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Chapter 8
Rethinking the Little Picture
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McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Copyright © 2012 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Rethinking the Way You View
Stressors
Illogical thinking about potential
stressors and our ability to cope
with them is the single greatest
cause of stress today
Blowing things out of proportion
Misunderstanding the potential
consequences
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Becoming More Logical and
Optimistic in Our Thinking
Most of our stress is caused by
what we think about things
Stressors are just “potential
stressors” until we tell ourselves
that we can’t cope with them
The first step in controlling stress
is controlling illogical thinking
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Rational Emotive Behavior
Therapy (REBT)
Underlying premise: People or
things do not cause us stress—
our illogical beliefs and irrational
self-talk do
REBT techniques revolve around
understanding our illogical
beliefs
replacing them with more
rational thoughts
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Using Seligman’s Learned
Optimism to Think More Logically
Seligman’s ABCDE model for
coping with stress and emotional
problems is based on a person’s
“explanatory style”
Certain explanatory styles are
more stressful than others
Pessimism is central to a
stressful explanatory style
Key to managing stress is
learning to be more optimistic
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5-Step Process for
Rethinking Anger
 Acknowledge that you are angry and
identify the response
 Accept your anger (Morita)
 Target the source of your anger
 Dispute the illogical beliefs
 Shirt your attention off your angry
thoughts
 ROAD RAGE
 Continues after the event.
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Working With Your
Attention
One of the best ways to slow our
pace and change our perspective
on life is to slow our thinking
down
Kabat-Zinn (2005) invented the
Mindfulness-based approach to
stress management: Be fully in
the present
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Developing Mindfulness
Two kinds of open meditation:
Formal mindfulness meditation: a
type of mindfulness meditation training
implemented over 8 weeks and
designed to have people practice 45
minutes per day
Informal mindfulness meditation:
the application of mindful behavior
into daily experiences
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Potential Problems With
Multitasking
It can cause unnecessary trouble
for yourself and others
It can become your unintentional
standard operating procedure
and you don’t realize it
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