English conversation on stress for ESL students
Topic: “How do you try to handle stress in your life?”
English questions on stress
- Is there anything positive about stress?
- What is the role of stress in our success or failure (if any)?
- What happens if you overlook stress in your life?
- Is stress contagious, i.e. transmitted from one person to another?
- What are the techniques you can put to use in order to control or harness the level of stress in your life?
- Do you think controlling stress is a skill that could be learned or acquired?
- Do you think you can be stressed for no particular reason?
- Discuss some of the physiological dire consequences of leading an excruciatingly stressful life?
Activities
Season of Reason: Among the questions listed below, concentrate on Question “7”. Then attempt to come up with as many cogent reasons as possible to support your viewpoint in 3 minutes (Brainstorming). Finally, prepare to get into a heated argument with your classmates.
Quotations and/or Ideas
- “Stress is an internal defense mechanism to make you ready for a challenging situation. In this case, stress is likened to pain in the sense that as pain indicates that there is something wrong in your body, stress shows that there is something wrong in your mind and your life. As you should not use a pain-killer to suffocate pain; instead, you should find out the reason of pain in your body to eradicate the causes of pain, you must also find out the reasons and causes of stress in your mind and life to try to eradicate the causes.” (Dr. Mohammad Hossein Hariri Asl)
- “Stress is often self-inflicted.” (Anonymous)
- “Taking actions and attacking fear are two important keys to reducing stress and worry in your life.” (Dr. David Schwartz)
Related Idioms
- To blow a fuse: to become angry
- To hit the ceiling: to become angry
- To be hot under the collar: to be so angry
- To go bananas: to become stressed and angry
- To hit the roof: to hit the ceiling
- To get one’s back up: to go angry
- To get up on the wrong side of the bed: to feel slightly angry and annoyed for no particular reason
Stress is natural reaction to our fear. We feel anxiety more to come up with new situation. So, anxiety accrue when we do not have control over something. For example, when we get ready for exam, we have anxiety to get good grade.
Initially, we can be stressed for no reason because our thoughts lead to stress. In this mention, our thoughts about future can cause our stress in daily life. Because we always want to feel prepared to handle everything in our life. Also, we are more stressed for no reason than when we experience more difficulty in our life. Beside that, when we have been ignoring, we have more stress to come up with every situation. Moreover, tending to be complete perfect lead us to more stress. To illustrate, when we want to hold very high standards for ourselves, we work harder and longer than others to be the best in everything.
Next, when we feel a constant state of worry, fear and dread, we make mistake more and we could not control our daily lives. Excess stress can decrease performance and concentration. So, we could not enjoy of our activities. Because our minds jump into the worst situation. Therefore, we must control the level of stress in our life.
Finally, we can manage our stress and calm our mind. We could relax our body with going for a walk and do exercise regularly, listening to music, have a fun with our family and have good sleep. Beside them, practice self-compassion and mindfulness are so useful to stop worrying a lot.
Thank you for leaving such a thorough comment on the theme of stress.
Please try to learn from your mistakes and avoid repeating them in your next comments.
Feedback
1. Stress is a natural reaction
2. with new situations / a new situation
3. anxiety occurs when
4. we get ready for an exam
5. to get a good grade / score
6. In this mention = in this moment
7. ignoring what?? Ignore requires an object.
8. we have more stress to cope with
9. complete perfect = completely perfect
10. Excess stress = excessive stress
11. enjoy of our activities = enjoy our activities
12. calm our mind = calm down our mind
13. with going for a walk = by going for a walk
14. have a fun with = have fun with
Thank you so much for correcting my mistake. I learn them and try to do better in the next comment.
That’s fantastic! You’re most welcome.