Stress Management for Library Staff

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Stress Management for Library Staff

• An Infopeople Workshop
• 2007
• Presented by
• Edmond Otis, M.S., M.F.T.
• eotis_at_BaronCenter.com

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This Workshop Is Brought to You By the Infopeople
Project
Infopeople is a federally-funded grant project
supported by the California State Library. It
provides a wide variety of training to California
libraries. Infopeople workshops are offered
around the state and are open registration on a
first-come, first-served basis. For a complete
list of workshops, and for other information
about the project, go to the Infopeople website
at infopeople.org.
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Stress is nothing more than a socially
acceptable form of mental illness.
- Richard Carlson
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Our Agenda

Understanding Stress where are we
vulnerable? Building Personal Strengths and
Emotional Reserves in and out of the library
Tools for Reducing Stress in the
Library Mastering the Day-to-day finding peace
in the eye of the storm
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Our Goals

• Learn what stress is and how it affects us
• Identify individual stress areas in our
  professional and personal lives
• Learn techniques for dealing with stressful
  library situations, people, and circumstances
• Understand how lifestyle, diet, exercise and rest
  effect our health and emotions - and our
  vulnerability to stress
• Develop personal skills and resources to manage
  stress at the library
• Learn stress management techniques that can be
  used on a daily basis

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Please dont stress.You dont need to do
everything we talk about today.We are here to
see some options and explore some
choices.One way to manage stress is to pick
your battles and be your own best friend.
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Part I - Understanding Stress Where Are We
Vulnerable?

• Stress is a normal part of life. Yep, especially
  in the library.
• Professor Seyles world famous stress theory -
  how stress works
• Why do we feel the way we feel - and respond the
  way we do?
• Flow an Eastern perspective
• The long and short-term costs, risks, and (yes)
  benefits of stress

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Stress is when you wake up screaming and you
realize you haven't fallen asleep yet.
- Anonymous
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Exercise 1 So, Whats So Stressful about
Working at the Library?
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What do we know about stress?First of all
its normal, and its not all bad!
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Second, its absolutely primal - and
primitive.... think of a caveman
stuck in a traffic jam!
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How Can We Tell If We Are Stressed?

• Increased heart rate?
• Sweaty palms?
• Shortness of breath?
• Increased breathing?
• Dizziness?
• What else ???

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How can people tell if others are
stressed?What does it look/sound like?
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Professor Seyles World Famous Stress Theory -
How Stress Works

• Stress is "the non-specific response of the body
  to any physical and emotional demands placed
  upon it"
• Distress comes from negative events
• Eustress comes from positive events

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The Stress Response How It Works...

• 1. Alarm reaction stage
• Senses first. Brain - second
• The Four F Response
• Fight, flight, feed, folly...
• 2. Resistance stage
• 3. Exhaustion stage

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Flow - An Eastern Perspective...We crave
balance between our thoughts, actions, and
emotions. Personal synergy Where DO YOU get
that?The more out of balance those aspects of
our self the more stress we experience.
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ACTIONS
SYNERGY
THOUGHTS
EMOTIONS
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Stress Buster -Deep Breathing Techniques
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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I
cannot change the courage to change the things I
can and wisdom to know the difference.
-Reinhold Niebuhr
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Part II - Building Personal Strengths and
Emotional Reserves In and Out of the Library

• The six dimensions of health - are they working
  for you, or against you?
• Building physical resources and healthy habits
• sleep
• nutrition
• activity and exercise
• work and lifestyle

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Exercise 2Personal Stress Level Inventory
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Think of health as being made up of six
interacting and dynamic
dimensionsThese are your personal resources
against stress

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The Six Dimensions of Health
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Physical Health

• Disease susceptibility
• Body weight composition
• Physical senses
• Strength, endurance and coordination
• Powers of recuperation
• Genetic predispositions
• Blood pressure

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Emotional Health

• Certain emotional characteristics help you grow
  and develop
• Degree to which you can cope with stress
• Ability to remain flexible
• Compromise to resolve conflict
• Those who consistently try to improve emotional
  health seem to lead more enjoyable lives

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Intellectual Health

• Ability to process and act on information,
  clarify values and beliefs, and exercise your
  decision-making capacity
• e.g., taking prescription drugs
• Refusal to grasp new information or analyze your
  beliefs could hinder your degree of growth
• e.g., smoking

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Social Health

• Also known as social graces, skills, or
  insights
• Most of your growth and development has taken
  place in presence of others

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Occupational Health

• Occupational health employment satisfaction is
  directly related to many aspects of health and
  levels of stress
• External rewards
• Internal rewards

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Spiritual Health

• How we answer the unanswerable
• Often related to religious beliefs and practices
• Includes how you relate to other living things,
  nature of human behavior, and your willingness to
  serve others
• Spiritual health can be enhanced in a variety of
  ways

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We are not invulnerable Nor are we destined to
feel powerless or overwhelmedWe can reduce
stress dramatically by building our physical
resources and healthy habits
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Building Physical Resources and Healthy Habits
What do we know?What can we control?
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Sleep

• An average adult needs between 6.5 to 7.5 hours
  of sleep in order for the body to fully recover
• Avoid caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol
• Consider your sleep logistics...

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Nutrition- Old news but you really are what
you eat

• Eat breakfast
• Snack well and wisely
• Balance protein, fats, and carbohydrates
• Sugar bad!

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Activity and Exercise -Saving energy makes you
tired you must use energy to gain energy

• Exercises for relieving stress may be in the form
  of physical, mental, or spiritual exercise
• What is good for the body is good for the mind
  and vice versa
• Know the target heart rate formula

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Lifestyle and Perspective

• If there is no joie de vie what is there?
• Balancing life and work
• The miracle's curse - unplug and disconnect
• Distinguish the urgent from the important

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Exercise 3Choose one from column Aand one
from column B...
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Stress Buster -Deep Breathing Techniques
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Part III - Tools for Reducing Stress in the
Library

• Time management and priority setting in the
  real-world library
• Its a people job stress
• managing staff relationships - managing patron
  relationships
• professionalism, openness, communication, and
  assertiveness
• creating realistic expectations - ours and theirs
• building personal relationships and peer support

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Those who know others are intelligent - Those
who know themselves are wise.Those who master
others have force - Those who master themselves
have strength.
- Lao Tzu The Tao of Power
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Good Time Management Is Critical for Stress
Management. Discipline Is the Key!

• Prioritize tasks
• Avoid over-commitment
• Always use a calendar or planner
• Check it before committing to anything

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Do an Assessment! The BIG experts suggest
identifying time-wasting tasks by keeping a
diary for a few days. This will help you notice
where you may be losing time..
How much time do you waste

• Talking to people you dont need to talk to?
• On non-productive emails?
• Repeating tasks?
• Looking for stuff?
• Wasting time?
• ???

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Do Daily Tasks at Regular Times...

• Productivity experts recommend setting aside a
  specific time (or multiple times) each day to
  check and respond to e-mail and messages!
• Dont be a slave to incoming information.
• Take the time to actually write down a list of
  your regular daily tasks.
• when would be the best time to do them
• what would be the most efficient way to organize
  your day to make sure everything gets done?

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PROCRASTINATION!What type do you use?
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Personal Organizational Skills

• Clutter-free and well-organized physical
  surroundings (office, desk, kitchen, closet, car)
  reduce stress and improve performance
• Make it a habit (daily? weekly?) to clean out and
  sort through the messes of paperwork and clutter
  that accumulate over time
• Really respect shared space

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We are all people people...

• People with strong social support systems
  experience fewer physical and emotional symptoms
  of stress than their less-connected counterparts
• Loved ones, friends, business associates,
  neighbors, and even pets are all part of our
  social networks

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Stress The confusion created when one's mind
overrides the body's basic desire to choke the
living daylights out of some jerk who desperately
deserves it. -
Anonymous
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Managing Staff Relationships

• Frequent staff meetings help - keep it light
• Encourage an open but respectful communication
  style
• Question authority, but dont sabotage the
  hierarchy!
• Teamwork, clarity, and consistency always reduce
  stress and improve the workplace

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Nothing reduces staff stress like a sense of
unity and purpose..

• The staff/public relationship always flourishes
  with
• teamwork
• clarity
• consistency

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Patrons Are Not the Enemyand you are not a
miracle worker

• Communicate clearly
• Address the problems, but first acknowledge a
  persons frustration...
• Use my favorite phrase,
• I understand that this is important to you.

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Exercise 4 Create a reduced-stress
personal library plan.What are some
doable solutions to library problems?
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Future shock is the shattering stress and
disorientation that we induce in individuals by
subjecting them to too much change in too short a
time. - Alvin
Toffler
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Whats the Real Job? Acknowledge the 10 70
Reality!

• By most informal library staff estimates... 10
  of our patrons are responsible for 70 of our
  workload.

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Many people feel stress interacting with others
in a professional setting.

• When we work with the public, we occasionally we
  need to tell people what they dont want to hear.
  
• Conversely, people (co-workers, patrons, etc.)
  end up saying things to us we dont want to hear,
  either.

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Exercise 5 Getting Comfortable with Our
Most Powerful Word
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Becoming comfortable with the Concept of No,
whether we are giving or taking, greatly reduces
our stress.

• But its tough.
• By nature we want to be accommodating and
  helpful.
• The important thing to remember is that in a
  professional setting, saying and hearing NO is
  a non-personal part of the job.

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• Instructions Find a partner. Choose who will go
  first. The asker will make eye-contact, and ask
  their partner to perform a simple task (for
  example please take this pencil or please
  hand me that piece of paper).
• The partner will look back and say, No.
• Hold eye-contact, without fidgeting, talking,
  smiling, laughing, or moving, for five seconds.
• Try to be as emotionally-neutral as possible.
  Its only business.
• Thats it but, its harder then it sounds. Some
  of us will feel the most discomfort when we are
  the one saying No. For others, its harder to
  hear No. Which was it for you?

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The Fine Art of Taking a Break

• Distinguish between public time and personal time
• Unplug and disconnect
• Energize
• Remember the whole action, thought, feeling
  thing? Nows the time!

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The Social Aspects of Stress Management

• Manage staff relationships - manage patron
  relationships
• teamwork, clarity, and consistency
• Professionalism, openness, communication, and
  assertiveness
• Create realistic expectations--ours and theirs
• Build personal relationships and peer support

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Part IV - Mastering the Day-to-day Finding
Peace in the Eye of the Storm

• Making an oasis in the desert - how physical/
  mental/emotional self-management skills work
• Progressive muscular relaxation and the
  relaxation response
• Self-talk and reinterpretation
• Imagery and visualizing
• Developing a productive world view for the
  library settling in on whats important to you
  cutting loose from what isnt...

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Stress is basically a disconnection from the
earth, a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an
ignorant state. It believes that everything
is an emergency.
- Natalie Goldberg
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The Stress Emotions

• Anger keeps us locked in the past
• Fear grabs us and throws us in the future

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The greatest weapon against stress is our
ability to choose one thought over another.
- William
James
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Exercise 6 Stress Busters Three powerful
techniques

• Progressive muscular relaxation and the
  relaxation response
• Simple meditation
• Imagery and visualizing

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Develop a Productive World View for Your
LibraryA low stress staff has settled and
agreed on whats important -- and what
isntIts part of their mission statement
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DONT FORGETPlease fill out an evaluation
before you leave.Thank you!