OUGD402 - Dealing with Stress

The first task within this session was to anonymously write an answer to each of four questions:

1. What negative thought have you had today?
2. What are you scared of?
3. What stresses you out?
4. How do you de-stress?

Fig. 1. What negative thought have you had today?

Fig. 2. What scares you?

Fig. 3. What stresses you out?

Fig. 4. How do you de-stress?

From these answers, we then went on to pick three answers to each question to create a set of twelve answers. Answers in relation to question one included: "whether I am good enough to be on this course", "I'm wasting my time" and "I'm not going to get my work done on time". Question two: "failure", "people judging my work" and "not having good enough work". Question three: "deadlines", "being behind on work" and "thinking about stuff that might not even happen". Question four: "walking", "sleeping or taking a nap" and "calling my mum for reassurance".

The next process was to take these answers and produce a haiku out of them, such as:

Waste Of Time
Am I good enough to be on this course?
I don't want to waste my time.
Let's sleep instead.

Fig. 5. Class haiku's based on answers to first set of questions.

I personally feel that this task was helpful. It allowed to me write down a few of the negative thoughts I have had throughout this course so far rather than keeping them to myself. The task itself was quite reassuring in a way that it allowed me to see that others were feeling the exact same and that I am not alone in how I feel. Producing haiku's out of these thoughts provided a fun way to express my feelings and the feelings of others.

How could these be used to help a particular target audience who may having the same thoughts about stress?

Suggested target audience: A-level students.
Concept: Spotify playlist/extension to the app.
- uses thumb print recognition and scanner to determine how stressed you are through your pulse rate and chooses songs to play accordingly.
- the higher your stress levels, the calmer the music.
- also references music you have recently listened to to determine what music to play.
- reads out haiku's within the playlist using voiceover artists with calming voices.

Concept: An academic studies textbook.
- a general revision textbook to help a-level students with their studies.
- has such haiku's printed after every chapter, along with a positive-looking illustration of things going wrong to create juxtaposition.
- this makes the students realise their stresses and negative thoughts, and therefore forces them to have to deal with them (de-stress).