This week’s table talk on stress was really a broad discussion ranging from causes of stress to coping mechanisms to physiological responses caused by stress. One part of the discussion that I thought was really interesting was how higher household expectations on women especially in developing countries combined with lowered resource availability leads to higher stress levels. It’s interesting to think of stress beyond the usual academic “Oh, I’m so stressed because I have a prelim tomorrow” kind of stress.

It was also fun to hear how everyone copes with stress. We talked about some studies that have found interacting with and reaching out to people reduces stress, but almost everyone at the table talk thought that reaching out to people when stressed only led to more stress because of concerns about judging. People talked about a lot of different stress relieving methods, such as going for walks, catching insects, and watching TV. We also talked about the benefits of planning out events and writing out lists of what we plan to get done on a given day or in a given week. It was interesting how different people had different methods of working through multiple projects. Some people liked to just have one goal for the day, like finish a paper and space the projects out over several days. Others liked to work for a set little amount on many different projects. I definitely will be trying these different ways of dealing with stress in the future.