Allison Barton: Hi my name is Allison Barton and I'm the health
educator at the Moorpark College Student Health
Center. Before I get started on the "Stress and
Lifestyle" presentation I'd just like to tell you a
little bit about the health center because a lot
of students are unaware of its existence even when
all of us are physically on campus. So this is the
view of the admin building from Raider Walk with
our sign in the foreground. You can just walk up
the stairs and go in the door. You could also take
the ramp that's located to the left from the
perspective of this picture.
When you walk in this door you'll see the health
center. It's the first door on the left. Many
students don't realize that they pay a health fee
each term and that fee entitles you to use an
array of services including medical and mental
health services. We have a professional staff that
includes a physician, nurse practitioner, registered
nurses, and medical assistants. We also have a
fairly large mental health staff including a
psychologist, marriage and family counselors, and
post-doctoral trainees that all offer short term
mental health counseling. All treatment
is confidential and is no way connected to your
school record. So during the Covid pandemic most
services will be delivered by telehealth or phone
but some will be offered in person. And I just
wanted to make sure that you knew where it was and
how to get there. For appointments, you just call
the number on the screen and we'll hook you up
with all the paperwork and all that. OK. I just
wanted to let you know too that inside the waiting
area is a self is a self care center. So if you
see the little plexiglass bins between the door
and the window you'll see over the counter pain
relievers, cough drops, allergy medication, bandaids,
and more. You have great lip balm that's free. And
we also offer free condoms and lube. So you paid
for this with your health fee. You want to take
advantage as soon as you can. All right so now on
with the presentation. So what is stress, anyway?
Let's just take a moment to think about what you
mean when you say you are stressed.
So the perception of stress and stressors differs
from person to person. But I like the description
from Psychology Today: "...a psychological perception
of pressure and the body's response to it.
When we talk about stress or feeling stressed we're
usually talking about an uncomfortable feeling but
can stress be helpful? Would you do your school
work if it weren't due? What if it were
optional? And I know I do my best writing under a
deadline and feel satisfaction from getting tasks
done on time. How about you? In this case we'd
benefit from "eustress." The
prefix "EU" comes from the Greek and it means
"good." So "eustress" is "good stress" It's motivating,
and some of us need more of it or less of it than
others. Many of us create eustress to self-
motivate. I mean have you ever set a false
deadline or made a list of tasks to complete? In
part these are organizational tools but they can
also be a source of eustress.
Stress impacts health and or academics or vice-
versa. Think about ways in which this is the case
for you. For some of us the very fact that you can
miss class or be late and no one calls your
parents about it can make you laid back about
school. However when exams and projects and papers
are due you find that you don't feel prepared, and
this can lead you to feelings of stress and
anxiety. For others academic goals and rigorous
program requirements can add a tremendous amount
of stress. This pressure can lead to all kinds of
impacts: poor sleep, loss or increase in appetite,
worry, headaches, mood swings, anxiety, depression, and
increased symptoms of physical and or
psychological conditions that you are ready have.
So a very common outcome of extreme stress or
"distress" is anxiety and/or depression. Anxiety is
defined by the American Psychological Association
as an emotion characterized by feelings of tension,
worried thoughts, and physical changes that link
to things like blood increased blood pressure.
They usually experience recurring intrusive
thoughts or concerns, and may avoid certain
situations of worry. So for example people that
have social anxiety disorder or things like that
where they just want to stay away from other
people. Depression is a common and serious medical
illness that negatively affects how you feel, the
way you think, and how you act. Depression causes
feelings of sadness, or loss of interest in the
activities once enjoyed and can lead to emotional
and physical problems and can decrease a person's
ability to function at work and at home. And let
me add to that list school. So both depression and
anxiety can be situational and short-term, or it
can be chronic. According to the American
Psychiatric Association, almost seven percent of
adults experience depression in any given year.
One in six people experience it in their lifetime.
Also anxiety and depression can be a causes and
symptoms of each other. Both are the result of an
imbalance of neurochemicals in the brain and both
can be treated. So if you've been experiencing
either for two weeks or longer, or you are just
plain concerned please contact the student health
center for an appointment with one of our
providers or contact your own physician. It can be
treated. You can get help. Short term anxiety and
depression are usually the result of an event or a
specific time-limited condition. Events can be
break-ups, loss of a job, a bad grade, or a symptom
of a medical condition or a side effect of
medication, and can also be the result of lifestyle
choices. So more about that in a few minutes.
So as I said earlier distress can lead to anxiety
and depression. It's important to note that each
person has a sort of natural threshold. A
threshold in this case just means a tipping point.
Up until that level a person will experience a
stressor and be able to cope. At that tipping
point though the person will experience depression
either short or long term. And this this is also
true of anxiety. This basic threshold is
partly nature. So genetic, nothing you can do
about it. Partially though it's nurture. So the
circumstances of your upbringing, as determined by
your parents, family life, the cultural norms in
which you were raised, maybe events... So lots
and lots of contributing factors to your ability
to cope with stress. So looking at the chart
you'll see that the vertical axis is labeled
"Intensity of Stressor," the horizontal axis
is labeled "Stressful Event." Along the right
side you can see three very broad categories of
people: low, average, and high resiliency. The low
resiliency group doesn't need much stress to feel
anxious or depressed. As you'd expect, the average
person would require more stress to feel anxiety
or depression. And the top category are those
people that just seem to take it all in stride.
They don't really seem to get very ruffled by much
of anything. I'm sure if we took a moment we'd be
able to think about where we fall in this
continuum and we'd be able to identify others in
our circle that might fit into these categories.
And it's relative too. If you were if you're a low
threshold person you might think everyone can
handle stress better than you can. And if you're
at the high resiliency group you're probably
wondering what all the fuss is about. So
this graphical interpretation is illustrating how
stress can impact people in each group. So let's
take a look at this using the example of
traffic. So as Southern Californians we can all
relate. The first bar of our graph is just
driving with other people on the road. We're used
to it. We know when traffic is better or worse. We
adjust our trip to accommodate it. Even our least
resilient person can handle it usually without
much difficulty.
But now there's road construction ahead and it's
caused a big traffic delay. Depending on
circumstances, this unexpected traffic can really
adversely affect the low resiliency person
creating anxiety and or a depressive episode
especially if there are other factors like poor
sleep, late for an exam, or a job interview. The
average person won't like it but will have the
wherewithal to at least call ahead and explain the
problem. Or maybe ask for help in
resolving any scheduling issues or whatever. The
high resiliency person is saying, "Cool! I can finish
this podcast."
Well now you've been rear ended and that's enough
to really stress out the average person. But the
high resiliency person is still feeling
pretty lucky. No one was hurt. And now
maybe that piece of junk car will be totaled. And
say hello to my dream car. That might be how they
handle that situation. In this instance, the person
or passenger was hurt badly, or maybe with a poor
outlook for recovery, or someone was killed in the
crash. The severity of the accident and the toll
it takes on the person or the persons will affect
the response, which can be limited or chronic
depending on several factors. This just kind of
gives you an idea of how the escalation of
stressors can can affect people in each category.
So although each person by adulthood has the basic
threshold, a kind of an upper limit, there are
lifestyle choices a person can make to lower the
threshold. What do you think some of those factors
might be?
What are they for you?
So here are a few that I have come up with that
are some of the most common. But just understand
that there are a lot more than the ones that I'm
coming up with. Every person has got different
ones. So poor sleep, or poor quality sleep, not
enough sleep is a huge trigger. Poor diet,
especially a diet lacking in lots of good quality
fruits and vegetables and other plant based foods
like whole grains and things like that. Not enough
exercise. It's a really common thing for students
even under the best of circumstances to just sort
of forget about exercise. They just feel too busy.
And it really takes its toll on mental health.
Substance use and abuse particularly alcohol use
is a huge lower-er of threshold. Financial hardship, food
and housing insecurity obviously would be very
very stressful. Relationship problems/family
difficulties, academic pressure/distance
learning that everybody's having to do now. That
has taken its toll on some students. Some students
like it better and are doing better. So you know
everybody's got a different story. And then the
sheltering in place with Covid, in isolation.
That's really affected a lot of our students
adversely. And again some people are thriving.
Current events, political things, social
justice and injustice issues that are cropping up
all over the place can really take its toll. But
also they can they can make people feel validated
too. So everybody's got a different take on it.
But related to that is micro-aggressions. And
right now we're experiencing
students that are Asian students. A lot of
them are having a lot of difficulty with micro-
aggressions. People giving them dirty
looks, or saying rude things, or blaming them for
Covid, and things like that. That's an example of
just little picky things that over time really
take their toll. I'm sure you can think of more.
So when people experience the threshold-lowering
activities, events, or circumstances especially when
they experience them in multiples all at once, you
know because circumstances seldom happen one
at a time. They often experience a drop of
depression anxiety threshold. So what a person can
normally take in stride is
now very difficult to handle. And you can see how
the threshold drops. So the red lines are now the
the dropped threshold.
And if it's a stressor like a pandemic or fire or
earthquake et cetera, that everyone is
impacted by, that adds to the stress and lowers the
threshold even more. And the ways that you normally
cope also might not be so available to you. So
what can you do to have the best, most optimal
threshold you can have? What do you think? How do
we keep our threshold as high as possible? Well, it
turns out we reverse those factors that we
mentioned before. So we get a good night's sleep:
eight to nine hours of sleep at the same time
every night is what is the healthy night's sleep
for most people. Poor sleep is one of the most
common complaints of our students here at the
student health center. If that's impossible
because of work or their circumstances even trying
for six to seven, but at the same time every night
is doable. The brain loves routine and can
be pretty accommodating if you create good sleep
routine. Other good sleep tips include no screens
for an hour before bed, creating a bedtime routine,
recharging your phone in another room far away
from your bed. Those kinds of things really can
make a big difference. Diet. I can't stress enough
the importance of eating a diet rich in plant
based foods. Five to 10 servings of fruits and
vegetables per day in a good variety is best. Lots
of color lots of whole grains. Exercise can be
very challenging, not only as a student, but in the
time of Covid. So you can though, in most places walk
or run outside, just bring a mask in case you find
yourself unable to distance. At least 30 minutes.
At least five days a week is good enough to make a
huge difference in your physical and mental health.
But guess what. If you can't do it even that much
even a little bit of movement is better than no
movement. Substance use, especially alcohol I
mentioned. But tobacco and other drugs too can
really take their toll on your health. Alcohol is
a common threshold lower and can adversely
affect your sleep and quality of sleep. So can
other drugs and so can tobacco and also add in
their caffeine and power drinks because those can
really affect your your sleep and diet. So
financial hardship and food and housing insecurity
I just want to make sure you know that the
financial aid office at Moorpark College has lots
of resources to help you. So if you're finding
yourself in need of financial assistance or food
or housing please contact them. And
you can easily find them on the website. And
let's see here relationships same thing. The
student health center is a great place to get some
coping skills for dealing with relationship and
family difficulties, sheltering in place and
distance learning have become very difficult for a
lot of our students. A common complaint of
students is that their family members don't
respect their need to have privacy and quiet to
study or take tests. One suggestion that has
worked well for many of our students is to put
just a "do not disturb" sign on the door when you
need privacy for testing, or studying, some will
even add a timespan like "please don't knock between
2:00 and 3:00. "In class" or "taking a test"
something like that. Turns out families are
generally pretty respectful of that and appreciate
the communication.
So missing friends is also difficult for many.
Getting together for Zoom gatherings can be fun
and helpful. Taking a masked, distanced walks with
friends outside is safe, when and where OK, and can
make a huge difference.
Another good one that I just can't tell you how
fortunate you are to get this for free on campus
and also online, and that is Mindfulness Training.
So many of you know mindfulness training as
meditating or doing meditations or things like
that. And they definitely have a lot in common for
sure. And so when we're on campus maybe in the
spring, we'll have on campus in-person
mindfulness training probably. But in the meantime
we also make it available online and we have our
own website. And so you just go to the student
health center webpage. And then in the menu is
"Mindfulness Training Online." And just click on
that. Just want to show you what it looks like. So.
It just gives you a brief background about
mindfulness training. It helps you get started and
then it has all eight of our sessions here and
available. Easy to click on. Each session has a
different technique. So if you try one and you
don't like it try another one there. And sometimes
are even shorter and longer practices in each
session. So just be aware that that's there and
available and free of charge but not really free.
You paid for it with your student fee. OK. Well I
just want to say thank you so much for your kind
attention. If you have any questions, comments, or
concerns, for me please don't hesitate to e-mail me
at abarton@vcccd.edu. And don't
hesitate to make an appointment at the Student
Health Center. We are there for you. And you paid
a fee. Get your money's worth. Right? So call
805.378.1413 to
make an appointment. And I thank you again and
have a good rest of your day!