SELF MANAGEMENT

Managing oneself in order to achieve desired goals and targets is called self-Management. A person practicing self-
management is actually following a highly disciplined regime which needs a great deal of will power, determination &
positive outlook.

Stress and its Effects:

Understanding Stress:
In this highly competitive world and strenuous lifestyle, students are influenced by the negative influence of stress in
their lives. Day-to-day stress is the outcome of many reasons such as covering the curriculum to study and preparation
for exams. On the professional front too, elders also go through a Iot of stress.

Types of Stress:
Stress is not always bad. There is something called good or positive stress also known as eustress, while negative form of
stress is called distress. Eustress is commonly identified by excitement, elation and charging up of emotions. When we
achieve something, say, winning a match, passing an exam, lead to eustress. Eustress promotes positive motivation,
positive energy, and excitement. But eustress is generally short term. The negative stress i.e., distress is very harmful.
Common Effects of Stress:
Eustress lead to positive consequences like increased performance, and good focus on the tasks. It increases
productivity and the chances of bigger achievements.
Distress is the reaction of our body to harmful situations. These situations be real, or they be out of our imagination
only. Distress affects us physically as well as psychologically.
Common physical effects of distress: Headache, Fatigue, Chest pain, Disturbed sleep and Low energy.
Common psychological effects of distress: Anxiety, Feeling demotivated, Loss of attention, Depression and
frustration, angry outbursts, drug and alcohol abuse, social withdrawal, over reaction.
Consequences of Long-Term Distress:
Impact of Stress varies from person to person. Some can handle good amount of Stress While others not.
It depends on age, profession, living conditions, health and will power. A little distress is of little concern. Long term
distress affects us adversely. Long term distress is also called chronic distress.

Distress Due to Work:

For students, the amount of study and tasks at hand determines stress for them, as children grow up the number and
depth of the subjects increase, performance expectations go up, so does the competition. But most of this stress is not
long term. Anxiety for stress remains for a few days. Pressure of studies is balanced by school timetable and self-study
timetable. But certain unfortunate events like death of a loved one, cyber-bullying or bullying at school, ragging in
hostels, accident, fatal disease cause long term distress and spoil child's mental and physical health.

For professionals, stress goes hand- in-hand. Some common reasons for work related distress are higher performance.
expectations, closer deadlines, insecurity of job, internal team conflicts, relationship and differences with
supervisor, longer or odd hours, concerns related to job satisfaction.
Stress for working mothers is more. Taking care of domestic front - children and home making becomes challenging.
There is also distress caused to the women who do not work, and daily domestic chores demand a lot of physical
stamina.

Internal Distress:
Anxiety, fear of huge financial loss like bankruptcy, repeated and overflowing thoughts of worry and concern, worries
related to future happenings such as a diagnosis of a fatal disease. Internal distress is dangerous as it keeps building up
inside and slowly, it takes the form of a sort of habit. If not taken care of timely, it goes beyond control and leads to
physical conditions like head, heart ache, high blood pressure and loss of focus.
Stress Due to Surroundings:
Our surroundings and environment can cause eustress or distress. When we talk about environment, there are following
two aspects:
Qualify Of surroundings:
1. Noisy/ Quiet - whether you staying a noisy place like market, main road etc. or not.
2. Clean/ Dirty-how clean or dirty is the place.
3. Crowded/ Organised - whether you live in a well organized colony of houses or not.
4. Quality of life (food, water, electricity and other amenities).

Work and living conditions:

1. Quiet/ Distractions-you work among distractions or on a suitably placed seat.
2. Congested workplace/ Spacious or Economically designed.
3. Interaction and relationship with people (coworkers/ family members/ neighbours).

Stress Due to Sudden Need of Survival:

In certain cases, disaster strikes suddenly. For instance, accident, earthquake or any life-threatening situation. In such
situations, our nervous system instantly kicks into action as an autonomous fight{face}, flight(defence) or freeze
(surrender)response.

Stress Management Techniques:

Stress is a phenomenon which cannot be eradicated. We need to learn how to manage it. Certain professions such as
police, defense forces, firefighting etc. train individuals to deal with all kind of stress. School timetable and
schedule is prepared in such a way that various kinds of periods in a day include classroom activities, laboratory,
outdoor activities.
Science exhibitions, Story reading sessions, contests and competitions, sports events,
performing arts (singing, drama, dance) events are the examples of stress busting activities which also help in
personality development and creativity promotion for students

Understand the Origins of Stress:

Identify the source of stress: This is the first steps to deal with stress. Ask these simple questions to yourself:
1. What are the real reasons for my anxiety? (Are they real or imaginary?)
2. Am l working under pressure for long? (Do I need a break?)
3. Am I emotionally upset at something or someone? (Do l need to talk to someone?)
4. Are my activities time-wasting? (Do I need to review my working or study plans?)
For the imaginary threats, you yourself are responsible so it will be easier to handle. For real threats, you need to devise
appropriate stress management techniques.

Healthier Lifestyle:
The combination of positive habits and discipline prevents or reduces stress. What are some common negative habits?
1. Avoid smoking/ alcohol/ drugs.
2. Have good eating habits. Do you overeat or undereat and when? What is the food quality?
3. Develop good sleeping habit. How much do you sleep? Are you ensuring at least 7 hours of sleep?
4. Inculcate healthy hobbies. Painting, creative arts, any sports activity, yoga, even spending quality time with
family and friends help relieve your stress.
5. Keep good company and avoid people who discourage.

Healthier Working/ Study Habits:

1. Bring discipline in work and study. Ask yourself - am I planned? Am I on schedule?
2. Time—bound goals and avoiding procrastination (not prioritizing the tasks according to their importance.)
 3. Do not try to please everyone. Leant to say no if you really cannot help something.
4. Plan to keep a work family balance.
5. Plan your breaks and holidays,
6. Do not overwork or over-study.

Exercise Eustress Against Distress:

Utilize positive stress to counterbalance distress. For instance, if you are depressed for some time due to some reason
and suddenly get a chance to go out with friends then do that to distract yourself from the negative stress.
Celebrate even the small, good news. If you achieved something small, share it with your friends and feel proud
and good about it. Enjoy every small- term eustress to the maximum.

Managing Environmental Stress:

In most of the cases, it is not possible to change our surroundings, environment, school or college. We can still do
certain things to adapt well in such case.
1. Take nature walks or early morning walks to relax your mind and re-energize your body.
2. Go for vacations for a change of place and climate and return with boosted energy.
3. Adopt yoga, fitness training, activity club to boost your eustress.
4. Participate in community activities that help in improving environment and surroundings

Managing Internal Stress:

Most of the internal stress is due to our own doings and our unreal fears and imagined threats. Herc arc some tips to
deal with internal stress:
1. Keep the positive attitude because your unreal fears survive on your negative attitude.
2. You cannot control everything. Learn to adapt to the changing situations as much as possible.
3. Learn to distinguish between being angry, being aggressive and being firm.
4. Keep fit. Fit body fights stress better.
5. Keep track of your time. Learn to distinguish between relaxation and wasting time.
6. Do not cut down on sleep, laughter , hobbies, good meal.

Ability to Work Independently: Importance of ability to work independently.

Working independently is often mistaken as working alone. Being able to work independently means accomplishing the
tasks assigned to you without unnecessarily claiming the time of other people. For example, if you are a part of the
Green Club team in your school which has planned to plant certain trees in a locality. You are assigned to collect funds
for procuring seeds for 20 trees by next Sunday then no other team member should help you in this. It is something you
need to do independently.

What Does Being Independent Mean? You are able to work independently shows when you:
1. are aware of your strengths and weaknesses.
2. are able to prioritize your tasks.
3. deliver your best always.
4. able to adapt to the working pace of the team.
5. own your task and take responsibility of any mistakes.
6. carry a positive attitude towards what you do.

Skills to Work Independently:

1. Organisational skills: Ability to understand the requirements of what you need to deliver, organise your work
accordingly as the needs arise or requirements change.
2. Personal Character: An honest approach to do things, maintaining integrity and trust.
3. Multitasking: Ability to handle multiple tasks, prioritise them according to situation and finishing all the
tasks at hand successfully.
4. Knowing Oneself: Knowing what and how much you are able to do
5. Self-discipline and self-regulation: Ability of self-management. Able to identify time-wasting activities. Regulate
yourself to utilise the time at hand for completing tasks in a timely manner.
6. Communication and negotiating skills: Command over the verbal communication and ability to argue and
negotiate without any aid or intervention.
7. Agility: Able to adapt to changing situations and managing time accordingly.
8. Handing failures and setbacks: Ability-to look at the failures as great source of learning.
9. Not letting setbacks like rejections and criticism discourage you. Ability to take responsibility of failures,

Self-Awareness and Its Type:

Knowing your strengths, weaknesses, beliefs, abilities, limitations, likes, dislike etc. is called self-awareness. Self
awareness helps you stay happy, productive and confident. Depending on our self-analysis we either feel proud or feel
not very good. Self-awareness brings self-motivation and self-control. Let us look at 2 major types of self-awareness.

Internal self-awareness: Our values, beliefs, passions and standards are revealed when we do internal self
awareness. Also, that way these traits help us in interacting with our surroundings and environment. Internal self
awareness tells you your favourite subject, your favourite sports, what you aspire to become, what you do not like
doing or achieving, how you look at other people, how your attitude is built up on your values.

External self-awareness: Ability to assess or see how other people view you is called external self-awareness.
External self-awareness brings self-improvement, good leadership skills, better understanding of people and it
determines people's liking/ disliking you in one way or another. External self-awareness helps you deliver tasks in a
better way.

Self-Awareness Assessment:
Being self-aware is a high level of intelligence. Knowing oneself is half the battle won. Most of us are blind to our
strengths and weaknesses.
 Am I able to create an image of myself in my mind?
 How much am I in control of my feelings especially when angry, emotional or sad?
 What triggers my passion for doing what I like?
 What sets me off?
 Can I list my personal life values and beliefs?
 Can I list what l cannot do?
 Can I list my inner conflicts/ confusions?
 Can I list some of my negative traits that come in my way to success?
 Can I list the traits I inherited from my parents?
 Can I list some details which I think people have about me are correct?
 Can I list some details which I think people have about me are incorrect?

How To Become Self Aware?

Find some quiet time with yourself. Reflect on your thoughts. Retrospect what you have been doing in the past days.
Practice good Iistening without interrupting them. Ask for feedback from others about yourself, about your work and
what you do.
Think in terms of "what" instead of "why". For example, what could be the possible reasons that prevented me
from getting good marks in last test? What was the situation that made me fight with my best friend? What are
the reasons that make me reach college late often?

Knowing Your Strengths and Weaknesses:

Analyse your work, outputs of what you do, speak to your parents and reliable friends and teachers. Feedback from
teachers and parents will let you list down your strengths and weaknesses.
Ask yourself too. What motivates you and what does not? What are your common fears? What are you good at? What
are your qualities or their lack?
Weaknesses could be related to your personality, the way you work or study, in interacting with others, in
organising yourself and regarding your emotional sell. How emotionally stable you are is the question you must ask
yourself or reflect on any past incidences where you overreacted in any situation.

Self Motivation and Self Regulation:

Self-motivation is your inner ability to do, move from thought to action. Your strengths trigger your self- motivation but
some of your weaknesses may dampen your passion. That is why, for self-motivation, self-awareness is necessary. Right
kind of self-awareness motivates you to take action on your thoughts but how do you complete this difficult journey
from thought to action ? The answer is self regulation. One example is preparation for your final examination. How do
you manage to prepare entire book? At first it seems too difficult. Then you command all your strengths to help you. You
begin working on your weaknesses (getting up early, eating right, sleeping timely, utilizing time, cutting down on TV and
time with friends). This automatically brings in self regulation.
Your self awareness, self motivation and self regulation create a self realization and self acceptance. This makes you
capable of working independently.

Assessment:
1. What do you mean by the term self-management?
2. Why is self-management important for us?
3. Differentiate between eustress and distress with example.
4. Discuss how stress affects us physically and psychologically.
5. What is chronic distress? Discuss stress in professionals due to work.
6. What do you mean by internal distress? How will you manage it to reduce its adverse effects?
7. Explain the distress effects due to environment and surroundings.
8. Explain fight-fight-freeze response during mortal danger. How does our nervous system handle this response?
9. How can we identify the source of stress?
10. How can healthier life style help us manage stress well?
11. What are the healthier working or study habits that help reduce stress?
12. How can you say that sometimes eustress helps in counterbalancing distress?
13. List some tips to manage environmental stress.
14. Despite the importance of team work, how does the ability to work independently help an individual? Give example.
15. List some major traits of an individual able to work independently.
16. Write a note on personal skills discussing their benefits.
17. How can we say that one is self-aware? Explain two types of self awareness.