Beyond the Books: Success through stress: Why using stress to your advantage can have positive benefits
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Be honest, have you heard of a student that hasn’t been stressed at some point during their time at university? In this free one-hour webinar, you’ll learn from local researchers and professional experts why managing your stress is imperative to your study success and how the power of positive reframing can influence your wellbeing. Take some time out from the books, watch along and start turning that stress, into a little more success! Presented by USQ Senior Lecturer in Psychology Dr Yong Goh and Registered Psychologist Cara Bricknell. To see more from the Beyond the Books Online Series, visit our website. https://www.usq.edu.au/webinars
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Beyond the Books: Success through stress: Why using stress to your advantage can have positive benefits
- 5. The PHE Factor: Perception, Health, Environment • Perception: It means thinking outside the box and seeing things from different angles. • Health: It means keeping fit mentally and physically. They improve your overall resilience to stress. • Environment: It means being in a safe and supportive environment that helps you think, feel and respond effectively towards the stressful encounter. Perception Health Environment
- 6. An example of changing perceptions…
- 7. New Perception Health Environment Using PHE factors to generate positive energy
- 10. What’s your first impression? Cute Beautiful Adorable Yummmy!
- 11. Change position to change perception May 30, 2018 By TIMOTHY EDWARDS https://www.sportsocratic.com/2018/06/08/var/perspective-optical-illusion/
- 13. How are you feeling about upcoming assessment? Let us know via the Zoom poll on your screen!
- 19. Poll: What symptoms are you experiencing of Chronic Stress (if any)?
- 24. USQ also provides students with support: https://www.usq.edu.au/current-students/support
Editor's Notes
- Perception: You are no longer trapped by the stressful encounter. Instead, you are empowered to view the stressful encounter from different perspectives that open up new solutions and alleviate your stress. Health: Being Healthy means you are more likely to: Feel positively and less distress during stressful encounter. This motivates and energises you to face your stress instead of avoiding it and letting it defeat you. Think clearly and creatively which enables you to assess your stress more accurately and identify solutions more quickly. Respond effectively with coping strategies that resolve your stress. Environment: Being in a safe and supportive environment means you have another level of protection that either prevent or reduce the impact of stress on you.
- Being in a Safe and Supportive Environment AND maintaining Healthy Body and Mind are interrelated. When you are in a safe and supportive environment, you are more likely to cultivate healthy mind and body. When you are healthy in mind and body you will naturally be seeking out safe and supportive environment. Story of a group of gangsters in the temple. The two factors generate positive energy and emotions (the yellow glow). This added layer of “Happy Force Field” acts as a buffer between you and the negative impacts of stress. Being Happy and Positive help deflect and dilute the negative impacts of stress.
- Being in a Safe and Supportive Environment AND maintaining Healthy Body and Mind are interrelated. When you are in a safe and supportive environment, you are more likely to cultivate healthy mind and body. When you are healthy in mind and body you will naturally be seeking out safe and supportive environment. Story of a group of gangsters in the temple. The two factors generate positive energy and emotions (the yellow glow). This added layer of “Happy Force Field” acts as a buffer between you and the negative impacts of stress. Being Happy and Positive help deflect and dilute the negative impacts of stress.
- Safe and Supportive Environment also help you generate and adopt new perspectives of the stressful encounter. Healthy Body and Mind allows you to resist the stress experience so that you will remain calm enough to generate new perspectives of the stressful encounter.
- I am sure that you would agree with me that every person sees the world differently & often from a different angle. This leads to different ways of reacting to similar situations. We all know these differences & can describe the characteristics of our friends & family by the way they respond to life. We all know the ‘cool calm collected’ one, the ‘highly strung’ one, the ‘ambivalent’ one, maybe the ‘avoidant’ one. We use those words to describe them, but generally this is a description of their overall perceptions towards life.
- What Yong has discussed highlights that these characteristics relate directly to how successfully we respond to stressors & circumstances in our lives. When I say ‘successfully’, I’m referring to emotional success...psychological success. The view we take of a situation is directly related to how much control we feel we have over affecting change & contributing to outcomes. When we approach our problems in an ideal way as Yong as discussed, our stress levels remain relatively low. Low levels of stress can actually be beneficial, as they contributing to our internal motivation, feeling slightly anxious about completing something can help us to finish that task off, to get shit done basically However, if we approach our problems in a ‘not so ideal’ way, this can lead to chronically high levels of stress. This is not a good thing. Think of those friends who might be ‘highly strung’ all the time. I guarantee that along with that comes complaints about a range of other symptoms. Chronically high stress responses lead to physical, emotional and cognitive issues. And an even bigger problem is that we tend to repeat this pattern over & over & over again. Let’s have a look at these.
- So what are we saying? Well, the take home message from myself & Yong is that when you can change or alter your perception, everything else can change as well. Looking at something differently – that’s the difference! Now, the million dollar question – how do you do that? I hear this all the time from clients who are truly stuck & can’t see any way out. And my response is always the same – there is no magic wand, no quick fix… but if what you’re doing right now isn’t working the way you want, then why not try something different? It can’t hurt, right? So, here are some ideas. I want to talk about two different types of coping strategies – hopefully you already implement some & it might also give you some new ideas.
- Emotion focused coping strategies are about minimising the emotional distress that comes with facing different stressors maintaining a sense of humour & cultivating optimism where the situation doesn’t change but your perception shifts (great to use in situations where we have little control & need to view stressors as a challenge rather than a threat, & can help to diffuse the perceived response) Journaling about emotions Meditation Self-compassion skills – learn to love you! You appreciate you & all your capabilities! Visualisation - to increase positive feelings
- Solution focused coping strategies are action oriented to help change the circumstances you face These strategies are focused on changing the stressors that cause distress & can be very effective for relieving stress Taking one step at a time, making one positive change can lead to further changes occurring naturally, & more & more opportunities opening up. Like a positive ‘change reaction’ If you’re already feeling overwhelmed, I recommend starting with time management & taking some time to organise yourself. Use a diary, a white board or a desk calendar to help. We all need to prioritise. When we don’t, this leads to loads of procrastination & avoidance. Our stress response will start to rise as we lose control of our circumstances & our problems will seem bigger & unsolvable. Keep it real, in the here & now. Having someone you can talk to & importantly, someone who will listen is fundamental to managing stress. Not only does that offer a safe & supportive environment, but it can also help to contribute to a perspective shift at times. Sometimes we need someone to point out that one thing we can’t see – it could be the one thing getting in the way. And this talking thing – very important in relationships . Using effective communication to resolve conflicts will help reduce stress & potentially mitigate problems all together!!
- As Yong as talked about, healthy living is about your environment, the people you surround yourself with & seeing things from a different angle. There’s no quicker & more effective way of naturally reducing your stress than through exercise. It pumps up your endorphins – they’re the ‘feel-good’ neurotransmitters that act as natural painkillers, help us sleep & in turn help us fight stress!! There are so many ways you can introduce exercise into your daily routine – the first step is making a decision to live a healthier life – for your mind & body. Joining in with a group fitness class helps build social networks & confidence, or you might find a friend that you can set up a regular hike or walk with – this will assist to clear you mind & feel in control. But most importantly, I would encourage you all to find good people & spend time with them.