Good Stress, Bad Stress, and Eustress

Remember the day when there were no parking spaces in the lot, the computer crashed and the appellate brief was due that morning? A typical law school morning.

Most law students experience stress in one form or another. The secret is to manage stress before it begins to overpower the law school experience. The good news is that there is stress that does not have to be avoided- eustress. Good stress (eustress) can motivate higher performance and is actually a prerequisite to garnering top results.

Eustress as many are not aware is controlled stress that results in top performance at high stress activities such as giving oral arguments, giving a speech, or sports. This stress provides the focus and energy needed in order to perform at the highest level of the individual's ability. Nevertheless, too much stress will cause a disruption of performance and may cause both health and mental problems.

Symptoms of short term stress include rapid heartbeat, fast, shallow breathing, rush of blood to the head, after which there may be some difficulty with short term memory, queasy stomach, cold hands, and muscle tension. Short terms stress may even be attributes of eustress and can become a benefit in short amounts at a time. Although, an accumulation of bad stress is much more dangerous, symptoms including: "on edge" feelings, explosive reactions, unusually reclusive persona, apathetic exhaustion, frequent colds or illness, short tempered or hostility toward others, pessimistic attitude, and ultimately depression.

However, relieving bad stress can be as simple as taking a couple minutes out of the day to laugh or do breathing exercises. Deep-breathing exercise done 1 to 2 minutes several times a day for 5 to 6 weeks can relieve many stressful feelings. Also, muscle relaxation and yoga or meditation is proven to reduce the bad types of stress.

Nevertheless, relieving stress may be as simple as choosing the right desktop background color on a laptop screen. It has been long known that color is not only used to provide for a contrast in everyday things, but is also used as a tool of communication. The psychology of color has proven that colors are divided into three categories: Warm, neutral, and cool. These groups have different attributes that can either contribute or relieve stress.

Warm colors including red, orange and yellow are great to have in eye view in the morning. These colors invoke excitement and tend to wake up and energize. However, other than when a cup of coffee is not enough, warm colors should be used sparingly. They can irritate already present stress and although they add optimism to a bland day, they should be used with caution.

The next group of colors include the neutral group of black, white, silver, gray, and brown are the unifying colors. This group tends to give focus to other colors and serve as a background. By themselves, this group has a conservative tone, however, such colors as gray and brown may express dullness or moodiness which may also reflect over in a mood.

Thus, the optimum group to relieving stress is the cool colors group including blue, green and turquoise. These are comforting and nurturing colors. Many times these colors are used for wall to provide for a calm and serene environment. Sometimes just looking at a single cool color pallet or background can provide for a stress relieving feeling.

However, colors are not the only way to relieve stress. Even though time is not something that is plentiful in law school, there is always time to take a moment and realize that even though school is a big part of life right now, it is not everything. There is family, friends and somewhere in the midst of all the court briefs and oral arguments, the law student. So taking some time out to laugh, play, nap, garden, release, create, listen, move, nurture, and using the right colors can help stay within the eustress zone.