Importance of Self Esteem among Students in Academic Performance and Coping with Stress

esteem is that feeling at center of your being of self-worth, self-confidence, and self-respect. Self-esteem is disposition to experience oneself as being competent to cope with basic challenges of life and of being worthy of happiness. It is confidence in efficacy of one's mind, and ability to think. By extension, it is confidence in one's ability to learn, make appropriate choices and decisions, and respond effectively to change. It is also experience that success, achievement, fulfillment, happiness which are right and natural for people .It is respect for or favorable opinion of oneself and also an unduly high opinion of oneself. In psychology, self-esteem reflects person's overall self-appraisal of their own worth. Self-esteem is disposition that person has which represents their judgments of their own worthiness. According to Branden (1969), self-esteem is sum of self confidence (a feeling of personal capacity) and self respect (a feeling of personal worth). It exists as consequence of implicit judgment that every person has of their ability to face life's challenges, to understand and solve problems, and, their right to achieve happiness, and be given respect. Morris Rosenberg and social-learning theorists defined self-esteem in terms of a stable sense of personal worth or worthiness, measurable by self-report. In famous book power of self-esteem, .self esteem is defined as the experience that we are appropriate to life and to requirements of life. More specifically, self-esteem is confidence in our ability to think and to cope with basic challenges of life and confidence in our right to be happy, feeling of being worthy, deserving, entitled to assert our needs and wants and to enj oy fruits of our efforts. Self esteem is an important aspect of human personality. It reflects person's overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth. It encompasses beliefs and emotions such as despair, pride and shame. esteem usually regarded as an enduring characteristic of human personality. The synonyms or near synonyms of self esteem are 'self worth', 'self regard', 'self love' and 'self respect'. esteem can be low as well as high. High self-esteem is when person feels good, happy, satisfied about himself and thinks he is capable of achieving anything and person has lots of energy, focused, confident and persistent to achieve success anytime. Low self-esteem is basically opposite of High self-esteem. When one doesn't feel good about himself, thinks he is not worthy of even trying to move forward. The person is focusing on his weaknesses instead of paying attention to his strengths. Individuals with high self esteem see themselves as competent, efficient etc.Stress is something which makes one feels uncomfortable. It creates imbalance and individual makes an effort to restore state of balance. Stress is body's way of responding to any kind of demand. Stress is concept borrowed from natural science and introduced into behavioural sciences by Selye (1936). Selye (1974) defines stress as nonspecific response of body to any demand. By this term Selye meant that whatever external or internal demand on body person's response to stress follows universal pattern. Cannon (1914) coined phrase fight or flight to describe physiological changes that threatened animal undergoes. These include greater alertness, increased blood flow to brain and muscles, rapid breathing, faster heart beating, slowed digestion and other temporary changes that enable animal to better react to threat. School students have many obstacles to overcome in order to achieve their optimal academic performance. It takes lot more than just studying to achieve successful in school performance. Different stressors such as time management, financial problems, sleep deprivation, social activities, and for some students even having children, can all pose their own threat to student's academic performance. …