APPLICATION AND

ASSESSMENT
1.Reaction Paper. Make a reaction paper about

the article “Stress and Filipino” by Michael L. Tan

from the Philippine Center for Investigative
Journalism. (2006). The article is available
through this link: http://pcij.org/ stories/stress-and-
the-Filipino/. Use the lesson on the social and
cultural dimension of stress in making your
reaction paper.

Reaction Paper on
“Stress and Filipino” by Michael L. Tan

Filipinos are known to be the happiest people. Even in hard situations, you can
see the curves on their face. But smiles at some point is said to be a facade of every
hidden problem a person encounter. And with a problem, one will experience stress
which are invisible to people around.
Stress is defined as our body's reaction to a challenge or demand. It may start
on the simplest thing to the larger ones. And every individual has its own different
amount of stress.
There are many causes why such person is stress. According to the article,
Stress and the Filipino by Michael L. Tan, Filipinos do face many sources of stress,
around work and livelihood mainly. Overloaded by work or so may cause stress so as
feeling worry on our livelihood will contribute to stress. Rural or urban, do all face the
stresses of family. Truly, family could be one of this source of stress too. Though
Filipinos are known to be a family-oriented people, as we have our relatives as our
shoulder to lean on, this extended family also is stressful for the obligations each family
member faces. The expectations of their family is partly difficult to them.
"Sure, Filipinos are resilient, but this doesn’t necessarily mean we don’t feel
stressed." Filipinos do really feel stress but they hide it too well. They tend not to show
it off to people as much as they can. A better example of it from the article are the
overseas Filipino workers. They seem to be fine working miles away from home but
deep within them, they are fighting to deal their stresses.
Stress is normal but to the point that it consumes you is another story. There
are acts that can help stress tolerable in a simple way which makes your mind busy to
divert the attention and not focus on things that may cause stress. However, managing
stress differ from every individual way of dealing such.
Filipinos despite their happy personality isn't an exception of stress. They do
feel it but try hard to cope it up finding meaning in a stressful world by stress
managing which recognizing joy, fulfilment, and pleasure.
These are certainly not the best of times for Filipinos, so it’s not surprising that
we’re pretty much feeling more than the usual physical aches and pains. Sure, Filipinos
are resilient, but as popular medical anthropologist Michael Tan points out in the latest
report feature as part of our series tackling health, this doesn’t necessarily mean we
don’t feel stressed. In fact, it may be one of the reasons why heart disease and strokes
are among the top causes of death in this country. Tan says it could also be a cause of
“bangungot”, that notorious phenomenon that has had Filipino men, many of them in
their prime dying in their sleep from supposed nightmare.
An astute observer of Filipino culture Tan says while solitude stresses us
out, so do the demands of family, although our kin also happens to be one of our major
source of happiness. We are sensitive to smells, but not so much to noise (unless
perhaps it happens to be a barrage of rumors about us). As Tan notes, “stressors are
not universal.” What could be soothing to a foreigner (silence, for example) could drive
us up the wall and vice versa.
Yet, Tan says, “not enough’s being done to understanding stress in its local
context, yet stress is mediated through culture: from the very nature of the stressors, to
the ways we respond to the stress. Understanding this local context might help us
developed more culturally appropriate, and therefore more effective ways to deal with
stress.

The author emphasized that regardless of any other culture,

Filipinos are not different in coping with stress. Filipinos may be resilient based to the
perceptions of others. Generally, stress can lead to physical, mental and even
psychological illness. The author mentioned the different cases and studies the high
and lows in terms of the coping mechanisms. Filipinos have different ways in dealing
with stress. Apparently, depending on how they were educated or well-knowledge. For
instance, the poor is getting poorer due to lack of health access, struggles in daily
living which becomes stressful for them and leads them to depression, drug
dependency, robbery and even suicidal. Recently, bullying has become one of the cause
of death among teenagers. Depression is one of the cases if it’s not going to treat well or
immediate attention to address the person suffering from anxiety may lead to psychotic
or worst death.

A lot of factors to be considered as a stressors, culture, environment,

family, social media, school and a lot, it attributes to the feelings, thinking of an
individual. Eventually, has a huge impact on his/her behaviour which affect
emotionally, mentally and psychologically as a whole.
The author, Filipino’s way of coping is through the help of
the family member.

2.Self-Care Plan. Design for your self-care plan

for the whole school year.

3.Reflection Paper. Make a self-

compassionate letter and make a reflection
paper about it.

“My dearest myself;

Hoping this letter finds you well and you're not disappointed. We both love hen
fruit - you know, eggs - but neither of us could afford the chooks that are the best
layers. I think it was you that found it, a feather from the right sort of chook and I
said that if you plant the feather it will grow into a chook. But it didn't work and I
feel that you blamed me. So sorry. Hope you still love me 'cos I still love myself.
Yours sincerely,
Myself.”