Stress is when a person or an individual experiences psychological and physiological response to the perception of a demand or challenge. Several studies have been carried out on stress factors and its consequences on undergraduate students. Stress as it relates to undergraduate students is a very crucial and important issue that needs to be looked into and appropriate solutions given.
Since higher education plays a critical role in stimulating a country’s economy and empowering young people with the skills, knowledge and attitudes required, it is important to manage what could militate against the productivity of these young lads.
Attending the higher institution can be an exciting moment, satisfying and fulfilling in a student’s life. However, with the whole excitement of been an undergraduate, the student life may become a stressful journey.
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When a student experiences stress, it can lead to a poor and reduced academic performance, low grad and even high rate of universities drop out. Some factors that can militate against undergraduates’ academic pursuit are but not limited to financial constraints, interpersonal and intrapersonal challenges, academic under preparedness and difficulties in balancing academic and personal life all of these can lead to stress and depression.
Some academic stressors have been identified as including high academic workload, attending lectures, deadlines to assignments submission, balancing university and private life, and economic issues. Those stressors are linked to a greater risk of distress and reduced academic achievement.
However, stress has been known to be the fuel the body uses to meet the challenges of our fast-paced modern and academic life, although for others, it is the aversive byproduct of such a life. Stress has severally been associated with major life events, daily life hassles and bustle and changes in life. Stress is created by excessive environmental and internal demands that need constant effort and adjustment.

STRESS

Stress can be defined as an uncertain reaction to external and internal factors. It means a negative or positive reaction to environmental stimuli. In this regard, it is how the totality of your body relates to changes and unfamiliar situations that present itself in the course of time.
Stress can also be the process by which an individual or a person reacts when opened to external or internal problems and challenges. As a result of stress the organism processes numerous systems to coordinate such adaptive responses both at systematic and cellular levels by this, stress has direct effect on the brain and the whole anatomy of the body as such failure to adapt to a stressful condition can result in brain malfunction, physiological problem and also many areas of psychological challenge's in the form of depression, anxiety, pain and burnout.

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Furthermore, stress is the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressure or other types of demands placed on them. It is when individuals are confronted by a situation that they perceive as overwhelming and cannot cope up with.
Stress in this regard can be said to be a complex pattern of emotional state and physiological reactions. As a result of stress the whole body system response to the external demands. They refer to the demands emanating from the environmental as stressor. During such a period, vital organs such as sexual organs, heart rate, blood pressure, stroke volume, respiratory rate in the body react speedily. Many hormonal responses are at peak.
The academic life can be stressful at times and undergraduate students are at high risk of experiencing stress which ends up having a diverse effect and consequences on their academic performance, competency and general well-being. By default, everyone in all sphere of life needs a certain amount of pressure to perform at their best and more effectively and efficiently. However, when the pressure exceeds an individual capacity and energy, it may eventually result to stress.
When stress is experienced and prolonged it can lead to distress and even shut down the ability to cope with ordinary situations causing ill-health.
Stress is the wear and tear our bodies experience as we adjust to our continually changing environment; it has physical, psychological and emotional effects and can create positive or negative influence on us. As a positive influence, stress can help to compel us for action and perform task more efficiently. As a negative influence, it can result in feelings of distress, rejection, anger, and depression, which in turn can lead to health problems.

CAUSES OF STRESS

what causes stress among undergraduate students are numerous and include aspects such as difficulties in adjusting to the university culture, socio-economic challenges, poor interpersonal relationships, intrapersonal problems and limited institutional support. However, one of the main and common causes to academic stress among undergraduate students is test/exam anxiety. Most undergraduate students seem to be emotionally vulnerable to examinations related stress once they hear they have a test to writ or once an exam time-table comes out, they automatically grow fear and anxiety. The anxiety that comes with tests/exams has a debilitating effect on their performance. When information generated by worrying about the test reduces the capacity available for performing the tasks, the result is that performance breaks down and the result becomes self-confirming.

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Another cause of stress among undergraduate students is high tuition fees. When the intuition fees is high, students get worried on how to pay their fees especially when they have examinations to write and the only way they can write the exams is when they have paid their intuition fees. The thought of how to go about it especially for students that come from poor background can be stressful and depressing.
The transitional nature of the university life is another factor can lead to stress. The feeling of loneliness, sleepiness, low or no social support, nervousness and worrying of examination results, meeting new friends and course mates, adjusting to a new city, and many other unexpected changes can really pose as a challenge to an undergraduate student especially those in year one. There are other causes such as time management difficulty, financial matters, interaction with lecturers, admission process, high expectation of parents, unsuitable school timings, unbalanced student-teacher ratio, physical environment of classroom, unhealthy student teacher interaction, hard and fast rules of discipline, too many or complex assignments, teaching methodology, personal subjective goals, adjustment problem in the academic culture, lack of support system, unconcerned teacher’s attitude and overemphasis on weaknesses rather than acknowledging strengths can cause a high level of stress among university students.
For other undergraduate students especially for those coming from the rural areas, they usually have the problem of sudden transition of the use of English language form their usual mother tongue as a medium of instruction and communication in the university can also be a source of stress for such students.
Stress is a key factor in the development of emotional difficulties and behavioral problems. Extreme stress often leads to serious health problems. Beyond this, stress contributes to develop the feeling of depressions, anxiety, diabetes, asthma, ulcers and headaches.

ADVERSE EFFECTS OF STRESS ON STUDENTS

Students today experience high levels of stress in many areas of life and it has an adverse effect on them. Cases such as study schedules are very challenging. The act of combining a busy life along with education can cause a whole lot of stress and depression. However, when the stress is limited it is beneficial and can lead to a fact and excellent performance. But an uncontrolled and prolonged stress can lead to exhaustion, depression and several other health issues. In fact, undergraduate students are prone to episodic stress. This happens when exams are around the corner. Stress and depression also occur when getting ready for a presentation, project defence or even a job interview. At these times some undergraduate students even go as far as contemplating or even commit suicide. The rate of suicide among the youths in the society today is overwhelming and most of the stories behind such acts are usually with stress and depression.

HOW DO YOU HANDLE STRESS AS A STUDENT

Having mentioned the causes of stress, it is important to equally explain how stress can be managed and handled when you find yourself in such state. That is why students who were able to handle their stress effectively performed much better than those who couldn’t. Below are some tips on how to handle stress.

i) Relaxation/ Enough Sleep: Relaxation means to treat and relax the body that is to say relaxing and resting all stress centers in the body and gradually also check mechanisms that may lead to stress, thereby reaching complete relaxation both inside and outside the body. In this process, all the muscles in the body, internal organs and joints of the body as well as the emotions and the mind become relaxed. Also you must get enough sleep. Getting enough sleep is very important to the general well-being of the human body. Do not deny your body the hours of sleep it needs as denial may lead to some health challenges. However, relaxation should be a conscious effort. The whole body including the mind should be relaxed.
ii) Exercise Regularly: exercise is another way of relieving stress form the body. It also helps in relaxing the muscles helps in free flow of blood to the arteries and veins.
iii) Calm and deep breath: calming and deep breathing relaxes the body; it helps in releasing tension from the body and also clears the mind, improving both physical and mental wellness. Some people tend to breathe shallowly or even hold their breath when they are feeling anxious.
You must understand that shallow breathing or holding your breath limits your oxygen intake and adds further stress to your body. Breathing exercises can help to reduce this stress you can do this by breathing in and out. To practice a deep breathing is to breathe deeply from the abdomen, getting as much air as possible into your lungs. When you take deep breaths from the abdomen, rather than shallow breaths from your upper chest, you inhale more oxygen. The more oxygen you get, the less tense, short of breath, and anxious you feel. This kind of breathing is called “diaphragmatic breathing”. It means to breathe from the depths of your abdomen, rather than from your chest. Practicing this breathing exercise can help in handling and reducing stress.
iv) Listen to Music: some music has a way of helping relax and sleep better. When you are stressed and exhausted, you may choose to listen to music that appeal to your soul. In that process, you relax better and free your mind of all worries and anxieties.
v) Organization/planning: sometimes the reason why we go through stress is as a result of disorganization and lack of proper planning. If you don’t plan, you plan to fail. Some students will not plan their reading time-table and when to do an assignment, it is when they see or hear about test/exams that they begin to study. This is one the many reasons why undergraduate students fall into depression and anxiety. Be an organised students who plans his/her activities very well and you are sure of escaping the experience of stress.
vi) Eat Healthy Diet: healthy meals are very important. You eat healthy to stay healthy. As an undergraduate, you just imbibe the culture of healthy lifestyle which eating healthy meals is included. Breakfast is the most important and vital meal for the day. This is because you need it to carry out your day to day activities. As a student before leaving for lectures in the morning, try as much as possible to eat before leaving the house it will give you the energy you need to learn and comprehend the teaching for the day.

CONCLUSION

Conclusively, it can be said that stress is inevitable in human life, given the conflict between our needs and the realities of our environment and its relationships. Stress is common problem of every individual particularly for Undergraduate students. These students are a special group of people that are enduring a critical transitory period in which they are going from adolescence to adulthood and can be one of the most stressful times in a person’s life. For many undergraduate students especially those in their final year, university life is a major transition in their lives since they are accorded the chance to decide what to do without the undue influence of their parents. Hence, the students make various decisions regarding all aspects of their lives such as academics, social life, and leisure activities However, amidst the new found freedom students have to struggle to meet the expectations of their parents which include expectations related to their academic performance
Some of the effects students have from the stressors can be characterized by a lack of overt skills in handling a stressful situation. This can be marked also by poor performance or avoidance because students lack the skill to deal with these stressors. Stress management techniques usually filter out some of the stress and equip individuals to cope with stress situations.