We’ve all been there — waking up in the morning, ready to face a new day when the heavy burden of stress weighs us down. While stress may seem minimal, can it affect our health over time?
Tarun Katapally, a researcher in the Faculty of Health Sciences, comes from a family with a history of healthy living. Despite his father’s active and smoke and alcohol-free lifestyle, he had to undergo triple bypass surgery at the age of 65.
“I know that the biggest factor for that to happen is consistent stress,” Katapally shared. “There’s a lot of evidence that stress has an impact on your physical health outcomes.”
There have been many studies on how the stress hormone cortisol can affect the body in high levels.
According to the American Psychological Association, chronic stress can disrupt almost all of the body’s processes and increase risk of digestive issues, heart disease and high blood pressure.
Stress is a subjective experience, but it can be loosely defined as a sense of mental strain due to responsibilities. Stress has been around forever, but in recent years, it seems to have intensified, partly due to social media and the “toxic productivity” phenomenon.
Brightside Health points out that while social media is a popular way to pass the time and keep up to date with current news, it also is a big contributor to stress and anxiety among users.
Carly Bongard, a fourth year MIT student, pointed to deadlines as a significant stressor and that “you can’t avoid them.”
All of this considered, how can students alleviate stress in their lives?
There are many resources at Western University for mental health including individual counseling, peer support, group workshops and more but not everyone is aware of this.
“I do think that Western should do more advertising when it comes to their resources,” Bongard said. She personally doesn’t use the services, but if she needed them, she wouldn’t know where to go.
Bongard explained how over the years, she has found ways to cope with stress such as going to the gym or going for a walk, but her main piece of advice is to write down the tasks that are the most stressful so you have a list of what to do. She continued describing her list of responsibilities that she makes everyday.
“That way, I can physically see myself cross it off, or physically see that I don’t have that much to do,” she explained, adding that this helps her plan out her day accordingly, or give her peace of mind.
Bongard is a new personal trainer at a gym in downtown London and said fitness is critical to staying grounded. She explained exercises like weight lifting and walking have positively impacted her mental health and self-esteem.
“I feel like when you start working out for the first time, it’s like a whole new life,” Bongard said. “My mental health is so much better, I feel so much less stressed, I feel more confident.”
Katapally, however, gave his own straightforward advice to how he got through the stress of medical school.
“Always surround yourself with good people,” he said. “That’s your greatest buffer, in my opinion.”
