Personal Responsibility
David S Larsen

March 27, 2013

Personal Responsibility Attending College can be difficult in the best of times but even more so today with all the external pressures associated with education including economics and sociological pressures. There are stresses all around students in college, everywhere they look. Students feel pressure to do well, to learn the material, to impress the teacher, to please their parents, to take care of themselves financially and sociologically. For many students, college will be the first step into adulthood and the first time that they really have to take responsibility for their own lives. A person finally breaks free from their parents or guardians and has to do for themselves. Therefore it is important to accept this responsibility and also to be accountable for choices and the actions that are perpetrated by the individual. One of the ways that a person can take responsibility for themselves is to reduce the stress and thereby do better in their scholastic endeavors. Researchers have determined the top ten most common hassles associated with attending college which contribute to stress. These include: fear about the future, lack of sleep, wasting time, smoking and its health effects from either first or second-hand smoke, their physical appearance, the feeling that they have too much to do, misplacing or losing important materials or personal property, not having enough time for the things they must do, concerns about the high standards they set for themselves or that parents or the school sets for them, and the feeling of loneliness and homesickness that accompanies college enrollment (Huffman 2012, page 97). All of these things are negatives and students will have to confront these issues and they will often have to deal with these issues on their own. No one can get through college without experience stressful moments. The trick is to learn how to handle this stress and in what ways the pressure can be relieved. One of the best ways to reduce stress is to exercise. Working out by doing activities such as running outdoors, boxing and sparring, aerobics, swimming, and bicycling have been proven to have extremely positive effects on a person’s mental state and their ability to handle stress. Stress is the feeling of intense pressure which people feel when they are depended upon to perform actions which overwhelm them. It is defined as “a response to a demand that is placed upon you” (Managing 2013). People’s responses to stress can be physical or mental and can include headache, emotional distress, development of anxiety disorders, increased heart rate, high blood pressure, muscle tension, and can lead to physical exhaustion and serious mental and/or physical illnesses. Prolonged exposure to high levels of stress can seriously impact your health. People who are in high-stress situations, such as college students, need to look for ways to calm down and relieve their stress. If they do not find ways to relieve the stress, then there are definite negative things which can happen. Not dealing with stress is an irresponsible thing for students to do. Those who are suffering from a great deal of stress should perform some form of physical exercise. Science has proven that exercise has been proven to have many benefits for both physical and mental health of human beings. It can also seriously reduce the amount of stress that people feel because of the pressures in their lives. The human body creates negative chemicals such as cortisol when the person is stressed out and this furthers the negative feelings in the body (Scott 2012). Exercising helps this because it counters the negative hormones. Part of the reason that this works is that when the body performs physical exertion, it releases endorphins throughout the body which fight the bad chemicals created by the stressing (Mayo Clinic 2012). Endorphins are a chemical which is pleasurable and when a person feels good or happy, they feel less stressed. It improves your mood and your general outlook on the world around you. Therefore it is proven that exercising directly affects the level of stress a person feels. In addition to the releasing of endorphins, exercising has other benefits to the body as well. Physical exercise is a form of psychological meditation. This is extremely important to students who always have many things to think about, including classes, money or lack of money, and the social setting of their fellow student body members. When the body and mind concentrates on something other than the things which are causing the person stress, then they feel better about everything, including those stressful moments. There is also an increased feeling of self-esteem related to exercising because the effort you put in tells your brain that you look good (Scott 2012). If you feel that you look better it makes you happier and therefore even less stressed. When a person begins college, they start a whole new stage in their lives. They have to take care of themselves for perhaps the first time in their lives. Students in college experience great amounts of stress because of all this pressure. There are many different ways to alleviate this feeling and one of the best ways is through physical exercise. Physical exertion makes you feel better because it releases endorphins. It also allows the mind to think about other things besides what is causing you stress. Therefore, exercising is a great way to relieve college-related stress for students. Students who have found a way to combat this stress are far more likely to do well in their classes than those students who do not deal with their stress in efficient or effective ways. Relieving stress is an important aspect of personal responsibility associated with school.

Huffman, K. (2012). Psychology in Action. 10th edition. Jon Wiley & Sons: Jefferson City, MO. Managing stress: a guide for college students: what exactly is stress? (2013). University Health Center: Atlanta, GA. Retrieved from http://www.uhs.uga.edu/stress/ Mayo Clinic Staff. (2012). Exercise and stress: get moving to manage stress. Scott, E. (2012). Exercise and stress relief: using exercise as a stress management tool.