Shana Okayama
During our years in high school, one thing always bringing us down can be stressful. However, the right amount of stress can also lead to someone’s best performance, this theory is called the Yerkes and Dodson theory. Stress is defined as a type of change that causes physical, emotional, or psychological strain on our bodies and minds. Stress is a body’s response to anything that requires attention or action. Everyone experiences stress to some degree. The way someone responds to their stress can make a big difference to their overall well-being.
Personally, I don’t like to take advice from someone and “take their word for it”, it helps me when I understand the biological and psychological aspects of stress as I could relate to it and I can change different habits of my life to deal with the stress. For example, the Yerkes and Dodson theory on motivation, as seen in the graph above, helped me a lot to understand how much stress is exactly healthy. According to Yerkes and Dodson’s theory, as arousal rises, so does the capacity to develop habits or carry out tasks effectively2. It provides you with enough inspiration. However, that only functions to a specific degree called the ideal level. Your performance starts to decline as soon as arousal exceeds that threshold. You can’t provide your best effort because you’re too stressed out. The absence of any stress isn’t always a positive thing for performance. However, a little bit of stress may go a long way. It’s controllable, inspiring, and performance-improving. A little bit of quicker heart rate. You experience a sense of alertness and clarity. Your body and mind are both on high alert. The optimum level of stress is hard to constantly have but there are definitely ways to keep that level of stress as moderate as possible.
- Buy a planner (or use an online planner) to organize your deadlines.
As a senior, this has worked out really well for me. Go onto veracross and write down all of the due dates for the first term or semester. Now that you have your next month or two planned out you can study and work on projects accordingly. For example, if I see I have a test that month, I will start studying for it 1 and a half to 2 weeks before. The first week you get the notes and basic theories and knowledge, then the next week start on past paper questions and familiarize yourself with the questions that would come up.
- Study little by little
Being in my last year of high school, I don’t have any time or energy to study at the last minute or submit assignments by doing an all-nighter. So study little by little. If you got a lot of theory and notes from one class that day, go home and review them, retake the notes, read them aloud, and try and make sense of it. My favorite way of reviewing is taking 10 minutes to make a quizlet and reviewing them for 10 minutes a day.
- Make time to do things for yourself
I know high school and especially the IB can take a lot of your free time away so make yourself time on the weekends or mornings to do things such as exercise, read, journal, or even catch up on that show you’ve been falling behind in. In the mornings before school maybe wake up 30 minutes, to journal, read, stretch, or make that breakfast food that you have been craving. Implementing my favorite things into my everyday routine has been a life changer for me because it helps me to prevent any burnout.
- Reward yourself after your successes.
If you just submit a big assignment you worked really hard on or just took a math test that you have studied a lot, celebrate with your family and friends. For example, I had a crazy week, I had four assignments due that week as well as a couple tests and I had spent the past two weeks pushing myself to get all of the assignments and studying done. So that Friday afternoon, I took my friends to go karaoke and to have dinner afterward to reward myself. Make sure you have goals to work towards, if you don’t reward yourself you are going to feel like a robot that only studies all day. Make sure you have some kind of long-term goal to work toward too as, if you don’t, you could lose motivation and burn yourself out.
Bibliography
- “Stress and the Pressure Performance Curve.” Delphis Learning, delphis.org.uk/peak-performance/stress-and-the-pressure-performance-curve/.
- “The Stress Curve.” MindWell, 26 May 2022, www.mindwell-leeds.org.uk/myself/exploring-your-mental-health/stress/the-stress-curve/.
Shana Okayama