Introduction

Stress is your body’s way to responding to and kind of demand or threat. Imagine being a teenager or adult in this day in age with all the social media and cyber bulling stress can be overwhelming. These physical changes increase your strength and stamina, speed your reaction time, and enhance your focus. This is known as “fight or flight” or the mobilization stress response and is your body’s way of protecting you. There is also a “freeze” or immobilization response that occurs if we become traumatized. Chronic stress interrupts nearly every system in your body. It can shut down your immune system, upset your digestive and reproductive systems, raise blood pressure, increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, speed up the aging process and leave you vulnerable to many mental and physical health problems. Many people don’t have outlets to deal with their stress, this can be problematic.  Stress can have effects on your sleep, eating behaviors, and creativity.

As I did some research I noticed that many people have done studies on stress. The American Psychology Association did a survey that found, teens and adults have similar patterns of unhealthy behavior when it comes to stress. Another study done by NYU, showing that there is growing awareness many subgroups of youth experience high levels of chronic stress, to the extent it impedes their abilities to succeed academically, compromises their mental health functioning, and fosters risk behavior. Another study done in Sweden showed one in three teenagers suffer from chronic stress. An article written by Riley (2012), called “Effects of stress on creativity,” says stress is the fastest way to damper creativity. She says “Another consequence of stress on creativity is during the fight-or flight response we become tunnel-vision. Our brains are programed to focus on the crisis at hand, which narrows our ability to see multiple viewpoints of a problem, an essential ingredient in the creative process” Riley (2012) and I completely agree.

There should be more studies that teach teenagers how to cope with stress in a positive way. Not to say that there aren’t any out there, but there should be more affective. My study is to create something that will help teens and adults to cope with their stress. When your brain is stuck in negative space it’s hard to be creative, but being creative is also a good stress reliever. Being creative helps your brain relax. Creativity comes in many different forms whether its drawing, writing, pottery, etc. Whatever you create doesn’t even have to be perfect, just a way to release your emotions.

I predict that my study will help people reduce their stress through creativity. This way it creates alternate outlets people can have when they have no one to talk to. Though it may not completely take their stress away it is something temporary to give them a piece of mind when they are having a tough time.

Objective

 

This game is trying to teach people positives ways to release stress. This game attempts to create an alternative creative approach for stress relief. The player has a lot of interaction because it was created for the player to be hands on in the experience. The cognitive processes that this game is most affecting is the cognitive processes.  I say this because his game is attempting to create new learning opportunities.

 

Methods

1. Subjects
2. What is your population of interest? My population of interest would be people in my family and friends.
3. What subject were sampled from that population? How were they recruited? Subjects will be recruited at random to avoid bias selections.
4. What were the conditions (e.g., experimental vs. control groups) and how did you assign subjects to the conditions? Experimental groups will be people using the simulation I created and the control group will be people not using the simulation I created. They will also be selected at random.
5. What subjects were included? What screening criteria were used to determine if a subject was eligible for the study (e.g., include only subjects with Type 2 Diabetes)? Subjects that were included were any people going to school and working no matter the health condition.
6. What people were excluded (e.g., exclude subjects with Type 1 Diabetes)? Subjects that were excluded were people not working or in school.
7. What was the average age of the subjects? Describe the other relevant demographics like gender, ethnicity, education, etc. The average age of the subjects are 16-21, both male and female, any ethnicity, that are in school, work, or both.
8. How were subjects motivated to participate? Were they paid? Did they receive course credit? No subjects were paid or receive course credit, but they were taken out to dinner.
9. Apparatus
10. What materials did you use? I will use blank canvas, pens, pencils, paints, oil pastels, and markers
11. Describe your stimuli in detail. People will be asked to put whatever they would want on the blank canvas whether it be drawing, words, writing their feelings, etc using any tool they want and then be asked a series of questions after.
12. How were stimuli presented? I asked people in the experimental group to partake in the stimulation and the people in the control group to do daily activities.
13. How were responses measured? I asked a series of questions after responses were done.
14. Other equipment? None
15. Procedures
16. What conditions did you create and compare? People using my stimulation vs people doing their daily activities.
17. What were subjects in each condition asked to do? Experimental group will be asked to create whatever they wanted with the stimulation I gave and the Control group will be asked to daily activities
18. How did you explain things to the subjects? I’ll have subject go do their daily routine and when they get home and settled in the experimental group is asked to create whatever they want on the canvas and they series of questions asked after will determine results.
19. How did you collect data? Made a chart for the whole week to record data after they answer questions.

Results

Based on the data it seems like my simulation did help people deal with stress in a positive way. The experimental group seemed to have felt more relaxed after playing my game and the control group still felt stressed. In order to know if my game was truly affective I would need to experiment on a bigger level. According to the data, I collected 9/12 people in the experimental group had felt like they were significantly relaxed after using the simulation and 3/12 felt no change. In the control group, all of the people felt no change and said they experience the same amount of stress.

Discussion

Young adults have problems managing stress every day. According to my results stress does affect many young adults and they do look to many different outlets to help manage it. My assimilation seemed to provide some relief for people in the experimental as the survey and data says. Stress has a major impact on teens and young adults. My results show that nearly all of my test subjects in the experimental group benefited from my assimilation. My experiment could be a major break for this problem because stress is something that impacts everyone daily at different age ranges. This way it creates alternate outlets people can have when they have no one to talk to. Though it may not completely take their stress away it is something temporary to give them a piece of mind when they are having a tough time.

               

Conclusion

Young adults have problems managing stress every day. According to my results stress does affect many young adults and they do look to many different outlets to help manage it. My assimilation seemed to provide some relief for people in the experimental as the survey and data says. Stress has a major impact on teens and young adults. My results show that nearly all of my test subjects in the experimental group benefited from my assimilation. My experiment could be a major break for this problem because stress is something that impacts everyone daily at different age ranges. This way it creates alternate outlets people can have when they have no one to talk to. Though it may not completely take their stress away it is something temporary to give them a piece of mind when they are having a tough time.

References

“American Psychological Association Survey Shows Teen Stress Rivals That of Adults.” Apa.org. N.p., 11 Feb. 2014. Web. 24 Sept. 2016.

Bethune, Sophie. “Teen Stress Rivals That of Adults.” Apa.org. N.p., Apr. 2014. Web. 24 Sept. 2016.

Jakosen, Hanne. “One in Three Teenagers Suffers Chronic Stress.” N.p., 17 May 2013. Web.

“NYU Study Examines Top High School Students’ Stress and Coping Mechanisms.” NYU Study Examines Top High School Students’ Stress and Coping Mechanisms. N.p., 11 Aug. 2015. Web. 24 Sept. 2016.