Moving Beyond Stress

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mOVING bEYOND sTRESS
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WIIFM

• Understand the impact of stress on your life
• Evaluate life satisfaction
• Learn steps to restore balance
• Implement practices to reduce stress on a
  personal level
• Implement steps to reduce stress in our
  organization

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Benefits

• Enhanced relationship at work home
• Control Distractions
• Less wastage of time
• Increased
• Productivity
• Effectiveness
• Focus on tasks at hand

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History of stress

• Agricultural Age
• stress from threat of catastrophic weather in
  destroying crops
• Industrial Age
• stress from new ways of doing things involving
  new machinery and techniques
• Information Age
• stress from technology keeping us connected
  24/7 causing overwhelm with information and
  with emails, faxes phone calls

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What is stress?
- A perceived threat - real or imagined to ones
mind, body, spirit or emotion
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What is work stress?
Harmful physical and emotional responses that
occur when the requirements of the job do not
match the capabilities, resources or needs of the
employee
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Stress at home

• Two-parent family
• working long hours/commute time
• caring for children elderly parents
• household responsibilities
• Single parent family
• same as above but challenges are more extreme
• Struggle with work/life balance
• leads to eating fast/unhealthy diets
• little personal time
• Problems with
• sleep/fatigue
• anger management
• more

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Causes for Stress

• fear
• of the new, the unknown
• of conflict
• of taking a risk
• of developing trust
• of inability to cope with changed circumstances
• feelings
• of personal insecurity
• of vulnerability
• of rejection
• need for approval

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Levels of Stress
DISTRESS
HIGH LEVEL
EUSTRESS
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How to respond to Stress

• Change the situation

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Time Management
Value your Time
Decide what is more important
Know what is it, you want time for
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Communication

• Share Information
• More Ideas

• Acknowledge Concern
• Get Solutions

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Communication

• Determine who owns the problem

• They own
• I own
• WE OWN

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Change the Outlook

• Its Overwhelming ?
• Here we go again!?
• This wont work ?
• I will not be able to correct this ?

• Ill take it step by step ?
• This time things will be different ?
• Let me give another try ?
• Its OK to say no sometimes ?

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Change the Situation
I cant Stand all this
I have to be
Its always or never
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Stress has been linked to

• Illness
• Heart disease
• Cancer
• Depression and Anxiety
• Stroke
• Immune disorders
• Gastrointestinal problems
• Diabetes
• Lung Ailments
• Accidents
• Suicide

Depression
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When will it end?

• Stressors change
• STRESS is CONSTANT
• Many lack skills/knowledge to counteract or avoid
  the stressors in our lives.

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The Good News

• Its possible to be proactive
• Skills can be learned to counteract the effects
  of stress
• Programs and resources are available to support a
  healthy body/mind and a healthy organization

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I have a new philosophy. Im only going to
dread one day at a time. Charles M. Schulz
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Wheel of Life Exercise

• Identify areas of highest and lowest satisfaction
  
• Career
• Money
• Health
• Friends/Family
• Significant Other/Romance
• Personal Growth
• Fun/Recreation
• Physical Environment

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Wheel Of Life

• Identify one area where you are most dissatisfied
  
• Write 3 action steps to increase satisfaction in
  this area
• Set time limit to complete these steps

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Identify Energy Drainers

• Be mindful of what drains your energy in the
  following areas
• Food (caffeine, refined carbs, sugar, fat, fast
  foods,nicotine etc.)
• Thoughts (negative, judgmental, rigid - attached
  to beliefs)
• Feelings (fearful, anxious, hopeless, worried
  etc.)
• Sleep (caffeine, TV, other media, relationship or
  care-giving issues)
• Environment (television, noise, pollutants,
  chemicals, computer, cluttered space etc.)
• Develop 3 action steps to help restore balance
• Set time limit to complete these steps

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Only 25 of all Americans know their next-door
neighbors. National Geographic
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Human beings are remarkably resilient. They can
deal with almost anything as long as they do not
become too isolated. Harvard Business Review
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Strategies for Reducing Stress

• Difference between good and bad stress
• Hold relaxation and/or stress reduction sessions
• Deal with sick building syndrome
• Create community atmosphere discourage
  isolation caused by technology

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Stress reducing strategies cont.

• Use nature oriented art and music for relaxation
• Identify/use your strengths

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7 Steps for Personal Stress Reduction

• On a regular basis
• Develop sense of belonging
• Practice one body/mind exercise 2-3X week
• Practice meditation 10-20 minutes 1-2X daily
• Learn to think/speak more objectively and being
  nonjudgmental
• Practice sound nutrition/aerobic exercise
• Use art, music, humor, nature for increased
  energy
• Develop a belief system

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Practices that counteract the harmful effects of
stress

• Mindful Meditation
• Focus on one thing - focus on word or breath
• As thoughts intrude, passively disregard them and
  return to word or breath
• Practice 10-20 minutes a day 1-2X a day
• Mindful Movement
• Focus on muscle movement practice elicits same
  response as above
• Practice 20 minutes a day

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Major points revisited

• Understand the escalating impact/cost of stress
  at home/work
• Importance of identifying stressors and being
  proactive
• Learn to monitor reactions to stressors
• Develop body/mind skills to counteract stress
• Develop steps to reduce stress on organizational
  level

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??? THANKS ???