stress management

2. Course overview
• Understand that stress is a positive, unavoidable part of everybody’s life
• Recognise the symptoms that tell you when you have “chronic stress overload”
• Identify those situations in your life that cause you the greatest stress
• Identify those actions which add to your stress
• Change the situations and actions that can be changed
• Deal better with situations and actions that can’t be changed

3. Agenda
1. Defining stress
2. How does stress affect us?
3. What is stress about?
4. Stress and time
5. The stress tax
6. Managing stress
7. Stress and gender
8. Taking care of your body and your mind
9. Basic stress management strategies
10. The “Less stress” lessons
11. Plan for the future

4. Session Three
Crazy captions

5. Session Four
Defining stress
• Stress is our mental, physical and behavioural response to anxiety-producing
events. Too much stress can result in serious physical, psychological,
interpersonal or performance problems.
• The amount of stress that we experience depends on how much stress we
have, how long we have it, and how we are able to manage it.

6. Session Four
Defining stress
Problems stress can cause include:
•Heart attacks or strokes
•Drug abuse
•Ulcers
•Physical illness
•Hypertension
•Migraines
•High cholesterol
•Insomnia
•Depression

7. Session Four
How stress affects us
• Stress is about attitude.
• Stress alone does not cause illness.
• Stress is neutral until it lands on us.
• What we choose to do about it determines how it will affect us.

8. Session Four
Stressful situations
• A party where you wouldn't know many people.
• A new job in a new company.
• A move to another part of the country.
• A 500-kilometre drive that takes you alone through some rather isolated
country.
• A trip to downtown Cape Town with friends, you doing the driving.
• A flight to Johannesburg to attend a conference.
• A dinner party for your spouse's or partner's family.
• An afternoon of Christmas shopping in a large mall

9. Session Five
What is stress about?
• Stress is about changing lifestyles.
• Stress is about power.
• Stress is about self-esteem.
• Stress is about change.

10. Session Five
Flexibility
• Learn how to talk to ourselves/pay attention to our inner voice, so that we
support a flexible attitude.
• Make a commitment to experience a few things outside our comfort zone
each day.
• Practise giving ourselves permission to “let go” of things: projects, people,
opinions, etc.
• Try sitting at a different spot at the table occasionally, taking a different
route to work, changing our hairstyle, or go somewhere different to
experience different foods.

11. Session Six
Stress and time
• Making a to-do list each day, without putting so many things on it that we are
guaranteed to fail to complete everything.
• Recognise that not everything has to be done perfectly. Some things have to
be done well. Other things just have to be done.
• Delegate tasks to others, both at work and at home.
• Learn to say “no” when others ask us to do things we have no time to do, or
don’t want to do, or when we begin to feel taken advantage of.
• Buy a planner and begin scheduling.
• Lower our standards to accept a less-than-perfect life.

12. Session Seven
The stress tax
Costs of stress on the job can include:
• Errors
• Absenteeism
• Conflict
• Low morale
• High staff turnover
• Poor decisions/no decisions
• Accidents

13. Session Seven
The stress tax
Symptoms of stress overload can include:
• High blood pressure
• Risk of heart attack
• Risk of a stroke
• Risk of diabetes
• Migraines
• Always tired
• Always angry
• Not feeling much of anything

14. Session Nine
Managing stress
 These three factors impact our ability to manage stress:
• Personality
• Nature of organisation
• Quality of support

15. Session Ten
Stress and gender
• Research tells us that men and women react differently to stress and that
differing situations create their stress.
• For example, one study done at the University of Alberta in the US found that
women wake in the morning with their lowest stress levels.
• Men on the other hand rise with even lower stress levels.

16. Session Eleven
Taking care of your body and mind
Nutrition:
• No more than two cups of coffee (caffeine) a day.
• Avoid fast food when possible.
• Eat lots of fruit and vegetables.
• No eating at your desk.
• Allow your body some time to digest food before getting to work again.
• Drink 6–8 glasses of water a day.
• No snacking on junk food.
• Read labels so you can avoid “high-carb” anything.

17. Session Eleven
Taking care of your body and mind
Exercise:
• Experts differ but exercise for at least 20 minutes three times a week.
• Walking is a great form of exercise.
• If your day is really busy, set the alarm a half an hour earlier and exercise
when there is less to distract you.
• Stretching is good exercise we can do anywhere.
• Walking at lunch hour rather than sitting at our desk can improve both health
and efficiency.
• If your willpower is low, find a buddy.

18. Session Eleven
Taking care of your body and mind
 Relationships:
• Everybody needs a friend at work.
• Learn that it is all right to ask for help.
• Smile more often.
• Get to know your next-door neighbour.
• Offer to do something for someone else with no expectation of thanks or
payment.
• Support is reciprocal.
• Don’t whine. Nobody wants to be around a whiner.
• Have a positive relationship with yourself.
• Listen to what your inner voice is saying and make that voice positive.

19. Session Eleven
Taking care of your body and mind
 Relaxation:
• Remember to breathe.
• Deep breathing gets blood to our brain and rids our bodies of toxins.
• Music helps us relax. Lively music perks us up and slower music helps us slow
down.
• Exercise is a form of relaxation.
• While a shower is invigorating, a long soak in a tub can be very relaxing.
• Learn how to give a massage and teach your partner how to give you a
massage in return.
• Practise regularly.

20. Session Twelve
Basic stress management strategies
• Alter: Sometimes this is the most promising strategy. Change the situation
that makes you stressed.
• Avoid: On the other hand, that mouthy neighbour may be somebody you can
avoid. You know cheese gives you a migraine so you avoid it. Forcing ourselves
into situations that make us stressed, when we really don’t have to be in
those situations, is just being a masochist.
• Accept: There are some things in life, like taxes, that are unavoidable, so we
may as well accept these situations with good grace.

21. Session Thirteen
The "less stress" lessons
• Body scan
• Breathing through your diaphragm
• Stretching
• Visualisation
• Sensory awareness
• Eating awareness