By Zasha Hayes
Anxiety Resource for Campus Help (ARCH) held a Stress Workshop with Pasadena, East Los Angeles, Citrus, and Rio Hondo campus resources on Friday.
The Navigating Stress Workshop teaches those who attend how to navigate stress. ARCH has held workshops that share topics that include mental health, anxiety and coping skills. Renee Te was the host of this workshop. Te is a master’s student in clinical psychology who is a part of Asians and Pacific Islanders with Disabilities of California (APIDC). She shared how to take control of situations in which a college student can get stressed out.
Te said, “The purpose of our (ARCH and APIDC) workshop is to teach different students how to cope with anxiety and raise awareness to different anxiety provoking situations.”
The main topics of this workshop were defining what stress is, how it affects the body and how to manage that stress.
Te introduced a powerpoint presentation to assist in explaining what stress is, as she said, “Stress is a feeling of emotional or physical tension. The body’s reaction to a challenge or demand.”
She explained that there are multiple triggers or indicators of stress and anxiety. Because of the variety of triggers and how many students are said to have anxiety or stress, each person is unique in how they calm down and distract themselves from it.
The techniques for managing stress she suggest include dancing, exercising, and/or cooking. Talking to friends was also emphasized because of the isolation students are facing due to the pandemic.
“It’s fine if the stress is temporary but if it’s prolonged or even chronic it would be really beneficial to talk to a medical provider or counselor to find ways to reduce stress or at least have that contact established in case things get worse. A perfect example of that is COVID. That transition and experience made a lot of people be more aware of their stressors and how they’d be triggered.”
Future workshops that focus on anxiety and stress are included on the @elac_cafyes.nextup Instagram page. If students need assistance, ARCH supplies links to DSPS for each campus included in the workshop.