Stress and stress management

Stella has recently moved to a new town. She’s had to change schools, and the move has been quite difficult for her. During the past couple of weeks, Stella hasn’t been feeling well. She has very little energy. She frequently suffers from headaches and colds, and she isn’t sleeping very well.

She’s also finding it hard to focus, and keeps forgetting things. Stella’s family is quite worried about her. She just doesn’t seem herself. What’s going on? Moving to another town and starting a new school are major life events and can cause a lot of pressure.

The physical and emotional changes that Stella is experiencing, are her body’s way of responding to this pressure. When a person experiences something new or unexpected, or something they perceive as a threat, the brain sends out a “distress signal” to the rest of the body. As a result of this signal, special organs— the adrenal glands, release hormones into the bloodstream. These hormones are mainly adrenaline —also known as epinephrine —and cortisol. These two hormones increase heart rate and blood pressure, and increase supply of nutrients to the muscles.

This prepares the body to “fight” the danger or “flee” from it. This reaction of the body is called a stress response. Stress response usually goes away on its own when the threat disappears. But to Stella it seems as if the “threat” never goes away. She’s still adjusting to her new life.

She feels under a lot of pressure to do well at school, and doesn’t know how to cope. Her body is constantly on alert and using up all its resources to keep its stress response going! That’s why Stella feels low and without energy. Stella is experiencing stress. In Stella’s case, pressure is causing long-lasting stress, and it’s affecting her negatively.

But is stress always bad? Actually, stress can be useful too. It can help us cope with challenges. For example, just before the start of a swimming competition, Stella feels quite nervous. She really wants to swim as fast as she can.

So the stress response kicks in, and makes her swim just a little faster. As soon as the race is finished, Stella’s body returns to a normal, calm state. And Stella doesn’t experience any long-term issues. We often can’t eliminate stress from our lives entirely. But we can learn how to cope with it, and how to prevent long-term stress.

If you’re feeling stressed, one of the simplest things you can do to calm down is to take slow, deep breaths. Exercise might help you cope with stress too. But it’s also very important to let someone you trust know how you’re feeling. This might help you see things differently and figure out how to minimise stress. Most importantly, give yourself a break sometimes, and do things you enjoy.

Stella decided to talk to her parents about how she’s feeling. They promise to try to help Stella adjust to the new environment and reassure her of their support. Stella also talked to her classmate Selma, who was also once new at the school. Selma says that it was quite hard for her at first too, but things got better with time. She also invites Stella to join her group of gamer friends.

This makes Stella feel a bit better. And although it might take a while, with proper support, Stella will hopefully be able to enjoy life more again soon.