The Thursday activity for this week was a seminar conducted by Mrs.Sonika Gupta — a renowned advocate in the Punjab & Haryana high court, on Stress, it’s causes, effects and solutions.
She defined stress as the body’s inert way of responding to any kind of external or internal demands, during the process of which Adrenaline is secreted greatly in excess of what is needed. She further went on to explain how stress can be of two types — Positive Stress or Eustress which often helps us to perform better in situations of need, such as examinations, and Negative Stress or Distress which is damaging and often leads to the hampering of cognitive and bodily functioning.
Mrs. Gupta, goes on talk about the importance of self recognition and acceptance of stress which can be done by observing it’s various short term and long term symptoms. Short term symptoms to look out for are — shortness of breath, increase in heart palpatations, drying out of mouth, headaches, cold hands and feet, nausea and feeling faint, sweating profusely etc. As far as long term symptoms are concerned, she went out to list a few such as — withdrawal symptoms from enjoyed activities, change in eating and sleeping patterns, change in behavioural habits, skin problems such as rashes or breaking out of skin, frequent bowel problems, weakened immune system etc.
Although, the reasons of stress are fairly subjective and can differ from person to person, Mrs. Gupta went out to list a few common ones such as death of loved ones, chronic illnesses, ending of important relationships, feeling hopeless and helpless, loss of direction of purpose, being subjected to calamities and natural disasters etc.
The seminar came to an end through an inter personal discussion with the students where the various solutions for dealing with stress were disseminated such as beginning by finding out reasons of stress and rectifying them, sharing ones emotions, indulging in recreational activities, and lastly and most importantly building ones self confidence and self acceptance is considered to be the key solution to stress. This seminar was a great learning experience for the students especially when exams are right around the corner.
The write up was submitted by Kainat Singh from the Ist Year.
