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This week's LabZone activity
April 21, 2004
Stress Management
Stress is part of life. There is "good" stress and "bad" stress. Examples of good stress are going to a prom or going on vacation. Good stress produces anticipation and the feeling of "butterflies" in your stomach. Examples of bad stress might include realizing you have too much work to do in too little time, or anticipating a big test in your least favorite subject when you don't understand the material. Bad stress causes fear and anxiety.
When a person feels stress, the brain puts the body on full alert. The body increases its production of the stress-related hormones adrenalin and cortisol. The heart beats faster, the muscles become tense, and the body fills with chemicals that control pain and increase endurance. The pupils of the eyes dilate and hearing becomes more acute.
Response to stress has been a part of being human for a long time. It evolved in prehistoric times when our ancestors had to react to unexpected physical threats, such as an approaching wooly mammoth or large carnivore.
Today, the stress that we deal with is different, but the body still responds in the same way. If we do not have a release for the stress, it can build up and make us sick. Some physical symptoms of stress are headache, muscle ache, upset stomach, high blood pressure, inability to sleep, and fatigue.
We may not be able to control some situations that cause stress, but we can control our physical reaction to them. Some scientists believe controlling the body's expression of stress will affect the person's mental and emotional state.
Techniques that have been shown to help the body deal with stress include deep breathing, relaxation, and exercise. In this experiment you can test some of these techniques.
Things you will need:
- stopwatch or watch with a second hand
- notebook and pencil or pen
- several volunteers
Deep Breathing
Take your pulse by placing two fingers on the inside of your wrist as shown below. Take your pulse for 15 seconds and record the number of times your heart beats. Multiply this number by four to find your heart rate in beats per minute.
Now take a slow, deep breath through your nose. Take the breath from deep down so that your abdomen expands. The intake of air should take about 7 seconds. Slowly exhale that air through your mouth for the same length of time. Continue breathing in this way for two minutes. Then take your pulse for 15 seconds and record the result. Is there any difference in your heart rate after breathing deeply?
Try doing this breathing exercise 10 times a day for a week and note any changes in your pulse. Better yet, continue the exercise for 6 weeks and keep a record of your pulses. How do you feel after breathing like this? Are you more relaxed?
Perhaps a teacher will let you teach this breathing exercise to your classmates. Ask them to record their heart rate before and after doing the breathing exercise for two minutes. Ask them to provide a written account of how they feel after doing the breathing exercise for a number of days or weeks.
You can ask your parents or siblings to participate in your experiment. Maybe your parents could practice the breathing exercise at work and see if they notice any difference in how they feel. Ask them to try the breathing exercise before doing something stressful or even when returning home after work.
Relaxation
Relaxation is another way to help the body cope with stress.
Take and record your pulse as instructed in the deep breathing exercise. Then lie on the floor or sit in a comfortable chair. Contract or tighten the muscles in your left foot and hold the contraction for a count of 5. Slowly relax the muscles. Now tighten the calf muscles in your left leg and hold for a count of 5 and slowly relax them.
Repeat with the thigh muscles in your left leg. Continue to tighten and release all the muscles on the left side of your body up to the left shoulder. Then do the same on the right side of your body. Finish by tightening all the muscles in your body including your face and neck. Hold for a count of 5 and then completely relax all your muscles and let your body "sink" into the floor or chair for 20 seconds.
Take and record your pulse again. Is there any difference? How do you feel after doing the whole relaxation process? Do you feel more relaxed? How about doing it before going to sleep? Do you think you will fall asleep faster? Try it for a week and see. Write down your observations.
See if you can get your family to try this experiment. Perhaps a teacher will agree to let you try the experiment with your classmates.
Should you have them do the experiment at the beginning or at the end of a class? Have them record their observations about how they feel after completing the relaxation process. Do some people feel differently that others? If so, why might that be?
Exercise
In these experiments, the exercise will not be demanding, but if you design experiments of your own using more strenuous activities, be sure to consult a doctor first. Before anyone participates in any type of vigorous physical exercise, he or she should check with a doctor.
Exercise is another way to alleviate physical signs of stress. When you exercise, your muscles contract and relax. This releases tension and increases your metabolism. Exercise depletes the response-to-stress hormones that linger in your body and generates endorphins, your "feel good" hormones.
Psychologists and doctors do not agree about what kind of exercise best relieves stress. You can develop your own ideas about the effects of exercise as you experiment.
Choose a type of aerobic exercise you enjoy doing, such as taking a brisk walk, swimming, cross-country skiing, or bicycling. You should not use a competitive sport in your experiment because that can increase stress. You should do your enjoyable aerobic exercise for at least twenty minutes three to four times a week.
Take your pulse before exercising and again immediately after you finish. Obviously, your pulse after the exercise session will be higher. Then take it again one hour after completing the session. Record your results for a week. Continue this schedule for at least 6 weeks. What changes, if any, do you see in your pulse, before, immediately following, and one hour after completing your exercise session. Record, too, how you feel before and after exercising.
Can you get others to help out with this experiment and take part in the same schedule of aerobic activity? You might have different people do different types of aerobic exercise. Does the type of exercise seem to be a factor in reducing stress? Is age a factor? Gender? Weight?
Exploring on Your Own
Develop your own relaxation exercises and see if they help you to relieve stress.
Does your blood pressure increase when you are stressed? Enlist a school nurse to help you with this experiment. Take your blood pressure when you feel stress and when you do not. Is there any significant difference? How about after you participate in one of the stress management procedures?
Learn to take your resting heart rate. Your resting heart rate is your pulse when you first awaken in the morning and haven't participated in any physical activity at all—not even a yawn! Is there any change in your resting heart rate after you participate in a stress management procedure for at least 6 weeks?
Do just the opposite of relaxation. Can you and others increase your heart rates by just thinking of a stressful or frightening situation?
Have subjects take their pulses and record their heart rates. Then ask them to visualize a stressful experience. Don't tell them what experience to think about. Let them think of their own, because what is stressful for one person may not be so for another. Right after they have visualized their frightening experience, have them take their pulse rates again. Do their pulse rates change? If so, how do they change?
From Health Science Projects About Sports Performance by Robert Gardner and Barbara Gardner Conklin. © 2002 Enslow Publishers (www.enslow.com). Reprinted by permission of Enslow Publishers.
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