About Our Unsafe Behaviors Group

Our team has decided to focus on unsafe behaviors that students today are facing and taking a part in.  We are exploring such areas as prescription drug use, risks of tanning, stress induced alcohol abuse, as well as broader categories of long-term unsafe behaviors and short-term unsafe behaviors.  We have all decided to compile our work into a miniature multimedia magazine, which will include links to other useful information, and a pdf-format for online use.  Our magazine will be able to inform students of important risks of certain college lifestyles whether they were aware of them before or not. 

Our group consists of four individuals, all from very different backgrounds.  This has helped us to construct a piece of work coming from four very different angles.  Matt Warden has decided to take on the subject of prescription drug use among college students, more specifically the use of ADD medication because of his knowledge on the subject.  Warden is a Senior NMC student who enjoys airplanes and playing the guitar.  Yessenia Alarcon, an avid tanner, has decided to write about tanning and its effects.  Alarcon is also an NMC student with a focus in advertising.  Rick Chandler, an NMC student, is taking on the long-term effects and short-term effects of unsafe behavior, such as driving while distracted and smoking and drinking.  Chandler wanted to make sure that these topics were covered.  Natalie Moser will be looking at stress among students today and what they are resorting to because of it and what they can do about it.  Moser, like the others is an NMC, who definitely understands stress.

“How To Deal With Stress” By Natalie Moser

Stress seems to be more prevalent than alcohol on college campuses today.  Although, stress and college have always gone hand in hand, what is it exactly that is causing it and how can students deal?

 

“My job stresses me out the most, I have to work over 20 hours a week because I have to pay for school and on top of that it’s hard taking 18 credit hours and trying to work and being in a sorority,” said Sara Taylor, a Junior Communications major. 

 

Ava Khoshbin, a Freshman HDFS major, said that as far as what stresses her out it would be “The future, basically, school because it’s going to lead me to my future and if I fail then it’s like I’m going to fail my future.”

 

These stressful situations are shared among many college students and several of them deal with their stress through unsafe and unhealthy behaviors, such as drugs and alcohol, as a way of an escape.  Even though, they may not realize it at the time that these behaviors could result in an unfortunate life changing experience. 

 

How is it that students can release their stress but in a healthy way? 

 

Suggestions that were made by students for other students included things such as, “Talking to a friend or someone close that can help them cope,” said Tony Losh, a Junior Business major. 

 

Khoshbin, 19 from Lake Oswego said “Write down everything you need to do and take it on one by one, that’s the only thing that works for me.”

 

“Working out for sure, I should do it but I don’t, maybe that’s why I am so stressed all the time,” said Taylor, 20 from Lake Oswego. 

 

According to an article, “Teens and Stress: Who Has Time For It?,” from the American Academy of Family Physicians, they suggest first recognizing that you are in fact stressed.  Tips on how to tell are signs of:

• Feeling depressed, edgy, guilty, tired
• Having headaches, stomachaches, trouble sleeping
• Laughing or crying for no reason
• Blaming others for bad things that happen to you
• Only seeing the down side of a situation
• Feeling like things that you used to enjoy aren’t fun or are a burden
• Resenting other people or your responsibilities

 Other useful tips on how to fight stress, provided by the American Academy of Family Physicians, include:

• Eating well-balanced meals on a regular basis
• Drinking less caffeine
• Getting enough sleep
• Exercising on a regular basis
• Making a list of things that are causing your stress
• Take control of what you can
• Give yourself a break
• Don’t commit yourself to things you can’t do or don’t want to do
• Find someone to talk to

 By incorporating some or all of these tips into student’s daily lives they could significantly reduce the amount of college stress.

 

Although, “It’s obviously easier said than done,” said Whitney King, a Sophomore Business major.

Stress and Students Today, By Natalie Moser

It’s no secret that college students today face an immense amount of stress and pressure from anything ranging from college coursework to financial burdens to even health issues.  The interesting part about it all is how college students deal with these stresses and are they in a constructive or destructive way?

 

“I deal with stress by partying,” said Casey Knuth, a Junior Business major, “I’m a very live life by the moment kind of guy.”

 

Knuth, age 21 from Tualatin, also added “My number one stressor is waking up in the morning and all I wanna do is get drunk but I can’t because I know I have to go to class.”

 

On the other hand, Natalie Swartzendruber, a Sophomore Political Science major, said “I take “me” time, where I’ll go and do something I enjoy, watch a movie, get a chai, go for a drive, read my Bible, or call my mom.”

 

Both students deal with their stress in two completely different ways but it seems as though, according to a poll from the Associated Press, “Stress Pains Many in College,” by Alan Fram and Trevor Tompson, that many students are tending to resort to drugs and alcohol rather than seeking less damaging options, “More than a quarter of the students sometimes think they should cut down on drinking or going out.  A third say they sometimes want to use drugs or alcohol to relax.”

 

Many students attribute stress as a leading cause to the amount of alcohol ingested by college students today. Shelby Johnson, a Sophomore getting an International Degree in Spanish, said “That’s [stress] half the reason I think people drink as much as they do, like Tuesday nights, most people look ahead at all the stuff they have to do the rest of the week and get drunk.”

 

Students also talked about how social situations can act as a stressor causing them to consume alcohol or consume more alcohol than they intended to.  “If you know your going into a stressful situation you drink more,” said Johnson, age 20 from Portland. 

 

Yet still darker, although just as important are the instances of suicide that occur among college students due to stress.  “About one in six say they have friends who in the past year have discussed committing suicide, and about one in 10 say they have seriously considered it themselves.  Friends have actually tried to end their lives in that time, one in 10 say,” said Fram and Tompson. 

 

What has caused this push toward such a huge extreme?  “I think we have a lot more pressure put on our generation to be so much smarter and to make a good living,” said Courtney Schild, a Freshman Art major.

 

“Our society has higher expectations on what you should be able to do and your accomplishments,” said Johnson.

 

Schild, age 19 from Portland said “We hear so much from the media that everyone has nice things so we think that’s the norm so that’s what we strive to achieve.”

Process Memo

Overall, my experience writing both of my articles on stress was good.  People seemed to be receptive to my questions and friendly while I interviewed them.  Like always, I had the most trouble simply sitting down and writing my two articles but once I did things just started flowing pretty well.  I’m excited about my stories actually because I wrote them as a kind of pair.  One is about what students resort to when they are stressed and the other is about how to deal with stress.  I’m really excited about how our group project has turned out and I hope that the class will be as excited about it as I am.

 

Process Memo

Interview questions for “How Students Can Deal With Stress”:

What stresses you out the most?

How do you deal with stress?

Advice for others for dealing with stress?

 

Process Memo

Our group met in the library this evening and discussed our project layout.  We’re working on bringing everything together at this point.  It was actually a really productive meeting and I’m really excited about how our project is coming together. 

Process Memo

My interview questions for my stress article:

1. What would you say is your number one stressor?

2. How do you deal with stress?

3. Do you think that college students today resort to harmful acts when they are stressed?

4. Do you know people who resort to harmful acts when they are stressed?

5. What do you think they could do instead?

6. Do you think the amount of stress students face today is much more than it was ten years ago?  Why?

Process Memo Entry

Today I interviewed six people on their concerns about stress surrounding college students today.  It was interesting because the guys that I interviewed seemed to have quick and short answers and had a hard time elaborating on my questions but the girls were willing to talk on and on.  So I’ll probably have more quotes from girls in my article on stress because of this. 

Reader Response to “For the Elderly, Being Heard About Life’s End,” By Jane Gross

            I think it’s great that people are beginning to look differently at the way we take care of the elderly.  With medical expenses what they are now and people living as long as they do it seems like it’s for the best to change our way of thinking.  With this new mindset the elderly have the opportunity to say no to medications and treatment if they so choose.  Our way of thinking before was to always do all that we could, but that unfortunately doesn’t always work and can sometimes make things even worse.  Plus, I don’t mean to sound like a cynic but I don’t think that people need to live as long as they do anyway.  What’s the point really?  They can’t really contribute much to society anymore and everyone is supposed to die, everyone dies eventually.  It just seems silly to prolong the process by making people go through invasive and extensive procedures and make them take heaps of medication just so they can live another month or two.  Obviously, if someone is old and healthy and then they get an illness that could kill them but it’s easily curable then I think that they should take medicine so they don’t die but I don’t really see the point with people who have a terminal illness.

Reader Response to “States Get In on the Calls for a Gas Tax Holiday,” By Damien Cave

It’s actually really quit frightening how high our gas prices are getting and how fast too.  I’m not naïve either, I know that they prices are never going to substantially go down either.  I wish that people would realize this also so that we could focus more of our time and energy on finding more sustainable sources of fuel and stop worrying about how to get the gas prices down, cause news flash it’s not going to happen.  Why don’t we work on building better public transportation or stop building cars that use gas.  There really isn’t much point in building these brand new gas guzzling cars because no one is going to be able to afford to drive them in just a few years and then its an even bigger waste of our resources.  I do realize that they are trying to build cars that use less gas and have even invented cars that don’t use any gas at all but what about all the planes and ships/boats out there that drink down gas likes it’s water?  What is the brilliant solution to fixing that problem because that’s why the prices of everything around us have gone up?  It does cost money to transport items.  I really just think that we need to pull our heads out of our butts and create more sustainable communities otherwise were going to be up the creek.