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Find relief from stress (part one) Are you stressed?

“Everyone has stress to some degree, yet I am overwhelmed with stress. It is not from just one big problem but from many situations, from struggles, and from seemingly unending years of caring for my physically and mentally ill husband.” Jill.

“My wife left me, and I had to raise two children on my own. It was hard being a single parent. On top of that, I lost my job and I couldn’t afford to get my vehicle inspected for registration. I had no idea how to handle things. The stress was overwhelming. I knew deep down that it was wrong to kill myself, so I begged God to end my misery.” – Barry.

Like Jill and Barry, do you sometimes feel overwhelmed with stress? If so, may the following articles comfort and help you.  They examine common causes of stress, how stress can affect us, and how we can get at least a measure of stress relief.

What causes stress?

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“Most adults report being under increasing levels of stress,” says the well-known Mayo Clinic. “Modern life is filled with change and uncertainty.” Consider just some of the changes and uncertainties that contribute to stress:

  • Divorce
  • The death of a loved one
  • Severe illness
  • Serious accidents
  • Crime
  • A hectic pace of life
  • Disasters – natural or man-made
  • Pressures at school or work
  • Worries about employment and financial security

Stress in early childhood

It is not uncommon for children to suffer from stress. Some are bullied at school or neglected at home. Others are abused physically, emotionally, or sexually. Many are anxious about exams and school grades. Still, others see their family torn apart by divorce. Stressed children may have nightmares, learning difficulties, depression, or a tendency to be withdrawn. Some seem unable to control their emotions. A child suffering from stress needs urgent help.

What is stress?

Stress is your body’s response to a demanding situation. Your brain causes hormones to flood your system. These increase your heart rate, regulate your blood pressure, expand or constrict the capacity of your lungs, and tense your muscles. Before you are fully aware of what is happening, your body is primed for action. When a stressful episode is over, your body come off “high alert” and returns to normal.

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Good and bad stress

Stress is a natural response that enables you to deal with challenging or dangerous situations. The stress response begins in your brain. Beneficial stress enables you to act or react quickly. A certain amount of stress can also help you to reach your goals or to perform better, perhaps during an exam, a job interview, or a sporting event.

However, prolonged, extreme, or chronic stress can harm you. When your body is repeatedly or constantly, on “high alert”, you may begin to suffer physically, emotionally, and mentally. Your behaviour, including the way you treat others, may change. Chronic stress can also lead to substance abuse and other unhealthy means of coping. It may even spiral into depression, burnout, or thoughts of suicide.

While stress may not affect everyone in the same way, it can contribute to a wide range of diseases. And it can affect nearly every part of the body.

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How stress can affect your body

Musculoskeletal system

Your muscles tense up to protect you from injury. Too much stress can lead to

  • Body aches and pains, tension headaches, and muscle spasms.

Respiratory system

You breathe faster to take in more oxygen. Too much stress can lead to

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  • Hyperventilation and shortness of breaths, as well as panic attacks in those who are prone to them.

Nervous system

Your nervous system causes hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol to be released. These increase your heart rate, your blood pressure, and the glucose levels in your blood—all of which enable you to respond quickly to danger. Too much stress can lead to

  • Irritability, anxiety, depression, headaches, and insomnia.

Cardiovascular system

Your heart beats faster and its harder to distribute blood throughout your body. Blood vessels dilate or constrict to direct blood where your body needs it the most, such as in your muscles. Too much stress can lead to

  • High blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke.

Endocrine system

Your glands produce the hormones adrenaline and cortisol, which help the body react to stress. Your liver increases your blood-level to give you more energy. Too much stress can lead to

  • Diabetes, lower immunity and increased illness, mood swings, and weight gain.

Reproductive system

Stress can affect sexual desire and function. Too much stress can lead to

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  • Impotence, disrupted menstrual cycle.

Gastrointestinal system

The way your body processes food is disrupted. Too much stress can lead to

  • Nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, and constipation.

…to be continued

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Just in time part 3

Esaaba went to her room, closed the door and sat on the bed. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she took her decision. If she was going to have her peace of mind and get along with her par­ents and sister, the only way was to find a place to rent and live on her own.

She picked up her phone to talk to an estate agent when her door opened gently, and her par­ents walked in, Esaaba following. ‘Esaaba’, her dad began, ‘we are sorry for what has happened. We are very sorry. But I wish you would understand that as your parents, we mean well.

We want a good future for you. Naturally we are concerned that you have been, er, a little late in settling down with a man. That is why we took the steps we did. We will continue to pray for a solution. In fact, it is possible that Stanley will realise what he’s missing and get in touch again’. ‘Dad, I’m not going to discuss this issue with you again. It is quite ob­vious that you don’t agree that it is my right, as a right thinking adult, to make my own choices. So I am going to rent a place as quickly as possible and move out.

If I don’t, we will continue to argue over this issue. I’m not pre­pared to allow anyone, even my parents, to choose a husband for me. And as for you Baaba, let me warn you, never get involved again in any issue concerning me, be­cause apart from being very simple minded, you need to learn a few things in life.

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Don’t assume anything’. ‘What do I care?’ Baaba snapped. What do I need from you?’ ‘Get out of my room!’ she shouted. Beesiwa walked out, followed by their par­ents.

Esaaba decided that she needed space to clear her head. She went to the bathroom, washed her face and brushed her hair and, after checking to make sure that she had her copy of the front door key, went out. The only place she could think of, she thought, was Jackie’s, the open air joint.

It was never too full, and they played mostly soft music. And the food was nice. It was just what she needed to clear her head. She decided against a taxi and strolled down, and took a seat.

She sat down, and as the waiter walked up to take her order she saw Marian Mensah sipping a drink. ‘Hey Marian! Where on earth have you been?’ ‘Look who is asking questions. I have been trying to find you for ages. Where have you been?’ ‘I live some two hundred metres from here. And you know I’m a TA on campus’. ‘I didn’t know that. And guess who has been asking for your number, almost desperately?’ The only person I can think of is David Essel, and apart from the fact that he’s not in Ghana, I don’t think he will want to call me’.

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‘Well, it’s him alright. He came back a month ago. He called last week, and said he heard you had gone to do a Master’s programme on a university scholarship, and he also heard you were working with a drug company. But he obviously didn’t know you were on campus, because he would have fished you out a long time ago’.

‘Why, is he do­ing anything on campus?’ ‘Yes, he’s just got a job as lecturer at the Statistics Department’. When he called and said he wanted to contact you, I teased him that you hadn’t changed, that perhaps you were the same difficult person you were, and he replied that perhaps you had changed’.

‘Do you know what? I really liked the guy, but maybe I didn’t know him well because of the three year gap. Perhaps if he had taken a little time I would have agreed. He is quite good looking, always looking neat, and he had a great sense of humour. And you know, I was afraid of the girls who were always hovering around him. Do you have his number?’ Marian called him, and within twenty minutes David had joined them at Jackie’s. ‘Good to see you ladies. ‘Esaaba, it’s been ages. I thought I would never find you’. ‘Listen, you two’, Marian said, I’m sure it would be best for you if I vanished from here. So off I go. Call and let’s meet, this week­end if possible’.

They ordered food and drinks, and chatted for quite a while about their activities since they last met. David went to Denmark on a PhD scholarship from a food processing company that is well represented in West Africa.

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He also spent some time working in the company’s research Depart­ment, for which he was paid rather well. Esaaba, on her part, told him about her experiences as a National Service person and Teaching Assis­tant at her department.

She was hoping to start a Masters Degree programme at the Depart­ment, but was also exploring the possibility of getting a universi­ty scholarship to study abroad. ‘David, I don’t mind hanging around a little longer because I live close by, but in your case you will be driving for a while, so if you like, we can meet again in the next few days’.

‘Okay, my car is parked over there. But first give me your number. Can we meet in the next couple of days?’ ‘We certainly can. I will be moving from my parents’ place very soon, maybe in the next few days, so I will tell you my location when you call’.

‘Why are you moving from your parents’ place, if I may ask? Some­thing interesting happening?’ ‘How shall I say it? My parents think I am delaying in getting a husband, so they have been putting pressure on me to get married.

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In fact they tried to force a guy on me, and it backfired’. ‘O dear. I was about to ask you a question on this topic

By Ekow de Heer

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Leakages and  academic dysentery

Sikaman Palava

Student life just prior to GCE exams is as interesting and adven­turous as it is tragic. It is a period during which recalcitrant finalists are tempted to break into backyard poul­try outfits of senior house-masters, so that they can enjoy chicken-soup while “ghosting.”

And in mixed schools, it is during this revision period that boys and girls alternate studies with romance in such a way that at the beginning of the long vacation, the girls can clandestine­ly approach unscrupulous doctors to scoop out growing babies from their bellies.

A few weeks to the beginning of the first paper, many students devel­op physical and imaginary illnesses ranging from amnesia to kpokpomatics (nervousness). The budding finalist who is serious and level-headed plans his study time-table and allots time for bath, meals, siesta and snoring.

Such candidates follow their own regimented programme to the letter and enjoy normal life while studying for their exams. They are health-con­scious, do not take drugs and they enjoy rest to avoid brain fag.

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There are other serious students, however, who are not concerned about health. They are so busy, or claim to be, that they refuse to take their bath, comb their hair, wash their hands before eating and sometimes, simply refuse to go to “toilet”. This is quite revolutionary and I wonder how they manage it. But that is not all.

They take ‘caterpillar’ to keep awake, fail to wash their cover-cloths, and have air conditioners permanently installed in their armpits. These are students who are on the war-path to­wards academic distinction but ironi­cally very few of them do well.

Some are so over-zealous that they pack and carry books for all their eight or so subjects to the classroom swear­ing to ‘chew’ all before day-break. They end up learning virtually noth­ing because they prefer the rhythmic snoring using their books as pillow to cramming Abbot.

The following morning, they will be the first to impress their colleagues: “I swear my father’s moustache that last night I did what Napoleon could not do.” For sure, Napoleon did not sleep that much. Ninety per cent of such students end up in the academic grave with grade 9s, subsidiary passes and FAIL as their lot.

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Incidentally, however, those cate­gory of students are more acceptable to organised society than the happy-go-lucky ones who regard academic excellence as sacrilegious and, there­fore, include discoing, wee-smoking, chasing form-two girls and stealing gari from frail chop boxes in their study programme.

These are the students who are so intellectually deviant that they keep on praying papers should leak so that they can prove to their ‘book-long’ fel­lows they are a force to reckon with.

A month to exams they go hovering about West African Examinations Coun­cil (WAEC), forcing tete-a-tete with crooked officials some of whose faces look hungry enough to accept money in exchange for exam papers.

Others trot from school to school contacting friends of similar feather to obtain information about possible leak­age points. The girls become unusually liberal to the Assistant Headmaster who may, as a reciprocal gesture, be tempted to ‘peep’ two or three Maths questions from one paper to offer as sure tips after carefully changing the wording. These assistant heads, there­fore, become alphabetical surgeons; a very infamous occupation.

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In the 70s, the incidence of leak­ages and exam malpractices became so rampant among the WAEC countries that Nigeria swore to rid its territory of the epidemic.

They did succeed. Sikaman author­ities also swore same, and for some time, ears became free from news about leakages, impostors and ‘copia­to’ (copying during exams).

But just as we had begun the last decade of the 20th Century, the plague re-surfaced and today some students and their allies are under lock and key for the part they played in this scholas­tic uprising.

Papers leak right from WAEC strong rooms, police stations and assistant headmasters’ vaults.

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When papers for instance go into transit at the police station for onward transmission to the exam centres, sur­gical operations are performed on the sacks and the papers extracted and put on sale on the open market.

Sometime ago, the situation degen­erated so much that Makola women were seen hawking. Additional Mathe­matics papers just like tomatoes and garden-eggs.

One interesting but unfortunate thing about leakages is that it does no one ultimate good. To a brilliant student, a leaked paper in his posses­sion makes him unable to justify his intellectual capacity and his scholastic worth is over-shadowed.

To the brainless, it is simply a disas­ter. He has no brains whatsoever to im­bibe solution to the answers. He has to choose the alternative of entering the exam room with copied answers. And there, he becomes a copy-writer and proof-reader. Speed is his best asset, but he is most likely to be caught.

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One block-headed student who acquired a leaked paper was faced with the problem of choosing between ‘chewing’ the answers (which was virtually impossible in view of his de­ficient IQ), and turning himself into a speed copy-writer. He however decid­ed to do neither of these.

In the exam room he considered his plight. All his friends and enemies were also in possession of the paper and had prepared so well that they were going to clock beautiful grades. And he, the only JUDAS in the lot will surely wind up with a grade 9. What!! God forbid!

On the answer sheet he wrote a very brilliant letter to the examiner in clear hand-writing and similar to this:

“Dear Sir, this very paper you are marking is under massive leakage, and I know that people are going to blow it paa-a! But as for me, although I also had all the questions, I am as daft as a live sheep. My father had no brains in his big head. As for my mother, the least said about her, the better. And as you know that a dog does not beget a cat, I was born an idiot.”

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“So when I got the questions, I didn’t know what to do with them. Will you please therefore consider me and pass me too. Otherwise, I alone will die of academic dysentery. Thanks for your usual cooperation. Yours faithful­ly…”

The paper was cancelled, and students had to suffer the expense of re-registration and frustration, not forgetting the loss of time.

The only solution to this grave problem of exam leakages and allied criminal offences is that the law must prescribe stiffer punishments for those who perpetrate and or collaborate to further these criminal practices.

Those convicted of these offences must be packed away for as long as would be possible to make them forget about exam papers. Such a deterrent measure would help minimize the problem. Proper security arrangements must be organized by authorities of WAEC to rid Sikaman of this recurrent menace.

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We must all endeavour to prevent the situation where outsiders will feel inclined to refuse recognising our dear certificates which many have toiled for, but which a dangerous few want to obtain without sweat.

This article was first published on Saturday, June 30, 1990.

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