GE 101 FINALS

Managing and Caring for the Self

Part I. The Stress Response

In today’s fast-paced life, we usually find ourselves trying to squeeze in a lot of
workloads within a limited time. We tend to be so busy with a lot of things that at the end
of the day, we often find ourselves feeling more exhausted rather than feeling
accomplished.
But as they say, stress is always a part of life and without stress, life would be dull
and boring. Stress refers to the body’s reactions to circumstances which are, realistically
or perceptually, beyond one’s capacity. Stress is often thought of as arising from negative
situations such as a family problem, loss of a loved one, broken relationships, failing
grades, and financial difficulties, to name a few. However, things that we enjoy doing but
at the same time, equally taxing and demanding, can also be a source of stress.
Stress is our response to stressors. It involves
physical, emotional, behavioral, and even
psychological reactions to situations that we think
are very difficult to manage. Physical reactions to
stress may include headaches, difficulty sleeping,
stomach problems, asthma, and a lot more.
Researches even suggest that chronic stress may
eventually lead to heart ailments and other health
problems. People who are stressed are also
observed to be in volatile emotions such as being
moody, anxious, irritable, or being too sensitive and
emotional over things. This may also come along
with changes in one’s behavior such as being unusually quiet, easily angered, restless,
or being suddenly aloof, among others. Being faced with stress may also affect our self-
esteem such as when we feel that we are able to successfully overcome a certain
challenge. Not being able to successfully overcome a stressful situation may also lower

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our self-esteem and these frequent failures that serve as a big blow to the self may
possibly lead to mental health problems in the long run.
There is also a cognitive component involved in the stress response. We feel
stressed when we think that the current challenge is beyond our capacity and resources.
Take note: think. Thus, our appraisal of the situation can also determine how stressed we
would be. At times, we may underestimate our abilities thus we feel that the problem is
bigger than us when in fact, it is just within our abilities. However, there may also be times
that we overestimate ourselves and think that we can easily breeze through the challenge,
when in fact, it is something that needs the help of others or that requires our extra effort.
What is necessary, therefore, is a realistic appraisal of the situation.

On self-care and self-compassion

Although stress is considered as that which adds color and spice in our lives, we
could not deny the fact that too much stress can be detrimental to our health and well-
being.
Kristin Neff (2013), a professor from the University of Texas, emphasizes the
importance of self-compassion. It consists of three dimensions namely, self-kindness,
sense of common humanity, and mindfulness. Self-kindness involves being
understanding towards ourselves rather than being critical, whenever we feel
overwhelmed with life difficulties or failures. Some people may be too harsh or unforgiving
to themselves whenever they fail to do something or when they are unable to overcome
a problem, but self-compassion requires us to be more forgiving and kind to ourselves.
We should be able to understand why we were unable to succeed and acknowledge our
weaknesses and limitations so that we would know what we should better do next time.
A sense of common humanity allows us to recognize that other people also have
their own battles and challenges to deal with. It is not only us who has problems but other
people as well. We experience difficulties, not because we are weak or inadequate, but
simply because it is part of being human!
Lastly, mindfulness is a non-judgmental and open mind state by which we
acknowledge all our thoughts and feelings as they are. We have to remind ourselves that

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it is okay to feel sad, worried, or scared over our problems. We may even reach a point
of feeling helpless or hopeless. Mindfulness requires us to acknowledge all emotions and
thoughts, no matter how negative they may be. However, this does not mean that we
overly identify with these negativity and let it control us. We acknowledge it but after that,
we should do something about it and move forward.
Thus, self-compassion should not be mistaken as self-pity. In self-pity, we take a
more egocentric perspective by focusing on our difficulties up to the point of exaggerating
our personal distress. In self-compassion, on the other hand, we consider the difficulties
that other people experience, thus see our problems from a bigger perspective.
People who are compassionate with themselves are found to be happier, less
stressed and more resilient (Neff, 2013). We may not totally be able to get rid of stress in
our lives, but we can think of ways to manage it without compromising our well-being.

Self-care requires us to listen to ourselves, address our needs and give time for
ourselves. Caring for ourselves gives us the opportunity to relax, not to escape from
problems, but rather to replenish our energy and think clearly, so that we can face
difficulties with a renewed physical and mental strength.

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Part II. Learning to be a Better Student

Learning is considered to be a lifelong process. However, although learning seems

to be part of our everyday lives, a lot of people still seem to find learning as a challenging
task.
Learning is often defined as a relatively permanent change of behavior and mental
processes as a result of practice or experience. Relatively permanent means that
although the brain has the capacity to store unlimited information acquired through time,
not everything we learn will be retained. Anything learned with deliberate effort is
generally stable through time but without constant practice and application, it may soon
be forgotten.
Most of the brain’s mental activities occur in the
forebrain, which pertains to the front and upper
portions of the brain. The forebrain houses the
cerebral cortex, which is considered as the information
processing center of the brain and is further divided
into four lobes – frontal, parietal temporal, and
occipital. The brain’s frontal lobe is often described as the area that regulates executive
functions such as thinking, planning, judgment, problem-solving, and decision-making.
The frontal lobe does not reach its full maturity until early adulthood. This explains why
people make poor decisions as a child and have more matured thinking as adults.
It has been a previously-held belief that once we reach adulthood, our cognitive
abilities are already fixed and may not be stretched any longer. However, since the
twentieth century, scholars argue that there is still room for our cognitive abilities to be
enhanced given certain environmental conditions. This means that the brain may form
new neural connections or old neural connections may be altered, which in turn, may
cause changes in how the brain processes information. Although the prenatal years are
indeed crucial for brain development and may initially dictate the potentials of the child,
continually nurturing these potentials through childhood, adolescence, and even

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throughout adulthood, may lead to significant cognitive gains. Thus, it is not solely the
brain itself that plays an important role in the learning process but also one’s environment.
Achieving success in school does not necessarily require superior intelligence. In
fact, a great deal of this success can also be attributed to following carefully crafted and
effective study techniques. But being able to come up with techniques that work best for
us requires us to be constantly aware of how we learn.
Self-regulation involves the “awareness of and control over one’s emotions,
motivations, behavior, and environment as related to learning”. It is concerned with
understanding and making necessary modifications regarding how we learn so as to
improve the learning process.

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 Knowing how we learn and being aware of the factors that might affect the learning
process make it easy for us to continually adopt effective learning strategies. Such active
role in the learning process may compensate for any cognitive lack and thus may lead to
a successful learning experience. It is pointed out, however, that motivation is also a key
factor in determining whether we will carry out these strategies or not. Effective learning
strategies can be taught but these will not be carried out unless we are motivated to do
something about improving our learning.
Some of the commonly used learning strategies may include summarization,
highlighting and underlining, rereading, and the use of mnemonics and imagery. Other
strategies include: (1) Practice testing: Practice testing in between study sessions helps
students to mentally organize information learned which can then lead to better retention
and final test performance; (2) Distributed practice: Spreading out learning sessions lends
to longer retention and are more encouraged than studying a bunch of lessons in one
duration. Distributed learning sessions is not limited to strictly studying a lesson but may
also incorporate other learning strategies such as practice testing, rereading, among
others; (3) Interleaved practice: This is a new technique in studying which involves
studying different lessons alternately with each other as compared to block studying, or
studying one lesson at a time. This facilitates better processing of information since
students can readily make comparisons of the different lessons or topics; (4) Elaborative
interrogation: Asking “why” questions about the information one has learned facilitates
critical thinking and allows one to come up with ideas and analysis compared when one
just passively accepts the facts they have learned; (5) Self – explanation: Asking students
to explain how they have come up with an answer to a question or a solution to a problem
allows one to make connections between previous learning and new information.
Learning never ends thus employing effective learning strategies is deemed
necessary. No matter where we may find ourselves – in the classroom, at the workplace,
or in any other learning environment – if we are equipped with different learning
techniques, then we will surely have a successful and fulfilling learning experience.

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