Stress managment

1. HANDLING STRESS
Stress Management Techniques

2. Stress is a fact of everyday life. When people reach out for help, they are often
dealing with circumstances, situations, and stressors in their lives that leave
them feeling emotionally and physically overwhelmed. Many people feel that
they have very little resources or skills to deal with the high levels of stress
they are experiencing.
“It is a condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives that
demands exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to
mobilize.”
If we decide that the demands of the situation outweigh the skills we have, then
we label the situation as “stressful” and react with the classic “stress response.”

3. Sources of Stress
 The Environment – the environment can bombard you with intense and competing
demands to adjust. For eg; weather, noise, crowding, pollution, traffic, unsafe and
substandard housing, and crime.
 Social Stressors – we can experience multiple stressors arising from the demands of
the different social roles we occupy, such as parent, spouse, caregiver, and employee.
For eg; deadlines, financial problems, job interviews, presentations, disagreements,
demands for your time and attention, loss of a loved one, divorce, and co-parenting.
 Physiological – Situations and circumstances affecting our body can be experienced
as physiological stressors. For eg; rapid growth of adolescence, menopause, illness,
aging, giving birth, accidents, lack of exercise, poor nutrition, and sleep
disturbances.
 Thoughts – Your brain interprets and perceives situations as stressful, difficult,
painful, or pleasant. Some situations in life are stress provoking, but it is our
thoughts that determine whether they are a problem for us.

4. Consequences of Stress
Stress impacts our ability to do our jobs effectively, and it affects how we work with other
people. This can have a serious impact on our careers, and well as on our general well-being
and relationships. Long-term stress can also cause conditions such as burn-out ,
cardiovascular disease, stroke, depression, high blood pressure, and a weakened immune
system. (Sure, if you're stressed, the last thing you want to think about is how damaging it
can be. However, you do need to know how important it is to take stress seriously.)

5. When you're feeling anxious or stressed, these strategies will help you cope:
 Take a time-out. Practice yoga, listen to music, meditate, get a massage, or learn relaxation
techniques. Stepping back from the problem helps clear your head.
 Eat well-balanced meals. Do not skip any meals. Do keep healthful, energy-boosting snacks on
hand.
 Limit alcohol and caffeine, which can aggravate anxiety and trigger panic attacks.
 Get enough sleep. When stressed, your body needs additional sleep and rest.
 Exercise daily to help you feel good and maintain your health. Take deep breaths. Inhale and
exhale slowly. Count to 10 slowly. Repeat, and count to 20 if necessary.
 Do your best. Instead of aiming for perfection, which isn't possible, be proud of however close
you get.
 Accept that you cannot control everything. Put your stress in perspective: Is it really as bad as
you think?
 Welcome humour. A good laugh goes a long way.
 Maintain a positive attitude. Make an effort to replace negative thoughts with positive ones.
 Get involved. Volunteer or find another way to be active in your community, which creates a
support network and gives you a break from everyday stress.
 Learn what triggers your anxiety. Is it work, family, school, or something else you can identify?
Write in a journal when you’re feeling stressed or anxious, and look for a pattern.
 Talk to someone. Tell friends and family you’re feeling overwhelmed, and let them know how
they can help you. Talk to a physician or therapist for professional help.

6. What can you do about Stress?
The good news is that you can learn ways to manage stress. To get
stress under control:
 Find out what is causing stress in your life.
 Look for ways to reduce the amount of stress in your life.
 Learn healthy ways to relieve stress and reduce its harmful effects.
SO THE NEXT STEP IS TO MANAGE IT !

7. Stress Management refers to the wide spectrum of
techniques and psychotherapies aimed at controlling a
person's levels of stress, especially chronic stress, usually
for the purpose of improving everyday functioning.

9. Stress Relieving Techniques
Mindfulness
Meditation that cultivates mindfulness can be particularly effective at reducing stress,
anxiety, depression, and other negative emotions. Mindfulness is the quality of being fully
engaged in the present moment, without over-thinking or analysing the experience. Rather
than worrying about the future or dwelling on the past, mindfulness meditation switches
the focus on what is happening right now.
Thought Stopping Techniques
It has been well documented that negative and frightening thoughts invariably precede
negative and frightening emotions. If the thoughts can be controlled, overall stress levels
can be significantly reduced. Thought stopping involves concentrating on the unwanted
thoughts and, after a short time, suddenly stopping and emptying the mind. The command
“Stop” or a loud noise is generally used to interrupt the unpleasant thoughts.
Create a list of stressful thoughts to help you assess which recurrent thoughts are the most
painful and intrusive. Thought stopping requires consistent motivation. Decide now if you
really want to eliminate any of stressful thoughts you have listed. Select a thought that
you feel strongly committed to extinguishing.

10. Time Management Techniques
Time management methods involve finding ways to work more efficiently, so as to maximize one's
use of time. A variety of techniques and tools for list-making, task analysis scheduling, and task
prioritization are typically used for this purpose.
The basic time management process involves the following steps:
 developing a thorough understanding of all the various steps that must be performed to get a
particular task completed
 identifying dependencies among steps that may cause bottlenecks to occur
 scheduling the steps (using memory tools, including day planners, memo boards, sticky notes,
shared calendars, project management software and personal information managers to assist in
their timely performance)
 tracking execution of the steps as they occur
 using what is learned from experience executing the steps to improve the efficiency with which
various steps may be performed

11. Creating protected time for both work
and family responsibilities
A good way to make sure that work demands
do not intrude into people's needs for family
and personal time is to set time boundaries
around work activities, and to not allow
those boundaries to stretch too far. This can
be quite a trick to pull off for people in some
lines of work, and will be impossible for
some to manage.
Taking breaks and vacations
A vital way to preserve work/life
balance is to make sure to build time
for play and relaxation directly into
your schedule. One way to do this is
to schedule and stick to having
periodic breaks in between periods
of work.
Spreading Out Predictable
Sources of Stress
It is often possible to predict that
particular events will be stressful,
and then to use this knowledge
intelligently so as to minimize their
impact on the quality of your life.
Scheduling stressful events to occur
during times when you have fewer
responsibilities and more attention to
give them can lessen their negative
impact.

12. Traditional approaches to time management suffer from an over-emphasis on efficiency,
technique, and getting things done and under-emphasize aligning actions with values and
on preserving work/life balance. Emphasizing task completion over maintaining a
balanced life tends to create stress rather than reduce it. This style of prioritizing sets
the stage for failure and negative thinking when people fail to meet deadlines, or meet
them in one sphere of life only by neglecting responsibilities and dependencies in the
other.
Taking a value-centred and balance-focused approach to time management so as to avoid
some of these pitfalls. The same techniques for analysing, scheduling and tracking task
performance described above can be usefully employed, so long as these techniques are
used in the service of meeting work and family responsibilities, rather than just focusing
on work needs.

13. Relaxation Techniques
Relaxation techniques can reduce stress symptoms and help you enjoy a better quality
of life, especially if you have an illness.
They are a great way to help with stress management. Relaxation isn't just about peace of
mind or enjoying a hobby. Relaxation is a process that decreases the effects of stress on
your mind and body. Relaxation techniques can help you cope with everyday stress and
with stress related to various health problems, such as cancer and pain.
Whether your stress is spiralling out of control or you've already got it tamed, you can
benefit from learning relaxation techniques. Learning basic relaxation techniques is easy.
Relaxation techniques also are often free or low cost, pose little risk, and can be done just
about anywhere.
Explore these simple relaxation techniques and get started on de-stressing your life and
improving your health.

14. Types of Relaxation Techniques
Autogenic relaxation: Autogenic means something that comes from within you. In this relaxation
technique, you use both visual imagery and body awareness to reduce stress. You repeat words or
suggestions in your mind to relax and reduce muscle tension.
Progressive muscle relaxation: In this relaxation technique, you focus on slowly tensing and then
relaxing each muscle group. This helps you focus on the difference between muscle tension and
relaxation. You become more aware of physical sensations. One method of progressive muscle
relaxation is to start by tensing and relaxing the muscles in your toes and progressively working
your way up to your neck and head.
Visualization: In this relaxation technique, you form mental images to take a visual journey to a
peaceful, calming place or situation. During visualization, try to use as many senses as you can,
including smell, sight, sound and touch. If you imagine relaxing at the ocean, for instance, think
about the smell of salt water, the sound of crashing waves and the warmth of the sun on your body.
You may want to close your eyes, sit in a quiet spot and loosen any tight clothing.

15. Transcendental Meditation Reduces Stress Naturally
Stress is a fact of life - but it doesn't need to be.
Everyone is aware of the negative effects of stress. It decreases performance, harms
relationships and creates physical wear and tear. In short, it curtails enjoyment of life.
Furthermore it tends to build up in the system over the course of a lifetime. Even a good
night's sleep or an extended holiday does not enable us to recover fully.
Creating a balanced outlook
There may or may not be things we can do to reorganise our lives externally in order to help
to reduce stress. But whether or not this is an option, internally Transcendental Meditation
actually eliminates the effects of stress, physiologically. When practised regularly, this
results in a more balanced outlook, more energy, motivation and a deeper appreciation of
things.
And the ability to handle stressful situations
Because each individual is different, the balancing effects of Transcendental Meditation may
bring different benefits for different people, such as fewer headaches, improved sleep,
increased energy or better relationships. However, one benefit that the majority of people
share is that they can generally handle stressful situations better after learning
Transcendental Meditation.

16. What Companies Can Do About Job Stress?
Nearly one-half of large companies in the United States provide some type of stress management training for their
workforces. Stress management programs teach workers about the nature and sources of stress, the effects of stress on health,
and personal skills to reduce stress-for example, time management or relaxation exercises.
EAPs provide individual counselling for employees with both work and personal problems.
Stress management training may rapidly reduce stress symptoms such as anxiety and sleep disturbances; it also has the
advantage of being inexpensive and easy to implement.
However, stress management programs have two major disadvantages:
The beneficial effects on stress symptoms are often short-lived. They often ignore important root causes of stress because
they focus on the worker and not the environment.
Organizational Change : Bring in a consultant to recommend ways to improve working conditions. This approach is the
most direct way to reduce stress at work. It involves the identification of stressful aspects of work (e.g., excessive workload,
conflicting expectations) and the design of strategies to reduce or eliminate the identified stressors. The advantage of this
approach is that it deals directly with the root causes of stress at work. However, managers are sometimes uncomfortable with
this approach because it can involve changes in work routines or production schedules, or changes in the organizational
structure.
As a general rule, actions to reduce job stress should give top priority to organizational change to improve working
conditions. But even the most conscientious efforts to improve working conditions are unlikely to eliminate stress
completely for all workers. For this reason, a combination of organizational change and stress management is often
the most useful approach for preventing stress at work.

17. THANK
YOU