Perfectionists, research shows, can become easily discouraged by failing to meet impossibly high standards, making them reluctant to take on new challenges or even complete agreed-upon tasks. The insistence on dotting all the i’s can also breed inefficiency, causing delays, work overload and even poor results. Perfectionism can hurt health and re lationships, too. It is associated with anorexia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, social anxiety, writer’s block, alcoholism and depression. Such problems may be prevalent: a 2007 study that evaluated more than 1,500 college students revealed that nearly one quarter of them suffered from an unhealthy form of perfectionism.  read full article

This is not to say that striving to perform your best is unhealthy. But it may be detrimental if it’s getting in the way of your actual ability to succeed.  If you are a Wesleyan student who feels you are suffering ill effects from your own perfectionism, the Office of Behavioral Health for Students can offer you free and confidential assistance. Call 860.685.2910 for an appointment.

Mid-terms can be a high stress time for many students, perhaps contributing to increased tobacco use amongst those who smoke.  For those who are former smokers, this kind of stress can be a trigger point for returning to past habits. 

While relapse can be a reality when establishing any new healthier habit,  it should not be viewed as complete failure. It simply indicates a moment of “two steps forward, one step back” and provides the opportunity to recommit to your healthier habits. 

In a recent article, the Mayo Clinic shared a variety of suggestions on how to maintain your commitment to being smoke-free. These are as simple as being vigilant of situations that might trigger tobacco use to more concrete reminders of how costly smoking can be as a habit, with cigarette prices at $5 per pack. 

Read the full article here to find a few suggestions that could work for you. 

Wesleyan Resources: 

Health Services’ Smoking Cessation Resources

WesWELL Tobacco Education Resources

photo credit: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Trent over at The Simple Dollar, a terrific personal finance blog, has written up the seven financial mistakes to avoid during your college career. While not all may apply to you, striving to avoid as many as possible will help with your long term financial health and reduce (but probably not completely eliminate) your stress about money while still here at Wesleyan and when transitioning to the post-Wes world. 

Check out the article here. 

Scientific American recently ran a ” 60 Second Psych” podcast about cyberchondria, the obsessive fear that can arise from using “Dr. Google” to diagnose your illness from a few simple symptoms. Click here to check it out.

An alternate tool available to the Wesleyan community is the Self Care Guide. This guide was developed by the American Institute for Preventative Medicine and allows you to use logic trees to determine what is the best course of action based on your symptoms.  It can be found on both the Health Services and WesWELL websites; look for the Self Care Guide link.

Get a free chair massage from a licensed massage therapist!

In celebration of National Massage Therapy Awareness Week,
the Connecticut Chapter of the American Massage Therapy Association
is offering free chair massages to Wesleyan community members.

Drop-in for a relaxing break in your day; no appointment required.

Monday, October 20, 2008 AND Thursday, October 23, 2008
10:30am to 2:00pm in Usdan 110

Now the Mayo Clinic reminds us that asking for help by creating your own support system is key to your health, by sharing the story of East African distance runners. Lessons learned?

1. We need to take care of ourselves as did these runners.
2. If we are isolated, if we are marginalized, if we are without a support system, we are at a profound disadvantage dealing with life’s stresses.

Stress is probably the most common health complaint I hear about from students; it’s even worn as a badge of honor by some. But dealing with life’s stressors — which will never completely go away, just change as time passes – is a skill that is best learned now when you’re in a supportive environment like a college campus.

Very simply put, stress management is about consciously choosing how to respond to what is happening in your life, rather than letting your stressors take charge. And your support system — your friends, family, Peer Advisor, RA or House Manager, professors, other campus offices, or whoever helps you — will make all the difference in your health and well-being personally and academically.

Wesleyan Resources:  Stress Management

A new study, discussed in Scientific American, indicates that the impact of stress may be greater on our physical bodies than previously thought, especially our immune systems.

It might seem counterintuitive, but Kiecolt-Glaser believes that stress makes our immune systems less effective because it actually elicits an immune response itself. Stress, she says, causes the body to release pro-inflammatory cytokines, immune factors that initiate responses against infections. When the body produces these cytokines over long periods of time—for instance, as a result of chronic stress—all sorts of bad things can happen. Not only does it hamper our body’s ability to fight infection and heal wounds, but chronic inflammation also increases our risk of heart disease, osteoporosis, and autoimmune diseases including type 2 diabetes.

What’s more, because regular stress causes a chronic immune response, it can also increase a person’s risk for allergies, which occur when the body elicits a chronic immune response against something that’s not really dangerous (like pollen). In her most recent study, announced yesterday, Kiecolt-Glaser found that when people are under lots of stress—for instance, when they are forced to deliver a speech or do difficult math problems on the spot—their allergies worsen over the course of the next day.

Read the full article here.

Discussion Question: Experiencing stress is not inevitable; it’s about responding in a manner that helps you rather than hurts you. What small steps can you take this semester to manage your stress more effectively?

Wesleyan Resources: Stress Management

While waiting for an airplane, an interesting thing happened to me. I picked up a novel in a bookstore at a local airport and came across a story of a James Bond-type character who lived on the edge. His work was challenging, dangerous, and vital to national defense. When queried by his colleagues about his survival tactics, he mentioned three things which I think also apply to us. Regardless of the assignment or the project, there were just three things that he kept in mind.

-  Keep it simple. The more moving parts, the more individuals involved, the more complex the program, the higher the risk of failure.

- Always be prepared for contingencies. What if … what might go wrong … how will I deal with x, y, or z? For example, as a public speaker, I always keep in mind plan B if my laptop explodes, if the projector “freezes,” or we lose power.

- Never panic. This means being prepared within reason for what may lie ahead.

As an afterthought, this agent also embraced the uncertainty of life.  Things go wrong, relationships become painful, the goal sometimes is not reached.  We need to be flexible, we need to be adaptable, and to recognize that there is great merit in staying in the day and turning over our needs and our concerns to a higher power however we may define that power.

The moral of the story? Always be open to new ideas — they can come from anywhere — and often less is more!

Wesleyan Resources: Stress Management

Discussion Questions: How do you implement these simple keys to survival in your life? Or what barriers do you believe exist to their implementation?

While we’d all like to rid ourselves of the daily brain-burn, most of us are not willing to extract ourselves from the professional and lifestyle circumstances that are creating that stress (though, I have to tell you, trading in my Ferragamo’s for bare feet has been pretty friggin sweet for me).

So, for those who choose to endure, rather than extract, here are 10 powerful practices that will help get you back to a calm, focused, relaxed and rejuvenated state of mind and allow you to take back body and health:

1. Mindfulness-based stress reduction™

Developed by acclaimed psychologist Jon Kabat-Zinn, more than 20,000 people, from all walks of life have now completed this 8-week mindfulness-based stress reductiontraining with remarkable results. And, the good news is, now you don’t have to live in Massachusetts to do it. There are many trained affiliates or you can do it at home with Kabat-Zinn’s book and audio CDs (or mp3s) with only 45-minutes a day.

2. Get lost in great music.

This is pretty intuitive, but there is actually significant research that reveals listening to the right music can actually be a powerful de-stressor and help get you back into a better state of mind relatively quickly. And, if you think listening to music drops you into the chill-zone, try learning or playing music. A fascinating study on the impact of playing music on stress reveals that keeping a guitar handy in the corner of your office and cranking out Stevie Ray Vaughn’s Little Wing on your lunch break will help you feel oh so much better!

read full article for more suggestions…

Strive to implement some of these now, continue with them throughout the year and you might just find yourself in better shape a year from now.

 Discussion Question:In addition to those techniques listed in the article, what helps you un-bake your brain?

or view it here.

Discussion: What concerns do you have about credit cards? What have you learned from your own mistakes? What plan do you have to eliminate (or not create) your debt load?