Culture of Stress: Ethnography of Stress Management Strategies Among University Students.

Abstract

This study has been carried to find out the causes, effects and cope up strategies among the students Quaid-I-Azam in order to eliminated stress. Stress is nowadays very common among people of all age groups and professions, and university students has no exception. So, this study was meant to explore stress, it causes and effects, and cope up mechanisms in order to get rid of stress, among the students of Quaid-I-Azam University. Qualitative method was used for data collection of this study, while applying anthropological research model. This was carried out in Quaid -I-Azam University, Islamabad and the time duration of this study was 4 months and three days, between 17th of September 2019 to 20th of January 2020. This study was meant to explore two objectives; first objective was to explore the factors responsible for stress among the students of Quaid-I-Azam university, second part of first objective was to dig deep into the effects of stress among the students, and second objective dealt with the cope up mechanism. The causes of stress among the students of Quaid-I Azam university were various. Most of the students were having stress due to poor performance in academics and financial issues. Aside from academics and economic issues, there were social factors and Health problems, responsible for stress. Social factors included stress due to love affairs and friendship, while poor hygiene was reported as health issues, responsible for stress. Stress was creating adverse effects on students of Quaid-I Azam university. These effects were in academic, physical, psychological, and social aspects. Academic drawbacks of stress included forgetfulness, inability to understand lectures, Psychological shortcomings of stress were bad temper and anxiety, Physical drawbacks of stress were gastrointestinal problems, ulcer, and fatigue. Lastly, Exploring the main objective of this study, I came to know that each factor of stress was coped up with specific strategy. Financial factors were dealt with financial strategies, social factors were addressed while applying social strategies and academic strategies were followed for eliminating academic factors of stress. Finally, there were some students who consulted with health professional in order to overcome stress.