The Hub Hero: How could students manage stress

The Hub Hero podcast delves into stress management, showing how it affects each person differently and how it can spread. It stresses the importance of emotional intelligence in recognizing and managing stress, so it doesn’t affect others. The podcast talks about how being self-aware and having healthy ways to cope with stress can help reduce stress’s effects. Emotional intelligence means recognizing and managing your emotions, including how they affect others. It means finding out what’s stressing you out, understanding why it’s happening, and responding thoughtfully instead of reacting. If you’re feeling stressed, talking to a dean or counselor can be a great way to get help and support. KingMusa, a student, reached out to the Dean of Students, Andrew Dies, because he was feeling overwhelmed by external stressors that were affecting his college experience. Andrew says that students should reach out for help, and that it’s important to overcome self-doubt and find someone you can trust. He encourages students to take care of themselves and not compare their struggles to others. He says that reaching out for help is a sign of strength, not weakness.

Intro by King Musa

“Yo, it is, you know what it is. It's your Man, King Musa, Welcome to The Hub Hero, the podcast that's dedicated to empowering every student with the tools and insight they need to thrive. Each week, we dive deep into resources available to you, right here on campus and beyond, from managing stress to finding your community, we've got you covered. I'm Musa Bailey, joined with my wonderful co-host, The Andrew J. Dies. First of his name. Yes, sir. Join us as we share advice, tips, and bring in special guests to tackle your biggest concerns. Are you ready? 

Andrew J. Dies: "Born it. Let's do it.”

Icebreaker: Salaried vs. Hourly Work

King Musa: “Alright, so before we dive in, though, um, would you… Is there like, is there… If somebody told you to work past your clock-out time? But they told you like, let’s say an hour before, would you stay or would you leave?”

Andrew J. Dies: “I’ve been a salaried employee my entire life, so I don’t have a clock-out time.”

“Ah, so what is the difference of salary to what we’re used to now? Salary versus hourly?”

“Hourly work 8 to 5 and then they go home. Salaried employees work until the work is done. So whether I work 20 hours a week or I work 80 hours a week, I get paid the exact same amount.”

“Okay. That’s a new world we got to get used to. That’s exciting. 

Was that your icebreaker?”

“Yes, that was my icebreaker because I was supposed to stay later today to move some furniture and everything. And I said, no. I have a podcast at seven o’clock. I was told I’ll be off at six today. So I’ve already scheduled something at seven.”

“You’re very busy, very important. 

"But, you know, what’s more important is whatever we’re going to talk about today. Are you ready for that?”

“I’m ready. Come on, Wheel of Fortune.”

Unpacking "Stress"

“Welcome to the Wheel of Concerns from A to Z. Are you excited for today’s topic?”

“If I was more excited, I would explode.”

“Okay, good. Because today’s topic is… Stress. Wonderful. This is a broad, broad, broad topic. Very interesting, yet so impactful for everyone. Alright, so can you define stress?”

“Uh… Internet can. Okay. How to define stress? I’m going to dictionary.com. Wait for friends at home. Stress. How to spell it correctly. Let’s see. Okay. Here we go. Importance attached to a thing? No. No. No. So these are all physics. Ah, a specific response by the body to a stimulus as fear or pain that disturbs or interferes with a normal physiological equilibrium of an organism. Physical, mental, or emotional strain or tension. There we go.”

“Okay. Okay. Now, you mentioned a couple of dimensions in that definition, which dimensions would you say the bubbles percentage when it comes to stress? When somebody gets stressed, where does it start to affect? And how does it, you know, grow?”

AJD: “I mean, it depends on the person. I can tell. So I don’t get stressed because you know, it’s all about me. I don’t get stressed easily, but I can tell when I’m stressed because across my shoulders gets really, really tense. Other folks, I know they have GI issues. Some people can’t sleep. Some folks cry randomly. Some folks eat anything that’s not nailed down. So I think how stress… some people get really crabby and just snap. Yeah. I think stress is an incredibly… it’s an emotion. Stress is incredibly individualistic to each person.”

“So that’s pretty cool because the website says stress, the concerns may include noticing, changing your sleeping or eating habits, experiencing a drop in grades, feeling angry, sad, overreacting to small things, maybe that one’s me. I might have to go with that one. Worrying constantly, becoming forgetful, not wanting to study, and frequently getting headaches and stomach problems.”

AJD: “Well, you know, for some stress increases your blood pressure, which causes headaches, which causes migraines, which impacts your diet. Like I say, I can tell I’m stressed when I… my shoulders are, it’s either my shoulders or my lower back. It’s one of the two, and I get really short with people. Right. Like I’m normally pretty chill, um, and jovial, but when, and I can say, and it takes a lot for me to get stressed, but when I’m there, it’s like, leave me alone. Don’t talk to me. I deregulate. But then it’s also, it’s like, give me 10 minutes to listen to a song or watch a YouTube video and I’m good.”

“Yeah. Just give me time to reset. I got you. Just space away, though.”

The Contagion of Stress and Self-Awareness

“Well then, being the fact that stress is our topic, I feel like stress applies to anyone, can be stressful. So this is not just a student-made, I mean, student-only thing, you know what I’m saying? So when it comes to people who are affected of stress, and I know sometimes stress can be like contagious. Like when people start like, at work, if somebody starts to complain outside that this is heavy, I’m tired and stressing out, it causes everybody else to stress and be tired and, and grumpy and everything else like that. So when it comes to students handling stress, do you start to watch the people around you? You know, could you pick it up from advisors, I mean, from not advisors, professors? How… Who gets affected by stress?”

“Well, again, I think it depends on the person and who they’re around. Like, I think you have to inoculate yourself against other people’s stress, because that’s their stress. And stress isn’t bad. Like, I think extreme amounts of stress, but I think, like stress and being scared, being temporarily anxious. Those are all tagged as being bad things. But what that does is that that prompts a physiological response with it. If you go back to biology and, you know, back in the day, when we were hunters and gatherers, if we were… it’s that fight or flight. It’s when stress causes things in our body. It causes our blood vessels to constrict. And so long-term amounts of stress can have a lot of impact on your heart. Because, like I say, your blood vessels constrict. Things get really tense inside. Yeah. But I think it’s a symptom of being emotionally intelligent to not take on that other person’s stress. And, you know, as someone… I like to think that I’m an empath, I usually can pick up on what other people are feeling. And I’m intentional and like, it’s kind of like with family stuff. If family gets really stressed out, it doesn’t do you any good to also get stressed out. Because it’s self-perpetuating and then you end up spinning each other up into a usually some sort of blowup. But you have to find a way to work through that and to exercise it. For some, it’s exercising, exercising, you know, going and running 10 miles. Others, you know, others choose Doritos to manage their stress. And then that’s when we start to cross into those other dimensions of wellness. Yeah. Some folks choose to self-medicate through alcohol, we’ll just say through substances in general, which can then sometimes lead to other things. So it’s a key symptom of being highly emotional intelligent is when you learn how to manage your stress.”

“Thank you. So before we get into emotional intelligence, because I feel like that’s how I have to learn how to manage all the emotional sways or roller coaster and everything. But before we get into that, if you’re a person who’s not trying to share or spread your stress, you know, how do you recognize when your stress is starting to seep out to the environment around you? And is that…”

“I think it’s when it starts to slop out other ways is when your behaviors start to change. So somebody that you’re normally… I can speak for myself, I talk to my mom every day. When I start to get short with my mom, I usually already know that I’m stressed, but I think she can start to tell is when my patience is… it’s not… my fuse is really, really, really, really short. And, you know, what an ideal world, she would recognize that and adjust her behavior accordingly, but nevertheless. But I think it’s, you have to be self-aware. And if you’re not, like, you being stressed doesn’t give you the luxury to snap at other people. Mm. And again, this all goes back to emotional intelligence. You have to recognize those warning signs. Yes. When you’re going down that road and intervene with yourself before you get to that point.”

Emotional Intelligence: Understanding and Control

“So you mentioned it once, twice, three times. What is emotional intelligence?”

“Emotional intelligence is you being aware of what you’re feeling. And also, I mean, this isn’t woo-woo. Like the second somebody says the word feeling, we get into what woo-woo, kumbaya circle. That’s not what it is at all. There’s a lot of legitimate research behind emotional intelligence. It’s being aware of what your emotions are, how you’re communicating them, and how they impact other people.”

“Right. So I, I had a wellness coach and she had this wheel. It’s almost like a color wheel. And she said, emotions are like this color wheel. You’re not just mad. You could be mad, sad, and mad in this. And like there’s, there’s more merging that these emotions start to kind of flow together, you know, and they pair up and everything. And emotional intelligence is being able to recognize the the pairs and the layers that is happening, you know? So if I’m stressed out about work, right, I have to, well, what I learned was I have to recognize, one, what is stressing you out? Is it the time management? Is it the, you know, the workload? Is it the the people, the environment? There’s something within it that you have to recognize that’s bothering me, right? And then after that, it was, okay, what’s bothering you about it? It’s not just it’s bothering you. How is it making you feel? Like, are you, you like, you know, shying away? Are you, you know, like just really frustrated at this person and you just like, there, it starts to ask you, you start to ask yourself more questions, which for me helped me slow down all the reactions before. You know, like, yeah, it helped me slow down the reactions. Did that make sense?”

“It does. And that’s a symptom of emotional intelligence, is recognizing when you need to, I always say, put yourself on a 10-second tape delay and be like, okay, yes, I could react right now, but I’m going to take a second. Because a, if you are, if you look at the recipe for stress, one of the biggest ingredients is control or lack thereof. And so if you think about the last thing that stressed you out, it was likely something that you couldn’t control. And, you know, it’s, okay, you get stressed about a final. Well, you can control studying for that, but at the end of the day, you don’t have, I guess you could say you have implied control over the result, but there’s still that unknown, which is what you don’t have control over. And so the antidote, the antidote to stress is letting go of control and focusing on what you can control and letting go of the rest of it. It’s simple. It’s not easy, but it is very simple.”

“Thank you. I’m glad you recognize the complexity of those easy words of just, let go. But being the person who I… I’m a control freak. I’m prideful. I don’t mind calling it what it is. In situations, I have faith in myself to handle the situation, right? But then there’s times where because you didn’t handle situations or because this is not, you’re not the boss, or like, it’s not your term. In control. You’re not in control. Letting go. Let go used to be me, not caring, which to me, I have to learn. That’s not truly letting go. Versus, okay, you’re letting go of your ideas and your your will and your concepts and willing to open up and learn and engage with this new concept and everything else like that, which humbling. That’s that’s what you’re practicing at that time, learning how to be humble in that situation.”

“Alright. It’s like stressing about the weather. You have absolutely no control over the weather. What you do have control of is what you wear that day. And so if the weatherman, weather woman, says it’s going to rain, okay, bring an umbrella. But it’s like, oh my God, it’s going to rain. I can’t believe it. What good is that? Stress is self-serving. It doesn’t do… I mean, in, you know, if it’s a life or death situation, it’s certainly beneficial. But as far as like, what you’re going to wear to school that day, it is self-serving. Like, it does no good other than get you spun up and then you envision the worst thing that is ever going to happen, and then by and large it happens because that’s what you manifest in. Okay. But that’s emotional intelligence.”

Seeking Help: Andrew's Perspective as Dean of Students

“Yes, sir. So being a Dean of Students, you are the first line of defense when it comes to people, students stress, right? In a sense, what are resources or what is the idea of going to the dean for stress?”

AJD: “Somebody that will sit down, shut up and listen. And it is legitimately as simple as that in that every place I’ve… the majority of places I’ve worked, students get passed from office to office to office. The second somebody says, financial aid, I don’t work in financial aid, you need to go talk to them. Well, you didn’t even listen to me. And so it’s the number of students I’ve met with, I couldn’t solve them, their problem. They just wanted, they needed somebody to listen to them and be like, oh, all you have to do is log into your MyA and do your financial agreement and your financial aid. I don’t have to work in financial aid to know that. Right. But it’s this lack of empowerment or laziness that it’s like, oh, I don’t want to take the 10 minutes to listen to you and see how I can help. And that’s why that’s customer service at its core. That’s why somebody doesn’t stay in, and that’s not exclusive to SFA. That’s why somebody transfers out is because nobody listened to, but nobody helped me.”

“Okay. So thank you. Listening is what people are seeking out for. Tools, places, and people that you will recommend students or even, you know, any adult to find someone to listen to. Because I remember there was, I had telehealth when I first… when I first got out here, I had Andrew to listen to me. I had my advisor, Kelly Morgan to listen to me. My professors were listening. I had counselors and peer, like, what are they called? The peer counselor people. I don’t know what.”

“The wellness coaches, peer mentors.”

“Yes, the peer mentors. So for Musa, each and every day, I have somebody willing to listen or their job was to listen to me, you know, where does a student start when finding these resources?”

“Well, what’s the one thing that you did to access all those resources? How did you, let’s go back in time. How did you get connected with me?”

“Unfortunately, I got in trouble. We’re not going to say for what.”

“What are you going to say we’re going in trouble?”

“For me to go see the Dean of Students. That’s enough for you to understand. But once coming to you, mind you, you are like my third, fourth, fifth letter. At this point, I didn’t care, you know?”

“But let’s clarify, you met with the coordinator of student conduct and said, hey, because I was actually talking to my mom about this last weekend. You talked to our then coordinator and said, hey, I really want somebody to talk to.”

“Yeah.”

“That person then said, hey, Andrew, Musa really wants somebody to talk to. And that was all it took. Another way of saying that is you ask for help. Yeah. Yeah. And then three years later, almost to the day, three years later, we have gone not more than a week without talking to each other.”

“Yes. I didn’t even know you. I did not know you knew that part.”

“No, I was a scary administrator. I was so upset. 

"I was like literally at the point where I’m like, the papers y’all are bringing me has nothing to do with what’s actually going on. And so you bothering me about X, Y, and Z, I don’t really care. And a matter of fact, I want to flip you the bird. But the moment where it was like, hey, I just need someone to talk to because you like, you’re not listening. And knowing that it was just, as soon as I got in there, mind you, you’re still, as a student, you’re thinking, oh, I got to go to the dean. He’s just going to give me the book. That’s it. You know? That wasn’t the case. It was literally just… I want to hear your side. I want to know what’s going on, you know? And I don’t even think I brought up what’s directly going on. I think I went further back of what been leading up to it, you know? And so that’s what kept the conversations going and things like that. Because I know there are some people, I mean, my very first therapist on campus was busy. That’s all I’m going to say. I don’t think she’s a bad person. I think our first conso, everything was kind of cool, but it was just the concept of, you seem busy, you know, but to know that I’m going to one specific person who’s like truly listening felt personal more than just you’re just doing what you’re supposed to do and let’s get past it.”

“Well, right, and it’s some people say, oh, well, that’s his job. Well, it’s not his job to schedule a weekly meeting with a student for three years. That’s not. And I’m not tooting my own horn, but you had the courage to say, hey, I want to talk to somebody. And it was beyond that is you wanted somebody to listen to you. A therapeutic relationship was a lot different than the relationship that you and I have. Yes. And I think it’s important to make that distinction, but it took you asking. That’s all it took. And I’ve had students in the past that I’ve done that with. I’ve said, hey, it was always get up. I mean, it was Mackenzie at the time, but get up with Sarah, get up with my assistant and they would or they wouldn’t, but you, and it does take a lot of courage because I was a complete stranger. And as far as you knew, we had no overlap in our life experiences. Nothing. I thought you were going to be the next person to bother me. I’m like, it’s not going to be… But after us meeting, you realize that we have very similar life experiences. And, you know, that’s why we’ll maintain till the day that I die, that being a Dean of Students is the best job you could ever have. Boom. I really think of.”

“I like it only because it was like… Y’all, how do I say this? Okay. When students are going through school, it feels like just this cattle drive, right? You go here, you go here, you do this, eat, go, eat, go, eat, go, right? And what you’re eating is knowledge. But then when the student themselves is not going to class because they have external forces happen, stressors hitting. Nobody wants to look weak and say, hey, my life isn’t good right now. Because everybody’s thinking, well, somebody else’s, somebody else can complain. Somebody else can, you know, life is as the worst, or we’re all college students going through the same thing, you know? And the thing I want to say to college students, if I had just someone to tell me this from college students, student to student back then, your college experience or your health experiences. Even if you’re not in college, your health experience is your choice. I knew the things that I was kind of struggling with. And that’s why I was like, I just need someone to listen. And that came with the emotional intelligence. Like, you know your family issues. You know relationship issues that you’ve been through, you know? And some of us like to just throw it under the rugs and get busy and be distracted. And then at 10, 11 o’clock at night, it’s coming back. Like, those stresses are coming back. And that’s when you’re feeling it the most, you know? And so to me, it was just like, you got to do something about it. You know, you, you can’t just sit in pitiness and watch your life just plummet.”

“Well, but it’s also not a competition. Yeah, absolutely. Somebody’s life is worse than yours. Okay. It’s not a competition. And in your life and in your reality, you needed to talk to somebody, but more importantly, you, I like to think you found somebody that you could trust. Yes. And that it was, we could have, we had plenty of real conversation. And I think that, you know, speaking of administrators in general, students don’t think you can go and be real with an administrator because they’re going to judge you or you’re going to get in trouble because there’s this thought out there that an administrator’s life has always been rainbows and butterflies. And for the at least a chunk of us, it hasn’t been that way. But again, it is incumbent upon me to make myself available more importantly, you as a student to take advantage of that. And so many don’t.”

Andrew's Three-Step Call to Action for Students

“Okay. So what would be Andrew’s three-step call to action.”

“One, get over yourself. Everybody’s life sucks at some point.”

“He told me that so much. That was the breaking, that was almost the breaking point of our relationship. It was either you hear it and you do something about it or you hear it and you don’t get over yourself and you walk away from the help that you needed. That’s what you have to pick.”

“One thing you’ve probably heard me say a thousand times, a real friend stabs you in the front. So, one, get over yourself, two, have courage, which can be incredibly terrifying, and call action the third one is just because someone does doesn’t look like you doesn’t mean you’re not almost identical. Boom.”

“Boom. Because you will find that help for that one person. They’re just sitting there waiting. Exact same past, almost so simple, man, y’all don’t understand. Andrews, what, 6’4”?”

“I am. And you’re 4’4”. 

Stop. No, we’re not continuing that. But y’all just have to see, if y’all would have seen the dynamic in person, after I knew Andrew was like this, pretty much birthdays are two days away from each other. Mindset’s thinking the same. Everything. You cannot like, I’m running up to Andrew. Hey, what’s up? Hey, how are you doing? Leaving my table, leaving wherever I’m hanging out with just to say, well, because the relationship was built off of vulnerability and courage and just seeking betterment or seeking, you know, just someone who cared. 

And I think that’s because some point along those three years, we started treating each other as human beings as people. And, yes, ultimately end of the day, I was being a student, you’re a student. That’s never going to change. But an evolved sense of that is we’re both people trying to figure out how to survive. And I recognize that came from putting in extra time. 

It’s not just coming to see the Dean of Students because I’ve got an email from him and deans office. Or this one time, it was knowing, hey, in order for me to have a good relationship with someone, I got to talk to you every week. We go past two weeks, I’m just going to get busy with something else, d d, or there’s too much happening within my week that we wouldn’t be able to even like affect what’s going on or see the changes. 

Well, well, for me, I needed that. So you recognize the time you need for whoever you need to talk to. And there are so many people in student affairs and SFA and every place I’ve worked that are sitting there waiting to do that first, even faculty. Like there are so many people that students are the true reason that we get out of bed in the morning. And there are like, that’s what keeps us. I’ll speak for me, like, I told you, most of the relationship that you and I have has really helped to buffer all of the other negative stuff that I have to deal with. Because, you know, D’s students is more often not dealing with negative stuff and not fun and stuff. And so the privilege to be able to develop that relationship with a student that I know once you graduate and move on with life, we’re still going to keep in contact. Like, that’s incredibly satisfying and I know that I could die tomorrow and know that I’ve helped change one person’s life and that means my life was successful.”

Conclusion

“Yes, yes. So I’m glad you mentioned that key part of having, there’s lots of people who care. I want to know who was a person that cared about Andrew during his time of stressors that we can have on the next episode that can give us a little bit more understanding of handling stress.”

“Um. Interesting question. I would say probably when you look at Andrew in his formative years, it would either be, God, that’s a tricky question. The person that I learned the most to be a better human being would be Justine Hollingshead. She was one of my first supervisors in grad school.”

“Okay. Well, hopefully we can get in touch with her and get her on the next episode. And she has some probably some juicy stories that I’m going to need for… Dr. Dies.”

“She would. She used to host an epic holiday party. You can ask her about that.”

“Okay. That’s exciting. That’s exciting. Is there any other last tidbits, advice, or anything else you want to share before we go?”

“Remember that you’re a human being, beautifully flawed and all. That’s the best part.”

“That’s right. That resonates to today’s episode of The Hub Hero. Remember, it is your job to care about you. And we’re only here to give you advice, tips, and resources, you know? So tune into The Hub Hero every Monday as we give you different tips and advices for student wellness. I’m your host, King Musa, with my co-host.”

“Andrew J.Dies the first.”

“Stay tuned for more. We’ll see y’all later.”