Discussion Responses

Just respond to two peers in a minimum of 300 words EACH.

What other ways could your peer manage their stress?
How is your stress different than your peer’s?
How could buffering effects of social identity (e.g., social or religious) apply to your peer’s stress? 

These are the peers I picked: Christopher and Michael 

Christopher:  
Since the first letter of my last name is “C”, I took “The Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale” test.  I scored a 358 which means I “have a high or very high risk of becoming ill in the near future”.  The past year I have had has been extremely busy and I can see how it would overwhelm a good amount of people.  Some of these factors that really drove up my score was Hurricane Michael hitting directly where I lived, my son being born, my son have surgery, and then moving from Florida to Wisconsin.
It may be easy to just assuming that these are high stress situations that you just have to get through and then you will be done with them.  These periods of high stress can take a toll on your health without even realizing it.  By dealing with a high stress time frame, your body naturally reacts with a heightened heart rate.  This leads to more blood flow which cause hypertension.  Peptic ulcers is another conditioned linked to the effects of stress.
I feel I already have a good handle on my stress through two different ways.  The first is physical exercise.  I continually mix up my cardio and weight training so I don’t become bored or stagnant with them.  The second is not meditation, but is a way of easing me like meditation would.  I do that by learning that I can trust myself in any situation.  I have been overloaded with tasks with short deadlines, I have had bills due with not enough money to pay them, and I have been driving vehicles in downtown Kabul, Afghanistan.  The one thing that has remained the same, is I have found a way to make it all work.  So I can trust that at some point, I will think of a way to get things done, and that gives me the calmness that many receive from meditation.

Michael:  On the Holms and Rahe Stress scale, I scored a 334 which is having a high risk of becoming sick in the near future. Some of the most important factors that impact appraisal and coping have to do with individualized events and stress creators such as loss or changes in general lifestyle that forces us as individuals to cope with stress on a day to day basis. There are many common lifestyle changes that can be considered and contribute to levels of stress such as divorce, moving as well as marriage are some of the main examples. There are many different factors however and the more contributing factors that an individual has gone through increase their given level of stress and contribute to overall health in the long run. Stress is a huge contributing factor to overall health in the sense that all of your body workings and production areas are elevated creating an overworked system. The brain tends to overproduce when an individual deal with stress which causes both the nervous and cardiovascular systems to work harder than they usually would which in turn causes them to more quickly give out. One way that I could possibly reduce my stress would be to stop taking so much responsibility into other people’s lives and to focus on my own. I am very good at solving other people’s problems because it takes away from the focus and gravity of my own. While at the same time I am still left with my own problems that seem to take a back seat. Some ways that I could start to do this would be to get outside into nature more because I really enjoy the outdoors and I only seem to get outside when I’m playing disc golf. Disc Golf is the only thing right now that is truly reducing my stress however it is fairly rigorous on my body and I can only play a fraction of what I would like to. Another thing that is really contributing to my stress is the distance from my family as my mom lives all the way across the country in Connecticut and my sister is up north in Northern California in school. Being alone in the house I thought would help my stress levels however it seems that now it has done the opposite. They are both going to be in Connecticut for 2020 for most of the year before summer so I am considering moving out there to be with them. As my schoolwork is mobile and I am not confined to one area I am thinking that it may be a good way to get back to my roots and my feet under me once again.