Stressed in Coursera Journal

Purpose: critically assess the claim that people today are more stressed than ever, and that stress is a disorder.

Task: reflect on the last week and assess the extent to which it reveals you as stressed; consider how the possibility that stress might be considered an illness makes you feel. To what extent were you surprised (or stressed!) about your score in the stress test in this module?

Respond: write a post that explains whether you feel stressed and whether you’re stressed about that; reply to two peers.

My Response

I definitely feel stressed, and I also feel stressed about feeling stressed. I was surprised (and stressed) about my scores on the stress test in this module, as it was incredibly high (30). While I acknowledge I am stressed, I didn’t realize I was quite that stressed. It makes sense, however. In the last week, I have been doing poorly at my job- forgetting simple responsibilities, messing up routine tasks. My mind is elsewhere. I am stressed.

While I have come to accept depression as an illness, I had not before considered stress an illness, as much of mine is often self-made. I ruminate over things that don’t need to be worried about to such an extent. Or I procrastinate until deadlines are almost past. To think that these are partly an illness rather than just crappy character traits is an interesting concept to me; one that might be beneficial. Once I shift blame away from myself, I can often concentrate more on fixing the problem, ironically.

I think it tends to be quite a circle, feeling stressed about one thing, which causes poor concentration on others, which leads to stressing about those things, etc.