

no one would be left out. We would want as many students as possible to participate. The fitness

group classes would all be led by professional fitness instructors and there would be 1 of each

offered per day, 1 for exercise, 1 for meditation, and 1 for yoga classes. There would be a smaller

staff that helps the universities run the program and deliver the mission of the program which

would be, “To assist the college age students of this area, by implementing proven exercise

techniques, yoga, and meditation to lower the stress and anxiety of the college students through

group fitness, and meditation”. The program would need outside funding, the primary method of

this would be to secure grants from stakeholders that would have a say in the program and help

lead the direction of the program. The equipment could be very minor, all yoga would need is
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yoga mats, speakers, music, and microphone for the instructor. Meditation would only need the

same, there wouldn’t be any additional equipment. The exercise classes could be more expensive

with equipment but that could also be added later on, body weight exercises wouldn’t need any

additional equipment and body weight exercises would be a good start for the program and if the

program is a success then additional equipment could be added later on.

Some of the obstacles this program could face is that some students may feel left out

because they can’t do very many exercises or are not flexible enough or we might have students

that are disabled and not able to do normal yoga due to their disability. We would have a solution

for that, as said before all classes would be scalable, if a student cant do normal yoga, we would

have chair yoga which is yoga with a chair involved which makes it easier for students and if

students couldn’t do certain body weight exercises the group instructor would provide alternate

exercises that are still just as effective and provide the same benefits.

Another issue may be that the students think the program cost money to be a part of,

however, this program would be offered to the students free of charge or considered as part of

their normal tuition. Students need a way to get rid of stress and the schools see that so they

would offer the program free of charge, the funders for the program would be the ones paying for

it.

There are many groups of health professionals that could support this program. For the

classes, we can used licensed or un-licensed instructors, I would prefer to have licensed and

certified professionals doing the group classes but if we couldn’t get licensed instructors, we

could use un-licensed instructors pending as long as they have certifications through an

organization such as NASM, ISSA, or ACE certified fitness instructors and as long as the yoga

and meditation instructors have a certification as well we could work with them. Another type of
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health professional that could help is nurses that can help weigh the students to see if they are

maintaining healthy weight levels by checking their weight and asking them questions related to

their stress to see if they are progressing successfully in the program. High stress levels can

cause issues with losing weight due to higher levels of cortisol and more uncontrollable eating

habits (Bergland, 2016). If a student reduces stress levels, they may be more capable of losing

weight and looking and feeling better.

The success of this program would be measured through two different goals. One would be

for the students that were also wanting to lose weight and through that we would measure their weight

and do body fat calipers to determine their body fat levels as well to see if the they were able to lose

weight through the fitness classes along with lowering their stress levels. Another way we would be to

determine the effectiveness of the classes on students stress levels would be to send out questionnaires

to all of the participants and also doing interviews with them to get their feedback on how stressed

they are after doing the program for a month. Questionnaires are a relatively simple method to gather

big amounts of data and they are also relatively easy and cheap to produce and get back (Mcleod,

2018). We would occasionally be checking back in with them to see how they are feeling and after all

of the students in all of the schools have replied back or been interviewed, the data can be interpreted

and we can start to see an overall picture of the stress of all of the students and can see if we are

achieving our mission on a wide scale. If the numbers are showing good results we will keep going

with our current approach and if we are seeing unfavorable numbers we can adjust the process of what

we are doing and start looking at our activities and seeing where the issue is and try to correct it.

Overall, I feel like this stress relief program through exercise, yoga, meditation, and weight

control would be a success given all the information above. I feel like all aspects have been covered

and this program above would be very successful at helping college students in the area live better,
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healthier lives through reducing stress. I also feel like the college students would love this program

and it will be around for many years. I also feel like students will be achieving better grades as well

with better time management and the other techniques that help provide more time to do things, along

with better sleep will help them achieve more.

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References

Link, R. (2018, January 7). 11 Signs and Symptoms of Too Much Stress.
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/symptoms-of-stress.

Stress. Stress | New York University. https://www.nyu.edu/life/safety-health-wellness/live-well-

nyu/priority-areas/stress.html.

Hansen, D. R. S. Key Study Skills Tools to Achieve Academic Success.

MyCollegeSuccessStory.com: Top College Stressors.
http://www.mycollegesuccessstory.com/academic-success-tools/top-college-stressors.html.

Stress: Signs, Symptoms, Management & Prevention. Cleveland Clinic.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/11874-stress.

Elizabeth Scott, M. S. (2020, July 21). How Students Can Make College Life Less Stressful.
Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/college-life-how-to-reduce-stress-
3145176.

Frothingham, S. (2019, May 24). Is 5 Hours Enough Sleep. Is 5 Hours Enough Sleep? How
Much Sleep Should I Get. https://www.healthline.com/health/is-5-hours-enough-sleep.

Bergland, C. (2016, January 8). Why Does Chronic Stress Make Losing Weight More Difficult?
Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-
way/201601/why-does-chronic-stress-make-losing-weight-more-difficult#:~:text=A
%20new%20study%20has%20identified,it%20difficult%20to%20lose%20weight.

Mcleod, S. (2018). Questionnaire: Definition, Examples, Design and Types. Questionnaire: :

Definition, Examples, Design and Types | Simply Psychology.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/questionnaires.html#:~:text=Questionnaires
%20provide%20a%20relatively%20cheap,a%20large%20sample%20of
%20people.&text=Data%20can%20be%20collected%20relatively,when%20the
%20questionnaires%20were%20completed.