Strategies to Cope with Stress and Manage Your Time

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Strategies to Cope with Stress and Manage Your
Time

• Sponsored by
• Office of the Provost
• Staff Development Committee

Presented by Leslie Z. Paige
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This photo of two identical dolphins was used in
a case study on stress level in a national
research study. Look at both dolphins jumping out
of the water. The dolphins are identical. A
closely monitored, scientific study of a
randomized group revealed that in spite of the
fact that the dolphins are identical, a person
under stress would find differences in the two
dolphins. If there are many differences found
between both dolphins, it means that the person
is experiencing a great amount of stress. Look at
the photograph and if you find more than one or
two differences you may want to take a vacation.
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What is
STRESS ?
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Describe stressors
How do you know you are stressed??
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What is stress?

• Stress is natural
• Response to change - adjust to environment
• Very individual
• Can be physical and mental
• Perceived as positive or negative

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Stress - negative or positive?

• Depends on how we react
• Negative
• feelings of distrust, rejection, anger, and
  depression
• health problems such as headaches, upset stomach,
  rashes, insomnia, ulcers, high blood pressure,
  heart disease, and stroke
• Positive
• can motivate us to action can result in a new
  awareness and new perspectives.

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Acute stress

• Most common form of stress
• Highly treatable and manageable
• Causes may include
• demands and pressures of the recent past
• anticipated demands and pressures of the near
  future

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Chronic stress

• Poverty, dysfunctional families, trapped in an
  unhappy marriage or in a despised job or career.
• Never see a way out of a miserable situation.
• Unrelenting demands and pressures for seemingly
  interminable periods of time.
• no hope, so give up searching for solutions.
• Suicide, violence, heart attack, stroke, and some
  chronic diseases.
• difficult to treat and may require extended
  medical as well as behavioral treatment and
  stress management.

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Stress Response

• The Alarm Reaction
• Stage of Resistance
• Stage of Exhaustion
• Hans Selye The Stress of Life

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Alarm Reaction

• Heart rate increases
• Respiratory rate increases
• Digestion ceases
• Hands and feet become cool
• Hair on arms may stand up
• Pupils dilate
• Blood pressure increases

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FIGHT
or
Flight
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Stage of Resistance

• Chronic release of cortisol
• Suppresses immune system
• Diseases of adaptation
• Prolonged stress with no relief may result in
  disease and/or chronic health problems

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Stage of Exhaustion

• Corticoid production decreases
• Death

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General Adaptation Syndrome
Normal level of resistance to stress
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Nervous system

• Voluntary
• Involuntary (autonomic)
• Sympathetic
• Gets body ready for threat or stress
• Alarm Reaction!!
• Parasympathetic
• Helps with relaxation and rebuilding
• Decreases blood pressure, heart rate, increases
  digestion
• TIP Need to increase control of parasympathetic
  system

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Mind and body connection

• Blushing
• Mental stimuli makes your skin change color
• Placebo effect works 28 -33
• Other examples?

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Tip

• calm the body
• calm the mind

• calm the mind
• calm the body

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What can you do?

• Deep breathing
• Biofeedback
• Progressive relaxation
• Meditation
• Self hypnosis
• Sound/music
• Exercise and massage
• Diet and Nutrition
• Autogenic Training

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Deep breathing

• Consciously slowing heart rate, decreasing
  perspiration and relaxing muscles is more
  difficult than simply slowing and deepening
  breathing.
• Breathing can be used to directly stimulate the
  parasympathetic nervous system
• results in relaxation and reverses changes from
  the stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system
  

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Chest vs. abdominal breathing

• Put your right hand on your chest and your left
  hand on your abdomen. As you breathe, see which
  hand rises more. If your right hand rises more,
  you are a chest breather. If your left hand rises
  more, you are an abdomen breather.
• Chest breathing is inefficient
• results in less blood flow, less oxygen transfer
  to the blood and subsequent poor delivery of
  nutrients to the tissues.

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Abdominal breathing

• Place one hand on your chest and the other on
  your abdomen. Take a deep breath in, the hand on
  the abdomen should rise higher than the one on
  the chest.
• Exhale through the mouth, take a slow deep breath
  in through your nose and hold it for a count of 7
• Slowly exhale through your mouth for a count of
  8. Gently contract your abdominal muscles to
  completely push the remaining air from the lungs.
  

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Exhale twice as long as inhale

• Repeat 4 more times for a total of 5 deep
  breaths and try to breathe at a rate of one
  breath every 10 seconds (or 6 breaths per
  minute).
• To enhance, say to yourself the word,
  relaxation when inhale and stress when
  exhale
• bring in the feeling/emotion you want with
  inhalation and release those you don't want with
  exhalation.
• Deepen respirations not by inhaling more air but
• through completely exhaling it.

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Biofeedback

• Learn to control your involuntary nervous system
• Check your stress level!

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Biofeedback practice

• Warm fingers relaxed
• Try to consistently raise your temperature
• Practice at about the same time each day in a
  calm setting
• Transition to a more typical setting
• Pair with abdominal breathing

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Progressive Relaxation

• Involves tensing specific muscle groups and then
  relaxing them to create awareness of tension and
  relaxation.
• It is termed progressive because it proceeds
  through all major muscle groups, relaxing them
  one at a time, and eventually leads to total
  muscle relaxation.

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Progress Relaxation Steps

• Get comfortable. Lie down loosen tight clothing,
  close your eyes and be quiet.
• Focus on yourself and on relaxing specific
  muscles.
• Tune out all other thoughts.
• Tense and relax each muscle group
• If any muscle remains tense, tighten and relax
  that specific muscle 3 or 4 times.
• Repeat as needed

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• Forehead - Wrinkle your forehead, try to make
  your eyebrows touch your hairline for five
  seconds. Relax.
• Eyes and nose - Close your eyes as tightly as you
  can for five seconds. Relax.
• Lips, cheeks and jaw - Draw the centers of your
  mouth back and grimace for five seconds. Relax.
  Feel the warmth and calmness in your face.
• Hands - Extend your arms in front of you. Clench
  your fists tightly for five seconds. Relax. Feel
  the warmth and calmness in your hands.
• Forearms - Extend your arms out against an
  invisible wall and push forward with your hands
  for five seconds. Relax.
• Upper arms - Bend your elbows. Tense your biceps
  for five seconds. Relax. Feel the tension leave
  your arms.
• Shoulders - Shrug your shoulders up to your ears
  for five seconds. Relax.
• Back - Arch your back off the floor for five
  seconds. Relax. Feel the anxiety and tension
  disappearing.
• Stomach - Tighten your stomach muscles for five
  seconds. Relax.
• Hips and buttocks - Tighten your hip and buttock
  muscles for five seconds. Relax.
• Thighs - Tighten your thigh muscles by pressing
  your legs together as tightly as you can for five
  seconds. Relax.
• Feet - Bend your ankles toward your body as far
  as you can for five seconds. Relax.
• Toes - Curl your toes as tightly as you can for
  five seconds. Relax.

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Other ways to manage stress?
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• Poor time management STRESS
• Reactive VS Proactive

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Time Management

• We cant manage time can only manage ourselves
• Time management me management
• We can manage what we do with the time we have.

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Time Bandits
Lack of focus Lack of training Junk
e-mail Surfing Procrastination Others?

• Disorganization
• Unclear goals
• Too many personal phone calls
• Disjointed processes
• No routines
• Poor planning
• .

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Time management tips

• Spend time planning and organizing
• Set goals which are specific, measurable,
  realistic and achievable.
• Prioritize
• Use a to do list
• Be flexible
• Do the right thing right
• Eliminate the urgent

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Time management

• Consider your biological prime time
• The art of intelligent neglect
• Avoid perfectionism
• Conquer procrastination
• Learn to say no
• Reward yourself

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Prioritize Responsibilities

• Immediate and important
• Close to a deadline, necessary
• Intermediate but not important
• Interruptions,not as significant
• Important but not immediate (goal 20)
• Relates to major responsibilities - will become
  immediate and important if not started!
• Maintenance
• Routine housekeeping - mail, filing, desk top etc
• Marginal -take up about 10 of jobs
• Redundant, can be eliminated or delegated

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Goal setting

• Goal
• Where you want to end up
• Strategy
• how you get there
• Tactics
• what you do when you get there

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• Eliminate clutter
• Set up systems that are easy to maintain
• Get organized
• Set long- and short-term goals and work on your
  priorities - focus on the right things.
• Evaluate processes so you can eliminate work
  that doesnt need to be done or figure out a
  better way to do it.
• Become more proficient with technology if you
  need it to do your work.

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Other strategies!
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Thank you for participating!

• Sponsored by
• Office of the Provost
• Staff Development Committee