Your assignment is to prepare and submit a paper on life stressors journal. Life Stressors al affiliation: When dealing with some important issues in someone’s life, certain level of stress, which is manageable, can assist in energizing and motivating someone to deal with such issues. The point of focus is on things that are truly important in someone’s life ( Koocher & Greca, 2011). This assessment activity provides answers to critical questions such as.

How are the factors that cause unnecessary stress determined?

Is someone’s stress level normal?

This simple, yet informative, assessment is a real measure of potential stress.

Assess Stress Table

Resting Heart Rate

73 Beats per minute

Breathing Pattern

_______ Abdomen _______Chest _______ Both

I am a chest breather.

Respiration Rate

___26___ Breaths per minute

Stress-o-meter

10

Using this asses table, I will fill my response for each item based on the instructions given

Resting Heart Rate

Check your resting heart rate after relaxing for a sufficient period of time- first by finding your pulse(carotid pulse on your neck or your radial pulse on the thumb side of your wrist),

With a clock, count the number of beats you feel for 60 seconds.

Breathing Pattern

Sit upright on a chair,

Empty your lungs by breathing out, count to three as you inhale deeply then hold it.

If you felt like the air filled your upper part of your lungs, you are a chest breather,

If you felt your abdominal area expand, belt tightens and the air filled the lower part of your lungs, you are a diaphragmatic breather.

Respiration Rate

Count the number of effortless breaths you take in a minute,

Ensure to be as natural as possible.

One breathe consists of each inhalation and exhalation cycle.

Stress-o-meter

On a scale of 1-10, rate someone’s life moments including all of theirwaking moments.

Assess stress results

The average pulse rate for an adult is approximately 70-80 beats per minute. With my beats per minute at 72, this does not indicate any stress levels.

The average respiration rate is approximately 12-16 breaths per minute. My respiration rate being at 26 breaths per minute, this indicates a higher than desired stress levels.

Chest breathing indicates that I tend to take shallower breathes which is against all relaxation techniques where breathes should be deep. With a stress-o-meter score of 10, this indicates that I felt very high anxiety most of the time with periods bordering on suicidal, depression or neurosis. This means that the period assessed was packed with high stress levels ( Koocher & Greca, 2011).

Topics to be addressed in my video journal

I was not surprised by my life stressors since I experienced tough times and was always indoors thinking about my stressors. My major stressors were my education. that is, my fees, grades and competition from other students. These stressors greatly impacted my socializing skills forcing me to be a loner. I tried reaching out to friends as my relaxation technique, by creating a good social support system, and it really worked as I realized that a problem shared is half solved. Major health risks associated with distress are. insomnia, bouts of anger, depression, restlessness, tense muscles, and fatigue.

Strategies that I would consider to deal with distress are:

Tuning I to my body where I perform a mental scan of m body to get a sense of how it is affected by various issues.

Meditation would help in easing anxiety.

The critical point in managing stress is our ability to control how we react to the situation that led to the stress. We are usually so busy living our life that we don’t take time to stop and assess. We should practice the various relaxation techniques for a healthy living (Koocher & Greca, 2011).

References

Koocher, G. P., & Greca, A. M. (2011). The parents guide to psychological first aid: helping children and adolescents cope with predictable life crises. New York: Oxford University Press.