SIXTH FORM: Learning how to cope with stress

Sixth formers discovered more about how to deal with stress in one of their latest enrichment lectures. Student JOSIE DODDS reflects on what she learnt

WHAT makes you stressed? When lower sixth form students were asked this question a list of common stressors - including being put on the spot, writing essays, and broader factors like cancer and global conflicts – were written down on a whiteboard at the front of the school hall.

We were attending an enrichment session on understanding stress and how it impacts our resilience, led by Andrea Edmondson from NeuroSmart Learning.

The hidden stressors that not many people had thought of were added to the board by Mrs Edmondson and included social media (a groan did indeed go up from the gathered teenagers), caffeine (another collective sigh of displeasure), and needing the toilet, which, though it hadn’t occurred to anyone to write down, instantly went on everyone’s list.

Once the whiteboard was full, but the list by no means complete, we returned to 

understanding stress.

Resilience was defined as the ability to respond to and recover from stresses, and stress was defined as anything that requires you to burn more energy to keep your internal system in balance.

Mrs Edmondson described the scale of calmness, from calm to alert to alarmed to overwhelmed to terrified, and we were able to picture the perfect ‘sweet spot’ between calm and alert where our exam performance would be the best possible, but also our day-to-day performance.

There were plenty of opportunities given to the students to discuss in pairs and with their tables what stresses they acknowledged in their everyday life and the hidden stressors that were perhaps accepted as an unavoidable fact of life but could be avoided.

Students explored their stressors and what they can do to reduce their stress load and boost their resilience by thinking about things differently and focusing on rest and recovery.

We were taught about the stress response our body has, and the systems that turn on and off internally in response to a stressor, and the fight or flight or freeze reflex.

Obviously, the next step then is to learn how to have a rational and balanced response to stress or anxiety. In this session the emphasis was very much on understanding stress, as once you are aware of something you have the power to change it, however we did go on to learn the physiological sigh, a method of regulating breathing to bring the attention back to the body and calm the mind.

Activities included balancing on one leg to demonstrate the scientific definition of stress and students reflected on what they can do to reduce their stress load by focusing on the things they can control- screen time, sleep, what they eat, what they do in their free time, asking for help.

Co-regulation, how people have the ability to regulate another’s physiological state via voice, facial expression, body language and gestures, was also brought up – explaining, perhaps, some of the negative effects the pandemic had on students' mental health and our social development.

We ended with an activity that blended a superhero pose with putting a pen between our teeth, both actions trigger different hormones. The superhero is an open posture that reduces the stress hormone cortisol and increases testosterone which is linked to feeling more confident in both males and females. The pen in the mouth uses the same muscles as a real smile resulting in the release or serotonin the 'feel good hormone' or 'happy hormone'.

This was an excellent starting session on understanding stress and thinking more deeply about what stresses us. Lower sixth form students look forward to further sessions on dealing with stress, and perhaps opportunities to put methods into practice. Thank you to Mrs Edmondson for coming in to speak to us.

Mrs Edmondson added: “The purpose of the presentation was to help students understand their unique stress response and its impact on the way the brain and body works and therefore their mental and physical health."

In addition to sharing some tools to switch off the stress response such the physiological sign breathing technique and connecting with friends, Mrs Edmondson emphasised: “ It's important to watch out for their friends if you see changes in behaviour, like not wanting to socialise.”