Alyssa Aguiar

Kin 34

Stress Management Case Study

Melina, a freshman with an outstanding 3.0 grade point average. She is a hardworking and

always studies for her exams, but because she studies and stresses on these exams she suffers

severe anxiety before she takes all of these tests. Melina doesn’t believe that her efforts could

make a difference on her attempt of her test. If Melina doesn’t do well on this chemistry exam she

is studying for she could possibly lose her scholarship. The pressure of this exam and her

scholarship possibly losing she has test anxiety and suffered from panic attack while she was

studying. She has two days to fix this this problem and Melina needs help.

Learning about Melina’s scenario this brings back goosebumps of a similar occasion of

myself suffering from anxiety and how I fought threw it. Back in high school when I took my sat I

suffered threw bad anxiety because I was so scared that I wouldn’t get a good score and that

colleges wouldn’t accept me because of my scores. So when I hear stories of others taking their

practice sat, it really scared me because lots of them were saying it was difficult and that you

should really study to refresh your memory on the test. When I realized to myself that this anxiety

can only makes things worst rather than helping me, so what I did was stop and think about why I

got this anxiety and how this needs to go away, so my way of helping myself was just praying and

listening to music that makes me happy and focus on something other than the test. I realized that

putting all your attention and mind on this test, it just makes you stress more and that is what gives

you anxiety so you have to take yourself out of that situation and recuperate your body and mind.

I recommend when you deal with stressful situations you should use the Four A’s, which is

Avoid the stressor, Alter the stressor, adapt to the stressor and Accept the stressor. The first A

means to avoid any unnecessary stress in your life, so for example there can be lots of people in
your life that give you stress, so you should ignore those problems because having multiples

stressful situations in your life it just makes everything worst. It might sound bad but you should

learn how to say no whether in your personal life or professional life. The other A is to alter a

situation, meaning to take control of problems so it doesn’t present itself in the future. Talk to

people about your problems instead of bottling it up, speak about your situation and tell people if

they’re bothering you and let them know that this is unnecessary stress that you can’t deal with at

the moment. The third strategy is to adapt to the stressor by changing some of your ways to make

your life easier. Reframe your problem’s and go about stuff a different way, a more positive way.

When you tend to stress its negative energy in your body so try and just think about everything

you’re grateful for.

In conclusion always think about the positives in life and talk to people about your stress

and be open to hearing others out on your situation because who knows that can help you. When

you start something as in school or even a challenge in your life, think about how you’re going to

achieve that how you’re going to work past the downs in your life to make them your ups.