Chapter II

Review of Related Literature

This chapter presents selected literature and related studies pertinent to the study to give additional

insights and information for better understanding of the problem presented for investigation.

Stress

Stress, according to Anspaugh et al. (2003), affected the life of everyone. This means that

students, teachers, business people, parents, athletes and children, among others, live with stress.

In their view, it is a misconception to see stress as an enemy since stress is often neither positive

nor negative. They continue that how people deal with or react to stress is what determines its

effect on their lives. The way we react to stress therefore seems to be more important than the

stress itself. Stressors, in the opinion of Anspaugh et al. (2003) are any physical, psychological, or

environmental event or condition that initiates the stress responses. To them, stress which results

in positive responses is known as “eustress”, while those which end up with negative responses

are termed distress.

Stress is the process by which an individual or a person react when opened to external or internal

problems and challenges. "the organism processes numerous systems to coordinate such adaptive

responses both at systematic and cellular levels "by this, stress has direct effect on the brain and

the whole anatomy of the body as such failure to adapt to a stressful condition can result in brain

malfunction, physiological problem and also many areas of psychological challenge's in the form

of depression, anxiety, pain and burnout.

gastrointestinal diseases are determined by great areas of genetic and developmental factors which

are different from a person to a person but also symptoms of this disease may be similar sometimes

among individuals (Hellhammer & Hellhammer 2008. vii).

According to (Wheeler 2007,2), stress is physics word which refers to the amount of force used on

an object and it relates in real life as to how certain issues that carry force applied to human life.

Examples financial difficulties, health challenge issues, conflicts with friends, all carry force or

pressure on person's body -mind and spirit. Some of the pressure or force originate from the

environment but most often comes from within a person's head in the form of worry, anxiousness,

regret, discouragement and low confidence.

Therefore, stress is basically force applied to a person and may result in a strain which is as a result

of an unmanaged stress that is when a person is not able to handle a challenge or problem

encountered strain result. To some people, the effect is minimal which means they are able to

endure pressure whiles in others the effect is enormous and have an adverse effect.

Stress is explained by (Pargman 2006, 5) as “An uncertain reaction to external and internal factors”

that means a negative or positive reaction to environmental stimuli.

In this regard, it is how the totality of your body relate to changes and unfamiliar situations that

present itself in the course of time.

During such a period, vital organs such as sexual organs, heart rate, blood pressure, stroke volume,

respiratory rate in the body react speedily. Many hormonal responses are at peak.

Sources of Stress
Stress is a reality of our everyday life. At the point when individuals search for help, they are

regularly managing conditions, circumstances, and stressors in their life that leave them

feeling emotionally and physically troubled. Countless people feel that they have very little

resources or assistances to deal with the high levels of stress they are experiencing.

Circumstances that trigger stress are known as stressors. According to (Centre 2010, 4–6;

Davidson 2001) Stress is not only negative things that happens positive things also cause

stress. In our life we only know stress to be bad but that’s not the cases. There are two types

of stressors which is the positive stressors which is known as eustress and negative stressors

which is also known as distress.

There some positive situations that causes a person to be stressed up. Some examples of these

circumstances are, promotion at work, starting a new job, getting married, and having a

child which are few of the many. Positive stressors are usually not noticed because it has

some characteristics.

Positive Stressors Characteristics:

• It is a short term event

• It feels very exciting

• Its improves one’s attitude and performance

• Its motivates people.

On the other hand, negative stressors happen to be the bad things or events which causes us

to be stress and these type of stressors is easily noticed. Examples of negative stressor are,

death of a loved one, unemployment, divorce and illness which are also few of many. There
are also some characteristics of negative stressors that’s makes it easily for them to be

noticed.

Negative Stressors Characteristics:

• It causes anxiety and makes one troubled

• It’s also short term but can have long term implications

• It feels unpleasant and disturbing

• Decrease ones’ productivity and moral

In the book of Brain, Luke Seaward (2012) also mentions some other types of stress

which are different in their own ways. There is another type of stress which is the neustress

and “this is any kind of information or sensory stimulus that is perceived as unimportant”.

Major Sources of Stress in Students

Indeed, students have a unique cluster of stressful experiences. Student’s academic

performances can be affected by many factors. Bernstein et al. (2008) define the sources of stress

as every circumstance or event that threatens to disrupt people’s daily functioning and causes them

to make adjustments.

Similarly, Phinney and Haas (2003) stressed out sources of stress more specifically as a

unique set of stressful encounters among student which includes: difficult financial challenges,

domestic responsibilities, responsibilities related to holding a job while in school, and a heavy

academic load.
Personal factors as a source of stress

Personal factors happen to really cause so much stress than we can imagine and they also

play a very important role in the various aspect of the life of a student. These factors vary from

person to person that results in a different set of perceptions, attitudes and behaviours. Personal

factors can take a form of so many ways which one way or the other affect student performance

and stress them up. Some of these factors are

Change in Living Environment

The reality that stress occurs when an event or stimulus requires us to change in some way

makes a change in living environment a stressful experience. Apart from moving from home to

school, our daily bumping into new faces on campus, disorders from roommates, etc. is tensed

experience.

Change in Sleeping Habits

The somewhat burdensome nature of student-life causes a drastic change in sleep pattern.

More to the point, this newly adopted pattern is unstable, as it is often tied to academic workloads

and/or tasks at hand.

New responsibilities Responsibilities related to holding a job while in school will certainly

compound to a heavy academic load which is bound to result in stress. This is really challenging,

as one has to financially rely on a job for sustenance.

Financial Difficulties

It is definitely not a conducive experience when a student has to handle dual challenges of

academics and financial constraints. Life becomes very challenging when a student is behind on
bills payment; for when deadlines are not met and bills stares at you, it is enough to get a student

tensed and depressed.

Combining Job with studies

Many take part -time job or short term job during their period of studies. Some of them do

this to gain experience for the future and also other to support their studies and themselves

financially. Although working while in school is very beneficial to a student it also causes a lot of

stress for them which might be too difficult to handle. Students will not have much time to study

for their quizzes or exams and some even miss a lot of classes because they will be worn out or

tired by the time they come back from their workplace. Students turn to face a lot of challenges

when they combine work with studies

Health Problems

Health issues are a concern to everyone because bad health causes a lot of damage to the

life of a person. In the life of a student, health problems cause a lot of stress and these stress turn

out to even make the conditions worst by adding insult to injury. Stress can lead to physical

symptoms including headaches, upset stomach, elevated blood pressure, chest pain, and problems

sleeping. Research suggests that stress also can bring on or worsen certain symptoms or diseases.

Poor Eating Habit

Poor nutrition and unhealthy eating habits can increase a student's stress level, according

to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Diets that can build stress levels in

understudies incorporate those that are high in fat, caffeine, sugar and refined starches Examples

of stress-inducing foods are sodas, energy drinks, doughnuts, candy bars, processed snack foods,
white bread, and French fries. A healthy diet that helps to reduce stress includes foods that are low

in fat and high in fibre and complex carbohydrates. Such foods include fruits, vegetables, whole

grains, nuts and lean proteins.

Academic factors as a source of stress

There are some factors that happen in the academic curriculum that causes so much stress

to students. So many things take place in the day to day activities of the academic processes that

make students stress up.

Increased class workload

An increase in class workload stresses up students in the sense that when students have to

do more than they can handle, they turn to get frustrated and are unable to focus and think straight.

Students will overschedule their plans to meet up with the class workload in other to get good

grades but eventually because these tasks are too much for them, they end up messing everything

up.

Especially in situations where there are a lot of assignments to do after having a very long

day at work makes students more confused. Also Too much workload can also make student to be

stressed in the sense that, when a student is undergoing so many courses in school and each of

these courses are also demanding it make the student not have enough time to handle all these

courses to his or her perfection and ones that happen the student turns to think so much and as a

result will be stressed up and this will have a great effect on the academic performance of the

student.

Lower grade
 It is the desire of every student to excel in their field studies as such high grades mean a lot

to students. In situations where students believe they expect a higher grade but at the end get a

lower grade than they expected it weighs them down and kills the motivation they have. Once this

happens students start to think a lot about what they didn't do, where they went and most times are

not able to find answers to those questions. At the long run, they become stressed up with that and

are not able to do everything right again.

Many hours of studies

Every student has a life outside the academic curriculum and environment. When a student

has to compromise and use their personal time for other activities for studies, they turn to get bored

and lose interest in studies. At the long run, this situation stresses them up which causes them to

lose focus on academic work. As the saying goes "all work and no play make Jack a dull boy ", it

also applies to students since they will become dull if all they do is to use their private time for

studies and not have time for themselves.

Language difficulties

Language proficiency may have a profound effect on an individual's ability to learn and

develop, due to its key role in the transmission of information and regulation of cognitive processes

(Binder & Smith 2013). Language is one factor that has so much influence on the life of a student.

Language is the only means to communicate freely, so if students are having issues understanding

the language been used in the academic process it becomes a big challenge to them and they will

eventually start thinking about it. Once this happens they become frustrated and stressed up when

even they have communicated and at the long run affects their performance.

Procrastination
 Procrastination, as they say, is the thieve of time, one attitude that is very common among

a lot of students is procrastination. Procrastination is the avoidance of doing a task which needs to

be accomplished. It is the act of accomplishing more pleasurable things set up of less pleasurable

ones or completing less critical errands rather than more pressing ones, in this manner putting off

approaching assignments to a later time. When student keeps doing this they lose interest in doing

that particular task or assignment and once the loss of interest sets in stress follows up since they

will be thinking how to meet up with the deadline for the assignment or task.

Examinations

Periods for examinations causes so much stress in students than one can imagine.

Examination is the only means for a student to prove that he deserves a better grade for a course

and due to these students think a lot and also revise everything they have learnt during the whole

period of the cause, in doing so, some students get confused about some topics they treated and

others also don't know where to begin their studies from. The thought of these stuff makes them

frustrated and confused which at the long run stress them up.

Missing Lectures

It is the desire of students to miss lectures or skip school. Although some students wake up

and decide to miss lectures or school, others also have to do that due to circumstances beyond their

control. When some students miss class or lectures they become disturbed and worried especially

of the course is on they have difficulties in understanding. When this happens they start to wonder

how they will make up for the lessons they lost so as they will be on the same pace with their

fellow colleague in school. The thought of finding ways to make up with lessons which they have

issues in becomes a burden and stress them up beyond imagination.

A lot of students get frustrated when they don’t understand what is being taught by the

teachers in class. Some also misinterpret what the teacher said in a different way or meaning. This

frustration leads to students being stressed up because they wonder how they will pass the course

because they hardly get what the teachers say in class.

Impact of Stress Socially

students are social beings by nature, as they characteristically have an essential need and wish to

uphold helpful social relations. Thus, they typically treasure keeping encouraging social bonds to

be beneficial. Social relationships can offer nurturance, foster feelings of social inclusion, and lead

to reproductive success. Anything that disrupts or threatens to disrupt their relationships with

others can result in social stress.

To start isolations is one major impacts stress has on the social life of students. Mostly when

students are tensed and have a lot of issues thinking about, they prefer to be away from their friends

and be alone to ponder about those issues, of course being alone at times helps to resolve out

stressful issues but doing so on a regular basis or frequently also means risking to lose your friends

since you are mostly not with them. Students also losing their friends in the long causes more harm

than good.

Secondly, stress also causes students to have resentments in whatever they do. When students are

tensed up, they easily have anger issues that are easily get irritated with the little things people do.
This pushes away people and at times even their closest friends leaving them to be lonely, and

loneliness can cause them to do unpleasant things to themselves and even innocent people.

Elaborating further, stress causes lower sex drive in students. A student who happens to be married

or is in serious relationship turn have issues with their pattern because of low sex drive. This is

because their minds are tuned up to solving problems that are stressing them and so doing kills the

desire of sex and this affects their marriages and relations because sex is a vital factor in one's life.

To end with, stress can also make students to always nag and complain. Students will always see

something wrong with what their fellow mates will do because they are in a situation whereby

their critical annalistic instinct and drive are fully not functions as they are supposed to. They do

not have the zeal or interest to look at what their mate has done and give critical analysis. All these

social effects, in the long run, give bad names and status to students who exhibit these behaviours

which will have an adverse effect on their academic life.

Impact of stress Academically

Stress affecting students academically leads them to have bad performance in school work.

Students experience a lack of concentration. Stress in college students can affect the ability to

concentrate, and there have been studies conducted that prove that stress interferes with a student's

ability to concentrate, Stress in students is not something we can take likely. Ironically stress

Improves concentration for a short term because when students are little stressed up they then to

focus to try to get the issue in question which stresses them away but these concentrations doesn't

last for long since they will have more school work or others assignments to do which demand

long-term concentrations rather than the short term.

stressed up they turn not to give their maximum best when doing school work and as a result, it

manifests in the outputs the bring which are clearly seen in the grades. Stress makes students spend

fewer hours trying to get some school work done and they also do it in a shabby manner not

following the instructions giving the assignments in question. They also don't make adequate

preparation for examinations. In the long term, it can even affect their plans for the future.

Also, stress affects the initiative skills of students. Most students when stressed upturn to

lack the ability to bring up new ideas to solve problems or issues, thus when students are faced

with some challenges which might be even so easy to solve because they are stressed up to refuse

or are unable to rack their brains to find solutions to that problem.

Lastly, stress cause students to be confused and also suffer from amnesia. All people when

stressed upturn to be sixes and sevens with the little- complicated issues. In the academic life of

students, they easily have misunderstandings with what is been taught in school and don't know

what to do. On the other hand, many of them also forget easily what have they know or have been

taught because their minds are burdened with the issues that are stressing them up. All these points

impact of stress on students, in the long run, cause them to perform poorly in school.

Anspaugh et al. (2003) contended that most stressful situations fall into harm-and-loss

situations, threat situations or challenge situations. Instances of harm-and-loss situations are the

death of a loved one, loss of personal property, physical assault and injury, and severe loss of self-

esteem. Threat situations may be real or perceived and can range from being caught in traffic to

being unable to perceive an event. Threatening events dwell on the ability of the individual to deal

with day to day activities. Threat stressors result in anger, hostility, frustration or depression.
Challenge situations promote either growth or pain, and these stressors mostly involve major life

changes which include taking a new job, attending a new school, graduating from college, leaving

home and getting married. Challenge situations are usually seen as being good but involve stress,

because they disrupt homeostasis and require considerable psychological and physical adjustment.

Stoppler (n. d.) is of the view that manifestation of excess or poorly managed stress can be

extremely varied and that, while it has been reported by many people that stress brings about

headaches, sleep disturbances, feelings of anxiety or tension, anger or concentration problems,

others complain of depression, lack of interest in food, and increased appetite, among others. In

severe cases, Stoppler (n. d.) pointed out that individuals experienced loss of interest in normal

activities.

Academic problems have been reported to be the most common source of stress for

students (Aldwin & Greenberger, 1987). Schafer (1996) observed that the most irritating

daily hassles were usually school-related stressors such as constant pressure of studying, too little

time, writing term papers, taking tests, future plans, and boring instructors. Stress associated

with academic activities has been linked to various negative outcomes, such as poor health

(Greenberg, 1981; Lesko & Summerfield, 1989), depression (Aldwin & Greenberger, 1987),

and poor academic performance (Clark & Rieker, 1986; Linn & Zeppa, 1984). Lesko and

Summerfield (1989) found a significant positive correlation between the incidence of illness

and the number of exams and assignments. Similarly, Aldwin and Greenberger (1987)

observed that perceived academic stress was related to anxiety and depression in college students.

A number of studies have explored a relationship between stress and poor academic performance

(Clark & Rieker, 1986; Linn & Zeppa, 1984; Struthers, Perry & Menec, 2000). Felsten and

Wilcox (1992) found a significant negative correlation between the stress levels of college students
and their academic performance. Similarly, in a study, Blumberg and Flaherty (1985) found an

inverse relationship between self-reported stress level and academic performance. Struthers et al.

(2000) also reported that a high level of academic stress was associated with lower course

grades. Students experience a high level of academic stress due to exams, assignments, time

pressure, grade pressure, and uncertainty. In summary, this stress has a detrimental effect on

their academic performance.

A study was carried out by Ross, Neibling, and Heckert, (1999) in which the

Student Stress Survey (SSS) was used to determine the major sources of stress among college

students. The scale consisted of 40 potentially stressful situations. The scale addressed

interpersonal, intrapersonal, academic and environmental sources of stress.

College students have a unique cluster of stressful experiences or stressors (Garrett,

2001). According to Ross, Neibling and Heckert (1999), there are several explanations for

increased stress levels in college students. First, students have to make significant adjustments to

college life. Second, because of the pressure of studies, there is strain placed on interpersonal

relationships. Third, housing arrangements and changes in lifestyle contribute to stress

experienced by college students. In addition, students in college experience stress related to

academic requirements. Studies have investigated the relationship between coping resources and

various outcomes among general samples of youth; no research has focused on adolescents who

reported high personal standards in comparison to their peers. Research in this area is important

considering that such youth often report high stress when attempting to meet their personal

standards, particularly as these standards pertain to their academic environment.

Coping with Stress

i.e. demands made on an individual. According to Anspaugh et al. (2003), all events in life brought

about a reaction, but there were varied ways through which people reacted or responded to them.

To them, coping with stress is the attempt to manage or deal with stress. In their view, coping does

not necessarily result in success. They comment that successful coping includes becoming aware

of incidents and situations that one perceives as being stressful, and recognizing stressors means

being aware of how your body responds to stress. To Anspaugh et al. (2003) dealing successfully

with stress might require using different types of techniques.

Ability to manage stress is really an important issue when it comes to the topic if stress. Due to

this, the Klinic community health centre has laid down some stress relieving techniques which help a lot

especially students to enable them to manage their stress issues (Centre 2010, 15–30; Hiriyappa 2012, 61–

114). There are some techniques and ways that can help reduce stress and stop you being stressed up.

Meditations

The first technique that can help with the management of stress is meditation. Meditation that

cultivates mindfulness can be particularly effective at reducing stress, anxiety, depression, and other

negative emotions. Mindfulness is the quality of being fully engaged in the present moment, without over-

thinking or analysing the experience. Rather than worrying about the future or dwelling on the past,

mindfulness meditation switches the focus on what is happening right now. Mindfulness meditation is not

equal to zoning out.

It takes an effort to maintain your concentration and to bring it back to the present moment when

your mind wanders or you start to drift off. But with regular practice, mindfulness strengthens the areas of

the brain associated with joy and relaxation. Mindfulness provides a potentially powerful antidote to the

common causes of daily stress such as time pressure, distraction, agitation, and interpersonal conflicts.

(Clinic Community Health Centre, January 2010)

Furthermore, body scanning is also another good way of managing stress. Body scanning promotes

mindfulness by focusing your attention on various parts of your body. Like progressive muscle relaxation,

you can start with your feet and work your way up. However, instead of tensing and relaxing your muscles,

you simply focus on the way each part of your body feels, noticing any sensations without labelling then as

“good or bad”. (Clinic Community Health Centre, January 2010)

Deep Breathing

Another way which is easy to practice and do is deep breathing. Deep breathing releases tension

from the body and clears the mind, improving both physical and mental wellness. We tend to breathe

shallowly or even hold our breath when we are feeling anxious. Sometimes we are not even aware of it.

Shallow breathing limits your oxygen intake and adds further stress to your body. Breathing exercises can

help to reduce this stress. The key to deep breathing is to breathe deeply from the abdomen, getting as much

air as possible into your lungs. When you take deep breaths from the abdomen, rather than shallow breaths

from your upper chest, you inhale more oxygen. The more oxygen you get, the less tense, short of breath,

and anxious you feel. This kind of breathing is called diaphragmatic breathing. It means to breathe from

the depths of your belly, rather than from your chest and nose. (Clinic Community Health Centre, January

2010)

Guided Imagery

Guided imagery is also a convenient and simple relaxation technique that can help you quickly and

easily manage stress and reduce tension in your body. It is virtually as easy as indulging in a vivid daydream

and, with practice, this technique can help you to ease the tension and stress that you feel. When used as a

relaxation technique, guided imagery involves imagining a scene in which you feel at peace, free to let go

of all tension and anxiety. Choose whatever setting is most calming to you, whether a tropical beach, a
favourite childhood spot, a therapist’s chair, or a quiet place in the woods. (Clinic Community Health

Centre, January 2010)

Self-Massage

Lastly, self-massage helps so much in managing stress much more than we think. Getting a massage

provides deep relaxation, and as the muscles in your body relax, so does your overstressed mind. There are

many simple self-massage techniques you can use to relax and release stress. (Clinic Community Health

Centre, January 2010)