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Kaitlyn Whitesell

Professor Morean

English 1201.513

30 July 2020

Acknowledge the Stress

One day, movie theaters, retail stores, and schools are open to the public. The next day,

movie theaters close, stores shut down, and students go home. Millions of people lose their jobs

and quarantine in their own homes. A massive health scare is on the rise. People must stay away

from loved ones and friends in isolation to help prevent the spread of the Coronavirus. Death and

illness spread quickly and vastly across the world. Life is on pause with all kinds of uncertainty

about the future. The world is in a time of constant fear, no one knows what tomorrow will be

like. It’s extremely difficult to manage stress during such a pandemic. “When we take a moment

to acknowledge our stress, it moves us from operating from a fearful, reactive place to a position

where we can be thoughtful and deliberate,” this process of thinking through emotions can help

manage stress at a time like this (Leibowitz). When an individual relaxes, they can think through

what is happening in their brain and find a way to lower stress levels. A person can “feel a sense

of freedom” when they are in control of their emotions as they have control over themselves (Vo

122). Mindfulness is something that people practice every day in a short amount of time, such as

taking a few minutes to focus on breathing. Studies on stress management show people with high

levels of stress who practice mindfulness reduce them quickly. To manage stress levels,

practicing mindfulness is effective as it helps to provide those with a calm state of mind through

relaxing exercises.
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Humans have experienced stress for thousands of generations. Stress is broken down into

two categories, good and bad. Good stress is the kind that a person feels when they are excited or

nervous about something positive, while bad stress is the kind that they feel when they are scared

or worried. Stress can help people when danger is present. The mind connects to the body; a

signal of stress travels from the brain to the rest of the body and a person can physically react to

whatever is threatening them. The “fight, flight, or freeze” response is one all humans have, and

this is controlled by stress (Vo 13). In a dangerous situation, a person stands up against the

danger, runs away from it, or stands still. The way the body handles stress will determine how a

person will act. While the reaction to danger can be a helpful kind of stress it can escalate

quickly into a harmful kind. High levels of stress can “affect the development of the brain in

younger adolescents” (Lindsey et al. 288). A delay in development can make it difficult for

adolescents to manage stress in the future as they don’t know how to handle their emotions.

Utilizing mindfulness techniques at a younger age is important to help them better manage stress

as they become adults. In adults, chronic stress can cause serious health issues such as panic

attacks or heart problems. Doctors reiterate the importance of taking care of an individual’s well-

being by reducing stress.

Mindfulness exercises help people connect with their emotions and reduce their stress.

Dzung Vo defines mindfulness in his book, The Mindful Teen: Powerful Skills to Help You

Handle Stress One Moment at a Time, as “a powerful way of re-engaging your human brain and

handling stress with more wisdom” (21). Vo’s definition reflects how mindfulness focuses on

connecting with emotions and allows an individual to determine what is causing them stress. It is

easier to think of solutions once someone is calm and can understand the situation that is causing

them stress. Becoming calm is an important part of mindfulness as it immediately leads to lower
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stress levels. Calmness allows a person to think logically and understand what is happening so

they can start to control their stress. People control their stress by changing their mindset and

reducing tension in the body. There are many techniques for practicing mindfulness, including

expressive art exercises, breathing, yoga, meditation, and more. Expressive art exercises are a

common way to re-engage the brain and get in touch with the emotions that are attached to

stress. A person might not always understand what they are feeling, so finding a way to express

someone’s emotions through art can be beneficial in the process of handling stress.

A result of expressive art exercises is lower levels of stress. These exercises include

listening to music, reading, writing, and more. A study of Buncombe middle school students

shows that when a person draws a representation of emotions, they are more in touch with their

mind (Lindsey et al. 290). The middle schoolers draw on big masks to show what they think

calmness looks like. The result is “a significant reduction in self-reported stress and anxiety

levels” for students during school (Lindsey et al. 294). The significance of drawing is that people

can show what they are feeling when they aren’t necessarily able to think through it or speak

about it. Drawing can be a way for people to connect with their emotions on a different level,

creativity comes from the emotional parts in the brain and not always logical thinking. With

stress, it can be difficult to logically process though what’s happening, that’s why expressive arts

techniques are a common way for people to practice mindfulness (Miedziun and Czabała 26).

People can label the emotions they are experiencing and begin to find a way to change what they

are feeling, which will help better manage their stress.

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Figure 1. This chart shows the most used stress management techniques divided into categories

(Miedziun and Czabała 28).

Although “more research is needed to support that these art exercises meet all the needs

when it comes to dealing with all types of stress” (Lindsey et al. 290), this practice of

mindfulness proves to be a helpful coping strategy for managing stress levels. People with higher

stress levels use “replacement gratification,” which is all about creativity, the majority include

art exercises. In a study by two psychiatrists in Europe, 57.8% of participants used this group of

techniques to successfully lower stress (Miedziun and Czabała 24). Artistic activities are

common when it comes to calming down. In the study, 74% of participants listen to music and

59% read books to reduce stress levels (Miedziun and Czabała 27). The success they experience

with these activities is significant; a majority of the participants use artistic exercises to try to

lower stress and their rating of stress after is minimal to zero. Expressive art exercises have

shown to be successful at managing high levels of stress.

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Another form of practicing mindfulness is breathing techniques. Miedziun and Czabała

label a category as “adjusting tensions and emotions” in their study on stress management (25).

The main focus in this category of techniques is on breathing to help reduce tension. The

exercises can be as simple as slowing breaths by counting to ten while inhaling, holding for ten,

then releasing for ten. As the brain connects to the extremities, stress signals travel throughout

and the body reacts by tightening muscles. A focus on breathing and releasing this tension makes

it easier for a person to decrease their stress. Ultimately, a person calms down and better

understands their thoughts. 55% of participants in the study said they lowered their stress

successfully just by relaxing (27). They relax by controlling their breathing and relieving some

of the pressure from the stress. Another researcher has gone further with the breathing techniques

by applying it specifically to releasing body tension.

Vo explains a way to bring peace over the whole body and not just the mind. The mind

and body are connected so when stress is accumulating, it can take over an individual’s body.

“When someone is stressed, their body becomes tense,” and it becomes important to focus on the

whole body rather than just the mind (73). To relieve this tension, someone can do a “body

scan,” when they take the time to slow their breathing as it brings the mind and body together

while focusing on a specific area (75). If a person decides to focus on their feet, they can imagine

sending all the air they are breathing in down to their feet, bringing about sensation in them.

After repeatedly doing this to other body parts, it’s easier for someone to bring awareness to their

whole body and let go of the stress that is causing the tension. While an individual is controlling

their muscles, they are “developing the consciousness of their body” at the same time (Miedziun

and Czabała 25). An individual creates a calm state of mind by releasing the tension in their body
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and understanding their emotions. Another mindfulness exercise that involves focusing on the

body and breathing is becoming more popular today.

Yoga is now a common mindfulness technique to manage stress levels. In a study on the

University of Arkansas college students, Gorvine, Zaller, Hudson, Demers, and Kennedy show

that yoga increases mindfulness and helps reduce stress in college students (393). The yoga

instructor teaches a couple of different poses for the students to perform. These include “plank,

“yoga” push-up, up dog, and down dog” (Gorvine et al. 390). The plank helps maintain a straight

posture for participants, the push-up helps stretch the shoulder area, the up dog helps stretch the

lower back area, and the down dog helps stretch the legs and lower back as well. All of the

stretches involve relieving the pressure that comes from the stress people deal with every day.

Along with the stretching, there is a focus on breathing at a slower pace. Slow breathing is

important for the mind to relax and only focus on what is going on in someone’s body. An

individual can learn how to “tune into their body and make wise use of the signals traveling

through their body,” such as stress signals (Vo 74). Once a person understands what the signals

are, they can focus on reducing this tension by letting go of the stressor. Yoga is becoming more

popular in gyms as it is effective in managing stress and is something that people do early in the

morning to help them awake with a peaceful mind. They begin the day more relaxed from the

stretches and breathing.

The practice of yoga has been around for a while. The exercise is becoming more

common in college to “improve self-regulatory skills like emotion regulation” (Patel et al . 443).

Despite the recent studies showing that college students lower their stress levels through yoga,

other schools such as high schools have not taken the step to include this exercise in gym class

for students. “The mastering emotion techniques (MEMT) is one of the yoga-based meditation
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techniques,” as it consists of an individual participating in the yoga poses and releasing tension

but also recognizing emotions by having more thinking time (Patel et al. 443). This time for

recognition of emotions is during the poses, instructors ask the participants to think about what is

going through their mind at that moment, it helps to channel into their body and what they are

feeling throughout. In another college study, an important yoga pose the instructor teaches

students is “corpse pose,” which consists of laying on the floor as if they are dead but removing

the fear of being dead by breathing as slowly as possible and “feeling the silence state of mind”

(Patel et al. 445). The pose is shown to significantly improve emotion regulation in students and

allow them to destress. Yoga includes the reduction of tension in the body through breathing

techniques and stretches but also involves being mindful of emotions at a specific moment in

time. This recognition of emotions can allow an individual to understand what is causing them

stress and can be more thoughtful to help them remove the stress (Leibowitz).

People experience varying levels of stress depending on the challenges they are facing.

Stress levels are increasing significantly in the world as a pandemic intensifies. The coronavirus

has caused millions of Americans to further worry about the future (Leibowitz). The virus is the

cause of people losing jobs, money, and family members. The stress that comes with living

through a pandemic is hefty. Brody describes the situation as “there’s never before been a

ubiquitous threat that can be so instantly broadcast to a world of 7.8 billion people,” which is

something that many experience as a rise in stress levels (Brody). Everyone can hear or read the

latest updates, and a lot of it tends to be bad news such as the massive increase of cases in

multiple locations. With hearing this news, people have fearful responses. People begin to worry

about the life they have now and the unknown future of the world and as a result, they
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experience stress frequently (Brody). Stress levels begin to rise dangerously high as people can’t

control the future, but they can control their emotions once they understand them.

A way to handle the fears at this time is through understanding them, “changing our

stress mind-sets about the coronavirus may not happen instantaneously, but it is possible to shift

our reaction to our stress” (Leibowitz). A way to shift the reaction is to practice mindfulness, by

channeling into emotions, stress can lower significantly. Worrying about the future won’t help

anything, realizing a person is scared and accepting that the future can’t be controlled helps lead

to a calmer state of mind. Once a person understands their thinking and feelings, they can

“channel this stress to something productive such as cleaning” (Brody). The way to ease stress

during times like these is to understand what someone is feeling through mindfulness and begin

to control their fears.

Stress is temporary, it can go away when the stressor that is causing the response

disappears, such as the fear of having no money but then getting a better job and this stress goes

away. It can also shrink through mindfulness exercises as people focus on what they are feeling

and how they can respond better to the stressor. Chronic stress is a type of stress people

experience when they have high levels of stress consistently that it leads to more severe health

problems (Vo 18). When a person reaches the point that they are experiencing physical health

problems such as fatigue, digestive problems, and more, it is no longer called stress. This is a

person who has an anxiety disorder. Anxiety is the “constant worry that does not go away once

the stressor goes away” and comes with other symptoms (APA). Stress can lead to anxiety

disorders if people don’t figure out how to effectively manage their stress levels. Practicing

mindfulness is an effective way to prevent stress from leading to an anxiety disorder, people

slow down their breathing and focus on what is going on inside their body. The exercises can
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help people “have greater self-awareness and help manage the stress their body is experiencing”

(Lindsey et al. 295).

There are other ways to handle stress and when it comes to anxiety disorders, medication

is sometimes recommended. Antidepressants, specifically selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors

(SSRIs) are the most common pharmacological treatment for psychiatric disorders like anxiety

(Farach). Within “2-6 weeks there is normally at least 25% improvement in the symptoms

displayed,” including stress levels (Farach). Doctors are more likely to prescribe this when they

can as the medication is not known for being addictive depending on the patient’s history.

Another popular medication is benzodiazepines, which are for short term effects or anxiety

during the first few immediate weeks of use (Farach). The drug helps with the worry of flying on

a plane or going to a place that is a trigger for bad feelings. There are different medications

depending on the severity of the disorder. Many argue that medication works effectively when it

comes to handling high levels of stress that are part of the cause of an anxiety disorder. While in

some cases this may be true, mindfulness is an effective method of managing stress without the

chance of drug addiction.

The risk of drug addiction is not a possible result of practicing mindfulness as there are

no drugs with these exercises. When it comes to managing the stress that leads to an anxiety

disorder, these medications can have a risk of drug addiction. Patients that are taking

benzodiazepines with a substance or drug abuse history are at a much higher risk for abusing

these pills (Farach). Some patients experience the “withdrawal syndrome” after using these pills

for a longer period and their treatment is at the part of removing medication (Von Montke and

David). People may become addicted to the pills or may suffer once they stop using, depending

on the side effects of the pills. Medication can be more dangerous than helpful. SSRIs are not
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known for being addicting but they can make symptoms worse and bring on new ones. There is a

“lag between the start of using the drug and the start of the antianxiety period,” therefore making

it useless for those with a severe anxiety disorder (Von Montke and David). New symptoms can

arise such as lethargy and dizziness, while the current symptoms of the disorder escalate. The

combination of this can be extremely harmful to patients and defeats the original purpose of the

medication as it is to help with such symptoms. While doctors prescribe these medications to

help with such anxiety symptoms, that does not mean they are effective in helping reduce these

symptoms and making a patient feel better overall. Practicing mindfulness is an effective way to

reduce stress that doesn’t have the health side effects medication does and doesn’t allow for

someone to become addicted to a drug.

When it comes to handling stress, having a calm state of mind is a big part of it. As

people all around the world experience new levels of stress with the idea of an unclear future,

managing it effectively has never been so important. Something as simple as taking a deep breath

can go a long way. People find it difficult to find the time or a place to practice mindfulness but

carving time out of the day for it is important for self-care. Sometimes it can only take a few

minutes if someone really focuses on relaxing. Life may be on pause right now with the

pandemic, but that does not mean people have to experience high levels of stress, there are

simple ways to reduce them.

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Works Cited

“What's the Difference Between Stress and Anxiety?” APA, 2019, doi:10.1037/e511872019-001.

Brody, Jane. “Managing Coronavirus Fears.” New York Times, 13 Apr. 2020.

Farach, Frank J et al. “Pharmacological treatment of anxiety disorders: current treatments and

future directions.” Journal of anxiety disorders vol. 26,8 (2012): 833-43.

doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2012.07.009

Gorvine, Margaret M., et al. “A Naturalistic Study of Yoga, Meditation, Self-Perceived Stress,

Self-Compassion, and Mindfulness in College Students.” Health Psychology and

Behavioral Medicine, vol. 7, no. 1, 2019, pp. 385–395.,

doi:10.1080/21642850.2019.1688154.

Leibowitz, Kari, and Alia Crum. “In Stressful Times, Make Stress Work for You.” New York

Times , 1 Apr. 2020.

Lindsey, Laura, et al. “Expressive Arts and Mindfulness: Aiding Adolescents in Understanding

and Managing Their Stress.” Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, vol. 13, no. 3, July

2018, pp. 288–297. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/15401383.2018.1427167.

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doi:10.12740/APP/61082.
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Miedziun, Patrycja, and Jan Czesław Czabała. “Stress Management Techniques.” Archives of

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_4-2015.pdf. Accessed 11 July 2020

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6, 2018, pp. 443–447., doi:10.1016/j.explore.2018.06.008.

Vo, Dzung X. The Mindful Teen: Powerful Skills to Help You Handle Stress One Moment at a

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Von Moltke, Lisa L, and David J Greenblatt. “Medication dependence and anxiety.” Dialogues

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