Transcript Document

Stress Management
Team ARC
Introduction
Do not stress over this presentation!
 Ask questions at any time.
 Take a few deep breaths and relax.

This is time for YOU!
Topics of Stress
Reasons for Stress
 Coping with Stress
 Things to Avoid
 Things you can do
 Cognitive Strategies
 And the Research shows…
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2007 A.P.A. Poll
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The American Psychological Association
“Stress in America” poll found that 1/3 of
people in the United States report
experiencing extreme levels of negative
stress.
Reasons for Stress
Too much responsibility
 Associating with stressful people
 Entering into a stressful environment
 Engaging into stressful topics
 Overextending your schedule
 Failing to communicate your feelings
 Failing to take care of yourself.
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YOU come first
Take some time to consider YOU.
 Take positive steps for a happier YOU.
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Exercise
Compromis
e
Enjoy
Music
Eat
Rig
ht
Express
Yourself
Call a
friend
Writ
e
Play
with
a Pet
Garde
n
Coping with Stress
the wrong way
Some poor strategies may temporarily
reduce stress, but they cause more damage
in the long run.
 Some examples are:
 * Smoking
 * Drinking too much
 * Overeating or under-eating
 * Too much TV or Computer time
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More poor coping strategies
Withdrawing from friends and family
 Doing less activities
 Using pills or drugs to relax
 Sleeping too much
 Procrastinating
 Keeping busy to avoid facing problems
 Acting out stress or frustration on others
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Things You Can Do to Reduce Stress
There are many things you can do to reduce
stress in your life.
YOU have Control.
Explore Cognitive Strategies
Cognitive Restructuring
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Cognitive Restructuring = Thinking more
useful thoughts.
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Basic Idea: People’s Emotions and
behaviors can be greatly affected by what
they think.
Example
You put your child to bed and you go to relax
and read.
Ten minutes later your child comes out of the
room.
Reaction 1: “That little brat. I never get time
for myself.”
Emotion : Angry, Annoyed, Resentful
Action : Scold child
Reaction 2
“I get one more opportunity to kiss my child
and tell her I love her.”
Emotion : Happy, Grateful, Calm
Action : Bonding interaction with child
Learn How to Say “No”
Know your limits and stick to them.
Whether in your personal or professional
life, try not to accept added responsibilities
if your plate is already full.
Taking on more than you can handle is a
surefire recipe for stress.
Avoid People Who Stress You Out
If someone consistently causes stress in your
life and you can’t turn the relationship
around, limit the amount of time you spend
with that person or end the relationship
entirely.
Take Control of Your Environment
If the evening news makes you anxious,
Turn the TV off
(Take a long walk instead)!
If traffic’s got you tense,
try a longer more scenic route.
If you are too tired to make dinner,
Order take-out!
Avoid Hot-Topic Buttons
If you get upset over religion or politics,
cross them off your conversation list.
If you repeatedly argue about the same
subject with the same people, stop bringing
it up or excuse yourself when it’s the topic
of discussion.
Pare Down Your To-Do List
Analyze your schedule, responsibilities, and
daily tasks. If you’ve got too much on your
plate, distinguish between what can wait
and what is urgent.
Drop tasks that aren’t truly necessary to the
bottom of the list or eliminate them
entirely.
Express Your Feelings Instead
of Bottling Them Up
If something or someone is bothering you,
communicate your concerns in an open
and respectful way.
If you don’t voice your feelings, resentment
will build and the situation will likely
remain the same.
Be Willing to Compromise
When you ask someone to change their
behavior, be willing to do the same.
If you both are willing to bend at least a
little, you’ll have a good chance of finding
a happy middle ground.
Be More Assertive
Don’t take a backseat in your own life. Deal
with problems head on, doing your best to
anticipate and prevent them.
If you’ve got an early morning meeting and
your chatty friend calls the night before,
say up front that you only have a few
minutes to talk.
Manage Your Time Better
Poor time management can cause a lot of
stress.
When you’re stretched too thin and running
behind, it’s hard to stay calm and focused.
But if you plan ahead and make sure you
don’t overextend yourself, you can alter
the amount of stress you’re under.
Reframe Problems
Try to view stressful situations from a more
positive perspective.
Rather than fuming about a traffic jam, look
at it as an opportunity to pause and
regroup, listen to your favorite radio
station, or enjoy some alone time.
Look at the Big Picture
Take perspective of the stressful situation.
Ask yourself how important it will be in the long
run.
Will it matter in a month? A year?
Is it really worth getting upset over? If the answer
is no, focus your time and energy elsewhere.
Adjust Your Standards
Perfectionism is a major source of avoidable
stress.
Stop setting yourself up for failure by
demanding perfection.
Set reasonable standards for yourself and
others, and learn to be okay with “good
enough.”
Focus on the Positive
When stress is getting you down, take a
moment to reflect on all the things you
appreciate in your life, including your own
positive qualities and gifts.
This simple strategy can help you keep
things in perspective.
Don’t Try to Control the Uncontrollable
Many things in life are beyond our control—
particularly the behavior of other people.
Rather than stressing out over them, focus on
the things you can control such as the way
you choose to react to problems.
Look for the Upside
As the saying goes, “What doesn’t kill us
makes us stronger.”
When facing major challenges, try to look at
them as opportunities for personal growth.
If your own poor choices contributed to a
stressful situation, reflect on them and
learn from your mistakes.
Share Your Feelings
Talk to a trusted friend or make an
appointment with a therapist.
Expressing what you’re going through can
be very cathartic, even if there’s nothing
you can do to alter the stressful situation.
Learn to Forgive
Accept the fact that we live in an imperfect
world and that people make mistakes.
Let go of anger and resentments.
Free yourself from negative energy by
forgiving and moving on.
Healthy Ways to Relax & Recharge
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Go for a walk
Spend time in nature
Call a good friend
Sweat out tension with a good workout
Write in your journal
Take a long bath
Light scented candles
Healthy Ways to Relax & Recharge
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Play with a pet
Savor a warm cup of coffee or tea
Work in your garden
Get a massage
Curl up with a good book
Listen to music
Watch a comedy
Increase Your Resistance to Stress
Your can increase your resistance to stress by
strengthening your physical health
Exercise Regularly
Physical activity plays a key role in reducing
and preventing the effects of stress.
Eat a Healthy Diet
Well-nourished bodies are better prepared to
cope with stress, so be mindful of what
you eat.
Start your day right with breakfast, and keep
your energy up and your mind clear with
balanced, nutritious meals throughout the
day.
Reduce Caffeine and Sugar
The temporary "highs" caffeine and sugar
provide often end with a crash in mood
and energy.
By reducing the amount of coffee, soft
drinks, chocolate, and sugar snacks in your
diet, you’ll feel more relaxed and you’ll
sleep better.
Avoid Alcohol, Cigarettes and Drugs
Self-medicating with alcohol or drugs may
provide an easy escape from stress, but the
relief is only temporary.
Don’t avoid or mask the issue at hand; deal
with problems head on and with a clear
mind.
Get Enough Sleep
Adequate sleep fuels your mind, as well as
your body.
Feeling tired will increase your stress
because it may cause you to think
irrationally
Research Shows…..
When you get an adrenaline jolt — a worry that passes
through your mind or something that makes you a little
upset — adrenaline, cortisol, lactate and assorted
chemicals are released into your blood stream, including
extra fatty acids.
Exercise forces your body to burn all these stress byproducts.
So rather than taking several hours or all day for this gunk
to slowly get filtered out of your blood, exercise burns it all
off in twenty minutes, leaving you feeling refreshed and
relaxed. It also burns off the extra fatty acids cortisol has
released into your blood stream, removing the health risk
associated with triglycerides.
Study Shows Sleep is Good
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In a study at Stanford University, healthy but
sedentary adults who had trouble sleeping (taking
longer than twenty-five minutes to fall asleep, for
example, and sleeping an average of only six hours
per night) were put on an exercise program for three
months.
o
By the end of the study, the exercisers were
sleeping about forty-five minutes longer and falling
asleep fifteen minutes faster, on average.
o
The ones who didn't exercise hadn't improved.
What About Those Brain Cells?
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It was once believed that the brain did not generate
any new brain cells.
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But that has now been proven a false assumption.
New brain cells form throughout the life span.
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Trying to determine if anything can stimulate the
brain to produce more brain cells, neurologists at
the Salk Institute found that mice who exercised
regularly on a spinning wheel had far more new
brain cells after six weeks than the mice who hadn't
been exercising.
Alpha Brain Waves
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Psychologist Robert Dustman, one of
the top researchers into the effect of
aging on the brain, found that when
people exercise, it keeps their brain
producing more alpha brain waves.
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The alpha rhythm is associated with
the ability to stay calm under pressure.
Only 20 to 40 Minutes
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Research has proven that twenty to
forty minutes of aerobic exercise
reliably reduces anxiety and improves
mood, not just while you're doing it, but
for hours afterwards.
Workout Before Work
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University of Bristol researchers found that
employees who enjoyed a workout before
going to work - or exercised during
lunchbreaks - were better equipped to
handle whatever the day threw at them.
Mood Improvement
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It also found that people's general mood
improved on days of exercise but they
became less calm on non-exercise days.
Mental AND Physical Benefits
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The research, published in the
International Journal of Workplace Health
Management, is the first of it's kind to
prove that exercise during work hours has
mental, as well as physical benefits.
Work Performance
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Workers performed significantly better on
exercise days and across all three areas we
measured, known as mental-interpersonal,
output and time demands.
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The study group was made up of 200
university staff and employees working for
a pensions company and an IT firm.
The Key Findings Were…
Seventy two percent reported
improvements in time management on
exercise days compared to non-exercise
days.
 Seventy nine percent said mental and
interpersonal performance was better on
days they exercised.
 Seventy four percent said they managed
their workload better
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Homeostasis
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Stress can disrupt the delicate homeostasis of our
physical and mental well-being (Stress, 2006).
In a stressful situation the body prepares for the fight or
flight response by releasing stress hormones, such as
cortisone and adrenaline (Stress, 2006).
If the stress is prolonged or chronic, those chemicals can
stay in the blood stream.
Prolonged stress can lead to headaches, decreased
immune system, fatigue, heart ailments, depression and
many other physical and mental problems.
Endorphins
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It has long been thought that exercise can be a
way to relieve stress.
When one engages in physical activity there is
certain chemical response the brain gives out.
Endorphins are polypeptides that bind to the
neuron-receptors in the brain and gives relief
from stress (Carruthers, 2006).
When they are released, endorphins can make
one feel more positive and relaxed.
Stress / Cancer Correlation
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Scientists have suggested that the effects of stress
on the immune system affect the growth and
spread of some tumors.
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Recent research with animal models suggest that
the body’s neuroendocrine response can directly
alter important processes in cells that help protect
against the formation of cancer such as DNA
repair and regulation of cell growth.
Summary
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Stress is a defense mechanism built into our
bodies.
We produce adaptive hormones by glands
inherited from our ancestors and which we pass
to our own offspring.
Balance is “key”.
Some stress in beneficial – It motivates us and it
protects us at times.
When we allow stress to overwhelm us, stress
becomes our enemy, causing physical and
emotional ailments.
Some Closing Thoughts
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Words of wisdom from the Dalai Lama.
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“I believe that happiness can be achieved
through training the mind.”
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“By bringing about a certain inner
discipline we can undergo a transformation
of our attitude, our entire outlook and
approach to living.”
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“One begins by identifying those factors
which lead to happiness and those factors
which lead to suffering. Having done this,
one then sets about gradually eliminating
those factors which lead to suffering and
cultivating those which lead to happiness.”
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“Happiness is determined more by one’s
state of mind than by external events.”
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“Right now, at this very moment, we have
a mind, which is all the basic equipment
we need to achieve complete happiness.”
Resources
National Cancer Institute
 Melinda Smith, MA
 Ellen Jaffe-Gill, MA
 Robert Segal, MA
 Hans Selye, MD
 Joseph Strayhorn, PhD
 Howard Cutler, MD
 Dalai Lama
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