English Listening - Dealing with Stress | Listening Time: English Practice

Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.

Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 47 of the Listening Time Podcast.

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Thank you all for supporting this podcast and helping me make more content and have more time to create more content for all of you.

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So I hope you all consider that.

So I hope you're all having a good year so far, too.

It's now the middle of January at the time of recording this.

But I'm sure that for all of you, it will be February, I think, when I release this episode.

So I hope you all had a good first month of the year.

And I hope that you've all set language learning goals for yourself.

And I hope you're achieving those goals so far.

I hope everything is going well with you. in 2022.

All right well the topic for today's episode is stress.

So I know this isn't the funnest topic, but I think it's a topic that is very easy to talk about and is very useful to talk about because, as adults, we all have a lot of stress that we can deal with in our everyday lives, and And so it's important to talk about where stress comes from and how to deal with stress in our lives.

I think that this is a good topic for an episode.

So we'll talk about that today.

Before we start, remember that you have access to the transcript for this episode.

Just go down to the episode notes and click on the link there and you'll see everything that I'm saying.

So if you want to see the new words and phrases that I teach you, or if you need help understanding the episode, click on that and you can use that as a tool to help you use this podcast for your listening comprehension practice.

All right, let's get started.

Are your ears ready?

You know what time it is.

It's listening time.

OK, so first of all, what is stress?

Let's define this word.

So stress is a feeling of emotional or physical tension.

OK.

So when you feel emotionally tense, or if your body feels tense, you know that you're probably stressed.

So that's what stress is.

And stress is a normal feeling that we deal with as people.

This is something that especially adults have to deal with in their lives, because stress can come from many different sources.

So there are a lot of different causes of stress in our lives.

And there are also a lot of solutions to help you relieve stress and manage stress.

When we say relieve stress, we're saying to release stress from your body or from your mind, right?

To get rid of or eliminate stress.

So why don't we talk about some of the causes of stress and some of the ways to relieve stress.

Let's first talk about the causes.

So the first one that comes to mind is work.

I think that all of you who are workers in the workforce, you have all experienced some form of stress in your job.

This is normal.

I think if you never feel stressed in your job, you must have the greatest job in the world.

Because I think, even if we like our jobs, it's very common to feel stressed at some point because of different factors.

So if you have no stress in your work life, Wow, that's awesome.

I wish I had that situation as well.

But I think most of you would agree that it's normal to have at least a little stress in our work lives.

So some of the reasons why work can cause stress are the following.

So, for example, if you have a boss that is not easy to work with, This can definitely cause stress for you as a worker.

So I haven't had a boss in a very long time, but I remember my very first boss in my first job, when I worked for a clothing company.

He was not a very nice person.

He wasn't very empathetic, which means he couldn't really identify or understand his workers' feelings.

So that was a big problem.

And he just wasn't very understanding in general.

If you had a problem, you probably didn't want to talk to him about it because he wouldn't help you out with that problem.

So I remember getting so stressed out when I had problems at work because my boss just didn't care about these problems and he made the job worse than it should have been.

So I remember him stressing me out a lot when I worked there.

So we use the phrasal verb stress out in this way.

For example this situation stresses me out.

This just means that this situation makes me stressed.

Okay, so my boss stressed me out a lot in that job.

Also, clients can stress you out.

I'm sure a lot of you have to deal with difficult clients, and this isn't easy, especially because these people are paying your company for a service or a product.

And so it's not good to fight with clients or argue with clients.

This probably isn't a good idea.

In many companies, there is a slogan, which is the customer is always right.

The word slogan in English means some type of expression that conveys some value or some truth for that person or that company.

So in many companies, they have a slogan, which is the customer is always right.

Of course, the customer is not always right.

The customer oftentimes has ridiculous demands or problems, but of course they're paying you money and you want their money and their service, so you have to treat them as if they are correct.

So that can be very stressful, especially for low level workers, because clients and customers they oftentimes complain to you or about you when they're mad.

And so I'm sure a lot of you have dealt with this situation before.

It's a stressful situation.

Of course, deadlines are another stressful thing.

A deadline is some date or time when you have to finish some type of task.

So if your boss tells you to finish a project by Friday, Friday is the deadline.

So, of course, having deadlines can also be stressful, because we're working against the clock, as we say in English.

Working against the clock means that you have a time limit and you're trying to work fast so you can achieve your goal before the deadline.

So deadlines are stressful.

And then of course, there are all kinds of other unforeseen events that can happen at work.

When we say that something is unforeseen, that just means that you can't predict it.

It's a surprise.

So there are plenty of unforeseen problems that can arise at work. the word arise means appear.

So if I say problems arose, this means that problems appeared, okay?

All right, so we talked about work.

Now let's talk about school.

So those of you who are students right now know that being in school can also be a stressful time in your life.

Of course, there are tests and different exams that you have to study for.

This is usually not a fun experience and it can also be stressful for sure.

And homework in general was always stressful for me when I was in high school and also sometimes when I was in college.

But I think that in college I didn't have too much homework so I wasn't too stressed.

But in high school and in middle school, I had a lot of homework.

At least in my opinion, it was a lot.

Some of you might not agree, depending on where you go to school.

But for me, it seemed like a lot of homework.

And so this sometimes stressed me out because I felt like I had to do so much in so little time.

So homework is definitely another source of stress.

Also one thing that can stress you out in school is if you're sick or something or you miss a couple classes, you start to fall behind.

In English, the phrase fall behind means that you don't stay at the same speed or pace as everyone else.

So everyone else is on step three and you're on step two, for example.

In that scenario, this means that you're falling behind.

So when you fall behind in school because you missed a class or something like that, this can also feel stressful because you feel like everyone else is ahead of you and you have so much work to do to catch up to them.

In English we use the phrasal verb catch up to to say that you are first behind the other people and then now you want to arrive at their level so that you're in the same position as them again.

This is to catch up with someone or catch up to someone.

So trying to catch up when you've fallen behind, this can be a stressful experience.

Alright, another source of stress is relationships.

So, of course, marriage is stressful.

You have to work as a team, even when you have problems, even when you have arguments, even when you're in difficult situations.

This can be a very stressful experience to work as a team even when you're mad at the other person.

And of course, a lot of people have family issues with siblings or parents or cousins or whatever.

Siblings, this word refers to brothers and sisters.

So the word brother in English only refers to boys.

So if you want to say brothers and sisters, boys and girls, you can use the word siblings, right?

You can say I have five siblings in total.

So of course, people have other issues with family members and this can also cause stress, especially during the holidays, when you're having Christmas dinner with your family.

But there's a lot of tension because some of the family members are mad at other family members.

This can also be stressful.

And one other source of stress is change.

So when we have big changes in our lives, this can also be stressful.

If you switch jobs, for example, or if you just have some new situation that you weren't expecting, some unforeseen situation, this can definitely cause a lot of stress because it takes you out of your comfort zone.

In English we love to use the phrase comfort zone to talk about what you're comfortable with, your comfortable atmosphere or environment.

When you go outside your comfort zone.

This means that you do things that you're not normally accustomed to doing.

So you're doing things that you're not quite comfortable with.

You're going outside your comfort zone.

So that can be stressful as well.

Alright, let's talk about some of the ways that you can relieve stress.

So first of all, I think one of the main things that you can apply in your life is organization.

So if you organize your life, you'll start to feel like you have more control over different situations.

And, in my experience, when I feel like I have more control over different situations in my life, different areas of my life, I feel less stressed.

Of course, nobody has full control over their lives because we're not God.

We can't just make something happen whenever we want it to happen.

We can't just change everything that isn't good in our lives.

We can't predict the future, so obviously we can't have complete control over our lives, but we can feel like we have a little more control when we're organized.

So that's one of the biggest pieces of advice that i would give is if you just start by organizing your day, This can help you feel a little more relaxed because you know exactly what you're supposed to do that day.

I talked about this in an earlier episode.

I don't remember if it was a bonus episode or in one of my normal episodes, but I talked about the fact that I want to think, feel more organized this year, because when I don't feel like I know what I'm doing that day, when I feel like I don't know what I'm supposed to do, I feel really stressed and I feel like I'm never done with work because I don't know if I've completed everything that I need to do.

So I think organizing your day can help you avoid those types of situations where you feel overwhelmed.

The word overwhelmed means that you feel like you have so much.

You have too much responsibility or too much to do, or some emotion is just too much to handle.

In these situations, we can say that you're overwhelmed.

So if you organize your day, if you organize your life, you won't feel so overwhelmed.

Another piece of advice is to sleep well.

So there is a lot of research about this subject.

Some of the studies that I found say that if you sleep between seven and eight hours every night, you have a longer life expectancy than people who don't sleep this amount of time.

The phrase life expectancy in English means how long you're gonna live, how many years you're gonna live.

So if the average life expectancy in a certain country is 75, This means that on average, the people in that country live until 75 years old.

So some studies show that if you sleep between seven and eight hours, you have a longer life expectancy.

But I've also seen some other studies where they show that between six and a half and seven and a half hours is the best amount of sleep for life expectancy.

So i don't really know.

I think there might be some conflicting research here, but i think in general, if you sleep around seven hours, seven and a half hours, eight hours, you should be fine, and when you sleep around that amount of time you feel better in the morning and you feel better throughout your day And you feel less stressed because you don't feel so tired.

You feel like you can focus better on your tasks.

And of course, this leads you to feeling less stressed throughout your day.

So sleeping well is another thing you can do to relieve stress in your life.

Another one is getting sunlight.

This is a really important one.

A lot of people when they live in countries that are cold in the wintertime and countries that are cloudy and rainy during this time.

A lot of times they feel very depressed, they feel stressed, they feel anxious during this season and really they need sunlight.

They need to see the sun, and I've talked to many students who live in these types of countries who tell me that they just want to have a sunny day.

That's really what they need in their life at that moment, because there's something very powerful about being in the sunlight and seeing the sun.

This really brightens your mood.

In English, we can use the phrase brighten your mood to say it makes your mood better.

It puts you in a more positive state of mind.

So the sun brightens the day.

It makes the day lighter.

Bright means light, but it also brightens your mood.

It makes you feel better.

It gives you a better attitude.

And of course, this also means that you have less stress.

So many times when I feel stressed, if I just look out the window or go outside and see the sun, it automatically makes me feel a little bit better.

So I definitely recommend getting as much sunlight as possible, especially during the winter time.

And of course, another good way to relieve stress is to exercise.

When you exercise, your mind focuses completely on what you're doing, on the physical movements that you're making, and this really helps because it takes your mind off of all the stresses that you have in your life and it just focuses it on this one thing, and that's a very good way to relieve stress.

And, of course, if you have physical stress in your body, like i oftentimes have a lot of tension in my neck or in my back, for example when I exercise I feel this tension go away.

So of course, exercising in general helps you relieve stress.

And lastly, this last one is related to exercise, but it's a little bit easier, is going on walks.

So, of course, walking is an exercise, but it doesn't really feel like an exercise because you don't have to exert too much energy.

The word exert here means to spend or to use energy.

So you don't have to exert too much energy when you walk.

And when you walk, you can really enjoy the scenery around you.

You can enjoy the sunshine.

You can enjoy nature and you're breathing fresh air, and it automatically makes you less stressed, in my opinion.

When I'm stressed and I go out for a walk, I immediately feel better.

It's like some amazing cure for stress for me.

The word cure just means some type of solution to some medical problem.

This is a cure.

For example, the cure for cancer.

So for me, going on walks is a great cure for stress.

So that's another one that I recommend.

Okay, so those were some examples of how to relieve stress.

And I think it's very important for all of us to manage our stress levels properly.

A lot of times as adults, we kind of lose track of how much stress we have.

We don't really realize how much stress is in our lives, and this can lead to a lot of other problems.

So it's good to do these little things every day go on walks, sleep well exercise, etc.

So that the stress in your life doesn't accumulate and become overwhelming for you.

So I think we should all focus on managing our stress levels in our everyday lives.

All right, why don't we stop there for today?

Hopefully this episode was interesting for you and hopefully it was good practice for your listening skills.

Of course, remember that you have the transcript available in the episode notes so you can click on that if you need it.

And remember to sign up to become a member at patreoncom slash listening time if you need more practice with your listening comprehension.

If you feel like you still need a lot more work, a lot more practice with your listening, Definitely become a member, because you'll have access to my seminars, where I teach you exactly how to start listening better in English and I give you the tools that you need to start to recognize sound patterns in English.

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Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you for listening to this episode.

And I hope you'll come back for episode 48 of the Listening Time podcast.

[Understanding and Managing Stress in Everyday Life]-[English Listening - Dealing with Stress]

📋 Summary

Understanding and Managing Stress: A Guide to Better Mental Well-being

Common Sources of Stress

Practical Solutions for Stress Relief

Conclusion

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript