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Handling stress during online classes #WeHearYou: Expectations vs Reality

By Sharifah Batrisyia

GOMBAK, 3 August 2021: After more than a year of the university going through online classes, IIUM.fm has recently organised a discussion on simple ways to handle stress during online classes for both students and lecturers.

Online classes have been proven to be more tiring than we initially thought during the beginning of its implementation. This was the common view shared among speakers in a discussion on the second episode of #WeHearYou, “RTL: Expectations vs Reality” which was conducted live last Saturday (31 July).

The speakers were Dr. Pamilia Lourdunathan, a clinical psychologist and a lecturer from the Department of Psychology, International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) and Nisha Nabila, a political science student. 

The podcast mainly covered the topic on how to handle stress during online classes. According to Nisha, there is a significant difference between physical classes and online classes. 

“The motion of preparing for a physical class such as dressing up and walking to the class gave students motivation to attend classes at the campus which differs greatly with online classes where students could merely open their computers from their bed.”

The lack of motivation to attend classes increases the stress among students in university, making online classes difficult compared to physical classes. As a student herself, Nisha admitted encountering a lot of stress during her online classes.

She further suggested that to handle the stress, students must acknowledge the feeling of stress on their body rather than just ignoring it. 

This statement was strongly supported by Dr. Pamilia.

“To reduce the feeling of stress and burnout during online classes, you must identify the cause of the stress itself,” she said. “From there, students can control the stress by focusing on what they can control, for example, how to make the online class more exciting.”

Dr. Pamilia suggested four easy ways to reduce stress during online classes.

“Firstly, pair up something that stresses us with something exciting so that we can increase our excitement in facing online classes. Secondly, exercise our minds to think positively during online classes. Thirdly, stretch out or do light exercise in-between online classes to refresh our minds. And lastly, acknowledge the feeling of tiredness and have a rest.”

“Take time to detach from all your gadgets and use that time to be by yourself without any stress in mind,” she added.

This talk was hosted by IIUMfm and was carried out live on IIUMfm’s Discord, Youtube and Facebook page. Students are highly encouraged to watch the recorded interview on the IIUMfm Youtube channel for more insightful information.***

- IIUMToday

Source: https://news.iium.edu.my/?p=154653