1. Stress Management
System
Methods and Techniques
Jalasayanan Chellappa
Hand in Hand India
17/04/2012 Stress Management System 1
2. What is stress
• Stress is a misnomer
• Distress is the right word
• Stress is good for health
– Initiative
– Provides Leadership skills
– Creates time bound activity
– Sets higher performance standard for self
• Prolonged Distress is not good for health
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3. What is distress
• Let us assume Stress is same as Distress for this
programme
• Stress was traditionally conceptualized to be a
result of external insults beyond the control of
those experiencing.
• More recently, however, it has been argued that
external circumstances do not have any intrinsic
capacity to produce stress, but instead their
effect is mediated by the individual's perceptions,
capacities, and understanding
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4. What is stress in Stress Management
• Stress can be thought of as
– Result of an “imbalance between demands
and resources” or
– as occurring when “pressure exceeds one's
perceived ability to cope”.
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5. How to control Stress
• Steps to control Stress
– Identify source of stress
– Identify the factors that are central to a person
controlling his/her stress
– identify the intervention methods which
effectively target these factors
• This means stress control or stress
management varies with one another
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6. Benefits of stress
• No one reaches peak performance without
being stressed, whether an athlete, an office
worker or a manager
• Stress can help you to be motivated and
creative
• It also can make you freak out about small,
irrelevant factors in your work
• It gives a satisfaction of performance that can
be positive booster
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7. Benefits of stress
• One of the main benefits of stress is that it will
keep you alive in face of danger in many
occasions.
• Stress decides flight or fight response
• Stress provides focus if used effectively
– Most of the negative events corroborated to stress
is because of stronger focus it provides by blinding
by other relative factors
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8. What is bad stress
• Bad stress is primarily pushing against
inabilities caused by
– Lack of time, and/or
– Lack of energy , and/or
– Lack of resources , and/or
• Man
• Money
– Choosing wrong priority , and/or
– Act of God
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9. Effects of bad stress
• First thing to go is lack of spiritual
connectedness with yourself and the world
around you
• Emotions go down, and what is left behind
will be
– Indifference
– Anxiety
– Anger , and/or
– Depression
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10. Effects of bad stress
• Mental functions go down
– Increased focus on few things blinds major events
– Vicious circle of Stress starts
– Lack of vision on Major events brings more stress
– More Stress increases focus on lesser things and
blinds many more major events
• Body starts showing discomfort
• Discomfort becomes pain
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11. Effects of bad stress
• Subconscious mind takes over
– Subconscious mind rightly judges the problem
with conscious mind
– It over takes and shuts does Conscious mind
– Others see irrelevancy of the activities of
subconscious mind activity
• Not allowing subconscious mind to take over
by sheer will power without reducing stress
creates shock
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12. Remember - What is bad stress
• Bad stress is primarily pushing against
inabilities caused by
– Lack of time, and/or
– Lack of energy , and/or
– Lack of resources , and/or
• Man
• Money
– Choosing wrong priority , and/or
– Act of God
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13. Explaining bad stress
• Bad stress is primarily pushing against inabilities
caused by
– Lack of time, without attempting to create time
space, and/or
– Lack of energy without attempting to recoup
energy, and/or
– Lack of resources without focusing on acquiring
resources, and/or
• Man
• Money
– Choosing wrong priority by addictive behaviour
though consciously know such choice is wrong, and/or
– Act of God for which we can do nothing
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14. How to cope with Stress
• Create time space for yourself
– 24 hours is fixed, utilize it well
• Learn time management techniques
• Recoup more energy
– Relax and work
– Use suitable energy boosters
• Spend time on acquiring and prioritizing
resources
• Reduce your addictive behaviours
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15. What you need now
• Time management skills
• Relaxing techniques
– Anger management
– Change management
• Prioritizing tools
• Consciously working against addictive
behaviour
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16. Time Management
• Make your own list of time wasters
• Find out methods to falling to time wasters
• Plan well
• Refine your plan as often as possible, but stick
to plan
• Do not attempt to postpone or procrastinate
• Separate programme for Time Management
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17. Relaxing Techniques
• Identify what makes you impatient
• Signs of impatience
– Shallow breathing (short breaths).
– Muscle tension.
– Hand clenching/tightening.
– Jiggling/restless feet.
– Irritability/anger.
– Anxiety/nervousness.
– Rushing.
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18. Relaxing Techniques
• Learn to be bullet proof manager
– Move away from Stimulus to response mode to
Stimulus – Analyze – Respond mode
• Use 5 Why Technique to know root cause and
address it
• Have a glass of water
– If had many glasses of water find a lavatory
• Active listening
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19. Relaxing Techniques
• Anger Management
– Emotional Intelligence
• Have control over your emotions
• Take time to respond
• Do not respond when stressed
• Read jokes a lot and share them with others
– Stop being a perfectionist
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20. Relaxing Techniques
• Fighting against symptoms of stress
– Take long breath
• Pranayama
– Kapalbatti
– Controlling breathing process for long breath
– Working against Muscular tension, Hand
clenching/tightening, Jiggling/restless feet.
• Focus using Yoga
• Using time for productive usage
• Volunteer to help
– Anger management and Programme Planning
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21. Relaxation Technique
• Progressive Muscular Relaxation
– The idea behind PMR is that you tense up a group of
muscles so that they are as tightly contracted as
possible. Hold them in a state of extreme tension for a
few seconds. Then, relax the muscles normally.
Then, consciously relax the muscles even further so
that you are as relaxed as possible.
– By tensing your muscles first, you will find that you are
able to relax your muscles more than would be the
case if you tried to relax your muscles directly
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22. Relaxation Techniques
• Reading
– Self Development
• Art of War
– Method of war will teach how to remain in peace
• Positive Thinking
– Art of thinking Big
– Art of thinking in positive manner
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23. Relaxation Techniques
• Zones of Stability – Know your zones of stability
and attach with them when you are stressed
– People
– Place
– Ideas
– Things
– Organizations
• Nurture these stability zones for usage when
needed
• Increase the count of your stability zones
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24. Weak relaxation Techniques
• Hobby
• Music
• Sleeping
• Art
• Any diversification leads to weak relaxation
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25. Strategic reduction of Stress
• Work Life Balance
– Love your work
– Bring concurrence of the family the objective of work
– Spend time with your family members
– Have fun whenever time permits
• Anticipate future changes in work and increase
your skills
– Seek acceptance of your family and organization
• Increase your confidence level and self esteem
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26. Challenges in stress reduction
• Emotional Stress
– An example for a situation which causes a bit of
emotional stress is when a parent grounds a child who
has misbehaved. The parent empathizes with the child
but sees the necessity for some kind punishment.
Likewise, the child hates the punishment but regrets
the misbehavior. Such a situation results in mild
emotional stress for both participants, but through
self-reflection both the parent and child can overcome
it easily
• Complex situation requires more thought out
reactions
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27. Challenges in stress reduction
• Mental Stress
– Stereotypical stress
– when a person spends years doing a job he or she
despises. Two lines of thought clash constantly in the
mind of such a person: "I don't want to!" and "I have
to!".
• Deeper analysis and brave decisiveness are
required to overcome a situation causing such
stress.
• Requires proper prioritization
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28. Tips for better prospects
• Learn the following skills
– Time Management
– Emotional Intelligence
– Delegation and monitoring
– Think Big
– Positive Thinking
– Effective communication
– Team building
– Bullet Proof Manager
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29. Suggested Readings
• The Secret
• Art of War
• Manual of warrior of light
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