(no subject)
So yesterday, I think I figured out what was causing me so much recurring stress. Lately, I have been feeling like I am ready to just get up and get on with a job and a new city. My studies have been lacking and my motivation to memorize a bunch of facts has dissipated. I'm ready to get moving with everything else from here.
Apparently, my time-management this week has been lacking. I had scheduled a work appointment at 3:30p (and with some leniency, 4p the latest) after my class on Tuesday, therefore I had left class when I we had been watching a movie instead of forcing myself to remain nonchalant throughout the movie. I attempted to return to class before work to find that they were finishing the whole movie that day, so I went about my day. On Thursday, I found that I (and all the others who left) had been penalized for leaving, losing out on 3.6% of our total grade.
On this Tuesday, we happened to be taking a test, before which, the teacher had stated the outline of the course that day and how the movie was to be assessed. I made an immediate decision to rearrange parts of my schedule to accommodate for the situation presented, but my plan had failed to account for changes made without prior regard. I immediately began to feel tension in my shoulders and intense thoracic breathing.
Despite my best efforts to psychologically fend off the stress, my stress response began to flare up. I told myself that the consequence was worth the process (which I still feel it was) and that it was only a small fraction of my grade that was affected. Emotionally, I did not feel overly stimulated, but internally, my heart was trying to race and I could almost feel my blood pumping. I switched to diaphragmatic breathing, which has usually served as a good roadblock for my physiological response. It wasn't too long before my physiological response began to flare up again.
I tried a different approach, beginning to log what was happening to be into a stress journal. The paper became a synopsis of the situation followed by my reaction to the situation, the interventions I tried to use to disengage from the situation, and how they worked and what I learned. I learned a lot from that situation, which unfortunately kept me from being attentive as it had in the past. Time-management is not about small-scale arrangement, which is narrow in scope, but about arranging the large aspects of life and setting priorities.
I have also learned that I plan too much. I arrange things so that they will fit perfectly into some contained, confined area. I feel like every part of my day needs to be filled with active engagement in current projects or some of the many projects I want to get done. Even when I try to take a little part of the day to unwind and play a video game, it is not enough. Moreover when I try to plan around what someone tells me is going to happen, I get extremely upset when it changes without warning or, more importantly, notification.
This also leads me to believe that my method of stress management is not working effectively. I have been extremely worn out this week, which I correlate to almost ten days straight of coming into work for even just an hour of the day. I love my job, and I want to focus my time on my work, meanwhile my studies are lacking in dedication and commitment. After Sunday, my attempts to study Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night were ill-fated, resulting in a slow 1 page of physiology reading within an hour.
I need to reevaluate my time partitioning for my job in order to have the time set aside for school. I need to set one day or chunk of time a few days for reviewing my schoolwork, since I work best in clumps of time instead of bits of time. Lastly, I need to figure out ways to control my physiological response to stress throughout my emotional intervention. I tried to use selective awareness and diaphragmatic breathing to curb both responses, but I still had a physiological response that could be from prolonged exposure to the stress inducing environment or from endocrine response to the stress reaction after the sympathetic processes had been supressed.
Looking into the work for Tuesday, I feel that there are some techniques that I can utilize to maximize my autogenic training. I want to look into Biofeedback equipment at the Student Health Care Center next week, and I want to look up some more information on the Quieting Reflex. While I feel that I have tried using the Instant Calming Sequence unknowingly in the past (Breathe/Positivity/Posture/Relaxation/Control), I think that I am losing the process at the "wave of relaxation" step. Working on these roadblocks, I believe, will help me control myself in an immediate situation.
Apparently, my time-management this week has been lacking. I had scheduled a work appointment at 3:30p (and with some leniency, 4p the latest) after my class on Tuesday, therefore I had left class when I we had been watching a movie instead of forcing myself to remain nonchalant throughout the movie. I attempted to return to class before work to find that they were finishing the whole movie that day, so I went about my day. On Thursday, I found that I (and all the others who left) had been penalized for leaving, losing out on 3.6% of our total grade.
On this Tuesday, we happened to be taking a test, before which, the teacher had stated the outline of the course that day and how the movie was to be assessed. I made an immediate decision to rearrange parts of my schedule to accommodate for the situation presented, but my plan had failed to account for changes made without prior regard. I immediately began to feel tension in my shoulders and intense thoracic breathing.
Despite my best efforts to psychologically fend off the stress, my stress response began to flare up. I told myself that the consequence was worth the process (which I still feel it was) and that it was only a small fraction of my grade that was affected. Emotionally, I did not feel overly stimulated, but internally, my heart was trying to race and I could almost feel my blood pumping. I switched to diaphragmatic breathing, which has usually served as a good roadblock for my physiological response. It wasn't too long before my physiological response began to flare up again.
I tried a different approach, beginning to log what was happening to be into a stress journal. The paper became a synopsis of the situation followed by my reaction to the situation, the interventions I tried to use to disengage from the situation, and how they worked and what I learned. I learned a lot from that situation, which unfortunately kept me from being attentive as it had in the past. Time-management is not about small-scale arrangement, which is narrow in scope, but about arranging the large aspects of life and setting priorities.
I have also learned that I plan too much. I arrange things so that they will fit perfectly into some contained, confined area. I feel like every part of my day needs to be filled with active engagement in current projects or some of the many projects I want to get done. Even when I try to take a little part of the day to unwind and play a video game, it is not enough. Moreover when I try to plan around what someone tells me is going to happen, I get extremely upset when it changes without warning or, more importantly, notification.
This also leads me to believe that my method of stress management is not working effectively. I have been extremely worn out this week, which I correlate to almost ten days straight of coming into work for even just an hour of the day. I love my job, and I want to focus my time on my work, meanwhile my studies are lacking in dedication and commitment. After Sunday, my attempts to study Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night were ill-fated, resulting in a slow 1 page of physiology reading within an hour.
I need to reevaluate my time partitioning for my job in order to have the time set aside for school. I need to set one day or chunk of time a few days for reviewing my schoolwork, since I work best in clumps of time instead of bits of time. Lastly, I need to figure out ways to control my physiological response to stress throughout my emotional intervention. I tried to use selective awareness and diaphragmatic breathing to curb both responses, but I still had a physiological response that could be from prolonged exposure to the stress inducing environment or from endocrine response to the stress reaction after the sympathetic processes had been supressed.
Looking into the work for Tuesday, I feel that there are some techniques that I can utilize to maximize my autogenic training. I want to look into Biofeedback equipment at the Student Health Care Center next week, and I want to look up some more information on the Quieting Reflex. While I feel that I have tried using the Instant Calming Sequence unknowingly in the past (Breathe/Positivity/Posture/Relaxation/Control), I think that I am losing the process at the "wave of relaxation" step. Working on these roadblocks, I believe, will help me control myself in an immediate situation.