Stress has always been the enemy to me and I’ve never thought about it as anything else.  Others around me have always agreed as well.  However, after the lesson from PSE today, I’ve learned to view it a different way. We watched a TED talk video that focused on stress.  The speaker began with an example of a case study. The study asked a group of people how stressful their lives were and if they thought it had a negative or positive impact on their lives. After 80 years, they compared this data to if they had passed away or not. Those with high levels of stress and believed it to be bad for them had a higher death rate. However, those who also had higher levels of stress but thought stress was good for them had the lowest death rate even compared to those who had lower stress rates. This made me rethink the effects of stress, showing that with the right attitude, you can change stress into something that makes you excited or motivated for the task at hand.

The video as well as the past few classes of PSE this year taught me new tactics for handling stress

• If you view stress as a good thing, it can help you
• Reach out to others when I feel overwhelmed; empathize with others
•  Manage my time well so I don’t feel overwhelmed in the first place