Stress Management

PRESENTED BY:
Linson John
 Stress
Stress is a condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives
that demands exceed the personal
and social resources the individual is able to mobilize.
Stress and Health
Stress can affect one’s health – either with
direct physiological damage to the body, or
with harmful behavioral effects.
 The behavioral effects of stress
Stress and heart disease
Other effects
The Positive Effects of Pressure
And the Negative...
 Pressure & Performance

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STRESS!!!

• Eustress: Good
Stress

– Getting into college

– Getting engaged

– Winning the lottery

STRESS !!!
• Distress: Stress from
bad sources

– Difficult work
environment

– Overwhelming sights
and sounds

– Threat of personal
injury
Stress in students
• Stress: The
human reaction
to events in our
environment

• stress as wear
and tear on the
body
 Common Causes

• Work Overload
• Lack of rewards
• Belief and or
lack of control
• Issues of
unfairness
 What does not work in
dealing with stress!

• Avoiding the stressors…

• Worrying
• Blowing up
• Negative attitude
• Self destructive actions
FOUR TYPES OF STRESS
1. General Stress:

– Everyone has this kind of

stress

– It resolves itself within a

day or two

– No intervention is
necessarily required
FOUR TYPES OF STRESS
2. Cumulative Stress:
– Stress builds up
in your body
– You may have
more serious
physical
symptoms
– You may have
more serious
mental anguish
FOUR TYPES OF STRESS
3. Acute Traumatic
Stress:

– Critical Incident Stress

– Produces considerable
psychological distress

– A normal reaction to
abnormal events
FOUR TYPES OF STRESS
4. Post Traumatic Stress:

– Severe stress produced

by severe psychological
trauma

– Created by unresolved
Critical Incident Stress

– Produces lasting changes

 Myths about stress *

Myth 1 I must be stressed to succeed...

Myth 2 All Stress is bad…
Myth 3 If only I could move/change my job/
leave my spouse/get rid of my boss,
then my stress would go away...
Myth 4 There is nothing I can do about
stress…
 Approaches
to manage stress:
Action-oriented- best where you
have some control
Emotionally-oriented-subtle but
effective
Acceptance-oriented- when there's
no valid alternative...
What can I do?
 What I can do!

• Take good care of myself on a regular (daily,

weekly) basis!
• Understanding Causes of Stress In Your Life 
• Understand where you are now...
• Recognize longer-term stresses as well as
short-term stress
And Make Best Use of the
Resources Available
SWOT Analysis
Schedule of Recent
Experience (SRE)
Stress Diary
Introducing stress
management plan
 Stress SWOT Analysis
oStrengths:Your personal strengths
Your support network
The resources you can draw on
oWeaknesses: personal weakness
Lack of resource
Bad situations

oOpportunities:
oThreats:
What I can do

• Ask for help!

• Talk to others
about your
difficulties and
seek their
support…
• Develop a plan to
address burn out
 What I can do?

Increase my Personal Power!

Find and establish ways to control and

manage my time, space,
workload, pace, resources,
future and perceptions...
 What I can do!

•Rest & Retreat

•Release
•Regroup
•Make personal changes
•Regenerate
 What I can do?

• Reevaluate my goals and priorities

• Do not take the whole load myself!
• Learn my own limits, and set limits with
others
• Ask for what I want and do not assume
that I will get it
 What I can do?

• Forgive myself when I make

a mistake...
• Get rid of any of my perfectionist
behaviors and expectations
• Do not take on others burdens!
Keep breathing!

Sophie Tucker
BREATHING

Breathing helps to slow down or to even

stop the stress response!
Takes time to practice, learn well and
use daily.
Often, people do not learn how to
breathe correctly, and do not use it
consistently…
BREATHING

 Need to learn breathing technique

until it becomes an automatic
habit!
 Practice 15 times a day for 1
minute!
 Breathe every time you are waiting
for something! Phone, kids, in line,
at work…
BREATHING
 Slowly inhale counting one, pause
for a moment and slowly exhale
counting two
 Slowly inhale counting three,
pause for a moment and slowly
exhale counting four..
 Continue inhaling and counting
four and exhaling…
BREATHING
 Slowly inhale counting up to
seven, pause for a moment and
slowly exhale counting eight
 Try to feel the cool air as you
inhale and the warmth of your
breath as you exhale
 You may repeat this for another
four breaths...
PERFORMANCE STRESS SYMPT
• You may not make good decisions
• Your fine motor skills are affected
• You may no longer enjoy your work
• Your attention span may be affected
• You may have more negative thoughts
• Your self confidence will suffer
• You may have difficulty concentrating
• All of your positive energy is consumed
Short Term Physical Stress
Symptoms
– Dry mouth
– Cool skin
– Cold hands and feet
– Increased sweating
– Rapid breathing
– Faster heart rate
– Tense muscles
– Feelings of nausea
– Diarrhea
– A desire to urinate
Long Term Physical Stress
Symptoms
– Insomnia
– Change in
Appetite
– Sexual disorders
– Aches and pains
– Frequent colds
– Feelings of
intense and long-
term tiredness
– Prone to illness
The time to relax is when
you don’t have
time for it.
 Hope ever tells us
tomorrow will be better!
 Do not take life too
seriously. You will never
get out of it alive.
 STRESS MANAGEMENT
DR. HANS SELYE WROTE:

“…STRESS IS ESSENTIALLY
REFLECTED BY THE RATE OF ALL
THE WEAR AND TEAR CAUSED BY
LIFE.”

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PLANNING NOT
WORRYING
 A good plan does not
need constant review!
 A worried person will
review the plan over
and over and over!
 Ruminating does not
equal Planning!
 The round robin of re-
planning leads to more
ruminating and stress
STAY IN THE PRESENT
Worry about the future and
regrets about the past keep you
stressed and away from enjoying
the moment!
May manage distress by focusing
on the present!
Can control focus by what you pay
attention too!
 Present

• There are lots of activities that promote

the present and that defy speed & stress!

--Reading, Breathing, Singing,

Weight lifting, Meditating……
 Present

• Repetitive activities that help with

breathing keep you in the present
and produce a soothing effect –

Walking, running, swimming,

cycling, skating…
MORE  Often we take life too
FUN seriously and fail to
have enough fun…
 See potential problems
rather than joys and
remain tightly wired &
stressed
 Schedule more play
time!
 Laugh, joke and have
more fun!
 Find pleasure &
delights every day!
WORRY WELL, BUT ONLY
ONCE
 Some worries need to
be faced & dealt with
directly so that they do
not get out of control!
 10 Minutes is usually
plenty of time to worry
well!
 Then stop the worry,
as it is
counterproductive
WORRY WELL PLAN
HOW TO DEAL WITH THE WORRIES!

1. Worry through all the issues

2. Do all necessary now to cope
3. Set a future time to think about worry
4. Write the time on calendar
5. If & when the thought/worry pops up,
say STOP I already Worried!
6. Change and divert thoughts to
something else
• Avoid unpleasant memories,
thoughts and feelings
• Repress negative feelings
• Negatives tend to keep you
stuck and make it difficult to
rebound…
HEALTHY LIVING
• Exercise:

– At least twenty
minutes, five
times a week
– break a sweat, to
release
endorphins
HEALTHY LIVING

• Talk things out

with someone
you trust - a
family member
or a good friend
HEALTHY LIVING
• Make an increased
effort to organize
your life

• Ask for help

• Delegate things
when you need to
HEALTHY LIVING
• Learn to manage
your anger

• Anger affects
your health

• Anger causes you

to over react to
many situations
Which do you do daily?

• Play

Laugh

Get plenty of sleep?

Take a mini-vacation?
 Which do you do daily?

 Enjoy simple pleasures?

Have a special treat?

Exercise?

Relish small things?

 Stressed?
• Ever felt you did not have enough time?

• Need to do more now?

• Felt caught up in chronic

“speedaholism”?

• Worrying about the future and reliving

the past?
 STRESS MANAGEMENT
COPING SKILLS FOR STRESS
MANAGEMENT:

• DEEP BREATHING
• EXERCISE
• RELAXATION
• GUIDED IMAGERY

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HEALTHY LIVING
• We get angry often
because someone did
not do what we
thought they should

• Rethink the situation

and learn to be more
flexible
 The weak can never forgive.
Forgiveness is the attribute of the
strong.

-Gandhi
 Forgiving releases you from the
punishment of a self-made prison
HEALTHY LIVING
• Fill your life with
fun things to
do!!!!

• Keep your sense

of humor!!!!

• We call it :
PLAY THERAPY
HEALTHY LIVING
• Take charge of
your life.

• Act appropriately
-don’t simply
react to stressful
situations

• Find balance in all

that you do.
HEALTHY LIVING
• We all need a
lengthy list of
things that will
help us relax…..

• I love horse back

riding.
HEALTHY LIVING

• Relaxing needs
to be part of your
daily routine.
HEALTHY LIVING

• RELAAAAAAX
HEALTHY LIVING

• RELAAAAAAX
HEALTHY LIVING

• RELAAAAAAX
 Do YOU
accentuate the positive and
eliminate the negative?
 The happiest of people don’t
necessarily have the best of
everything. They just make
the most of everything that
comes their way.
 Chill Skills
Deflection strategies
Distraction strategies
 SUMMARY
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 n a g t o u k n
ma n i n g e y o
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l i k e n t
t is u m e
 I st r e ! y !
i n rl i f a i l
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e i i q u
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s e t
th e
e
 Us
Stop Stressing
 o u.
k y
Th an
STRESS MANAGEMENT

• Questions?????