Learning the importance of stress management Week 1 reflection

My first week of of this journey has widened my understanding of what it means to have proper stress management skills.My personal experience has taught me how stress effects me and the reasons for my getting stressed in the first place.

My thought process increases and my anxiety levels increase when I become stressed. The triggers of this experience are primarily from University work load and my poor time management skills (which I am working on with a newly learned time management technique) only enhances my stress and anxiety levels.

In week one of this journey I have used a 2 different techniques that are known to help reduce stress. Music and exercise. 

Exercise

The affects I have gotten from exercise has been extremely positive for me. I found my stress levels (from a scale of 1 to 10) from a typical 7 or 8 out of 10 reduced to about 4 or 5 out 10. The added benefit of this stress relief activity is I'm recognising the health benefit as a result from physical exercise. I exercised for 3 days in week 1 (Sunday 30/4/2017 to Wednesday 3/4/2017). I enjoyed the exercise a lot to the point where I have decided to do some kind of physical exercise a few times a week from now on.

Music

My experience with music has been a hit and miss as part of my experiment (from Thursday 4/5/2017 to Saturday 6/7/2017). The primary genre of music I have been listening to is pop music. However, I have also been listening to some cultural songs. My stress levels prior to listening to music has been about 8 out of 10, reduced to 6 out of 10 after listening to some music. Although my stress levels reduced just not as much as the results I have gotten from exercising.