Learn what chronic stress does to your body and brain and get some useful tips to get it under control. Stress control is an absolute necessity for health.

1. How to Get Your Stress Under Control

2. Life #1

3. Life #2

4. Take-A-Ways
• Identify your major stressors
• Understand how chronic stress harms your body and brain
• Identify ways to reduce stress
• Commit to one SMART stress-reduction goal

5. What is Stressing You Out?

6. Look Familiar?

7. It Could Be Worse

8. Calling all Workaholics & Perfectionists

9. Quiz: Are You a Workaholic?

10. The Bergen Work Addiction Scale
• 7 criteria test
• Based on core symptoms of drug addiction

11. #1 Your Focus is Work
• You think of how you can free up more time to work.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always

12. #2 Work Consumes Your Life
• You spend much more time working than originally intended.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always

13. #3 Work is Your Happy Place
• You work in order to reduce feelings of guilt, anxiety,
helplessness and depression.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always

14. #4 You’ve Ignored Reprimands
• You’ve been told by others to cut down on work without listening
to them.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always

15. #5 You Suffer From Work Withdrawal
• You become stressed if you are prohibited from working.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always

16. #6 You Do Nothing Other Than Work
• You deprioritize hobbies, leisure activities, and exercise
because of your work.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always

17. #7 Your Health Suffers
• You work so much that it has negatively influenced your health.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always

18. Are You a Workaholic?
• Results:
• If you answered “often” or “always” to 4 or more of the questions, you
are a workaholic.

19. How Much of Your Life is Work?
• Working at home and on vacation
• Most workers only use only 51% of their paid vacation time
• 61% of Americans work on vacation

20. Quiz: Are You a Perfectionist?

21. 7 Ways to Tell if You Are a Perfectionist

22. Trait #1
You are highly conscious and hyper-critical of mistakes.

23. Trait #2
You have to be the best at everything, even if it’s something
you’re not interested in.

24. Trait #3
You spend a lot of time to make everything absolutely perfect.

25. Trait #4
You are your harshest critic.

26. Trait #5
You mull over a less than optimal outcome and wonder what you
did wrong.

27. Trait #6
You react defensively to constructive criticism.

28. Trait #7
You focus exclusively on achieving the goal at all costs.

29. Are You a Perfectionist?
• Results:
• If you answered “yes” to 4 or more of the questions, you are a
perfectionist.

30. Let’s Talk Stress

31. What Color is Your Stress?

32. Good Stress v. Bad Stress

33. Optimal Stress

34. Secondhand Stress
• It’s contagious and easily transmitted
• Babies catch it from their mothers
• Students catch it from nervous speakers

35. Stress Hormones Are For Survival

36. Your Body on Stress: Fight-or-Flight

37. Stress Hormones
• Adrenaline (immediate)
• Cortisol (prolonged)

38. What % of ER Visits Triggered by Stress?
• 90% CDC Estimate

39. Chronic Stress

40. The Effects of Chronic Stress
• Anxiety
•Depression
•Digestive problems
•Heart disease
•Sleep problems
•Weight gain
•Memory and concentration impairment

41. The Scary Science

42. You Get Sick More Often
• 2012 study of 276 healthy adults
• Those with chronic stress were more likely to get sick
• Immune system cells were unable to properly respond

43. You Gain Weight
• 2014 study of 58 women
• Those with experienced a stressful event in the last 24 hours
burned 104 fewer calories than after eating fast-food than those
who were stress-free
• Adds up to 11 lbs. per year
• Stressed women had higher insulin levels,
contributing to fat storage

44. You Heal Slower
• 2012 study of older women caring for relatives with dementia
• Took 24% longer to heal from biopsy wound
• Slow healing most apparent in first two weeks, when infections
happen

45. At Risk for Heart Disease
• 2014 study of stressed-out medical students
• They had an excessive number of white blood cells
• Previous study in mice found that cortisol changes white blood
cells so they stick to artery walls

46. It May Shorten Your Life
• Chronic stress shortens length of telomeres: the agent of death

47. Stress Shortens Telomeres
• Finnish Health Study: work-related exhaustion
• Mothers caring for disabled children
• Boys who were raised in stressful home environment
• 4-8 years: Ohio State: caregivers for relatives with dementia

48. How it Happens
• Changes gene activity of immune cells before they enter the
bloodstream
• Cells are permanently primed for fight or flight
• Leads to chronic inflammation
• Associated with heart disease, depression, cancer

49. What it Does to Your Brain
• Impairs communication among neurons
• Slows production of new neurons
• Creates elevated levels of proteins associated with Alzheimer’s

50. How to Get Your Stress Under Control

51. Tip #1: Journal Your Stress Level
• Identify your stressors

52. Tip #2: End Technoference
• Are you being paid to work 24/7?

53. Tip #3: Learn to Say “No”
• Stop being super-mom or super-worker

54. Tip #4: Schedule Relaxation
• Make an appointment on your smartphone

55. Tip #5: Go Drug-Free
• Ditch the alcohol, caffeine, and other drugs

56. Tip #6: Practice Mindfulness
• Try mediation, tai chi or yoga

57. Tip #7: Exercise
• Work out your stress

58. Draft a SMART Goal
• Aim: Be a little imperfect

59. Examples: Set SMART Goals
• Too vague: I will spend more time with my family
• SMART: I will eat dinner with my family on Mon., Wed., and Friday
• Too vague: I will relax more
• SMART: I will download the Calm App and listen to Session #1 on
Saturday at noon

60. Create Accountability
• Set one stress-reduction goal for this week
• Create a means of self-accountability

61. Get Real. Get Healthy.®
EberLorie@gmail.com
714-357-9946
www.LorieEberWellnessCoaching.com
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