Stress Management

Syed M Zulqarnain
Umair Rashid
 Contents
• What is stress?
• Signs of stress
• Causes of stress
• Types of stress
• General Adaptation Syndrome
• Stress Management
• Conclusion
“The only person without stress is a
dead person.”

Hans Selye
Father of Stress Research
 Prof. Hans Selye

Publications
• The Stress of Life
• Stress Without Distress
• Hormones and Resistance
 What is Stress?
• Stress is the process of responding to events that we consider threatening or
challenging
• Event or environmental stimulus that can cause a person to feel tensed or
aroused.
 Signs of Stress

Mental

Emotional Behavioral

Physical
 Signs of Stress

Mental Signs Behavioral Signs

• Having difficulty relaxing and • Yawning
quieting your mind • Talking too fast
• Avoiding others • Nail biting
• Feeling bad about yourself (low • Over reacting
self-esteem)
• Defensive behavior
 Signs of Stress

Emotional Physical
• Anxiety and agitation • Low energy.
• Loneliness and isolation • Headaches
• Moodiness • Insomnia
• Anger • Frequent colds and infections
Causes of Stress
 Causes of Stress
Stressor
• A stressor is an event or condition which we view as threatening, challenging
or overwhelming.
Three types of Stressor:
• Cataclysmic Stressors
• Personal Stressors
• Background Stressors
 Cataclysmic Stressors
• Strong stressors that occur suddenly and typically affect many people at once
Example:
• Natural disasters
• Earthquakes
• Floods
 Personal Stressors
• Major life events that have immediate negative consequences. These stressors
generally fade with time.
Example:
• Death of a family member
 Background Stressors
• Also called daily hassles are minor irritations of life that we all face time and
time again.
Example:
• Standing in a long line at a bank
• Getting stuck in traffic
 Background Stressors (continue)
• Another type of background stressors is long-term, chronic problems
Example:
• Experiencing dissatisfaction with school or job
• Being in an unhappy relationship
• Living in crowded quarters without privacy
 Types of Stress
1. General Stress
2. Cumulative Stress
3. Acute Traumatic Stress
4. Post Traumatic Stress
 1. General Stress
• Everyone has this kind of stress
• Generally, it resolves itself within a few days
• Usually, no intervention is required
 2. Cumulative Stress
• Stress builds up in your body
• It becomes difficult to alleviate your symptoms
• May cause serious physical symptoms and/or mental anguish
 3. Acute Traumatic Stress
• Critical Incident Stress
• Produces considerable psychological distress
• A normal reaction to abnormal events
 Post Traumatic Stress
• Severe stress produced by severe psychological trauma
• Created by unresolved Critical Incident Stress
• Produces lasting changes
 General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)
• Physiological response to stress follows the same pattern regardless of the
cause of the stress
• GAS has three phases
I. Alarm and mobilization
II. Resistance
III. Exhaustion
 Stress Management
• Efforts to control, reduce or learn to tolerate the threats that lead to stress
are known as coping
• Two main categories of coping with stress:
1. Emotion-focused coping
2. Problem-focused coping
 Emotion Focused Coping
• Managing emotions in the face of stress by seeking to change the way you
feel about or perceive a problem
• Examples:
 Accepting Sympathy from others
 Looking at the bright side of a situation
 Problem-Focused Coping
• Attempting to modify the stressful problem or source of stress
• Leads to changes in behavior
• Developing a plan of action to deal with stress
• Examples:
• Starting a study group to improve poor academic results
 Stress Management Techniques
1. Least effective technique— Avoidant Coping
• Using wishful thinking to reduce stress
• Using more direct escape routes
• Examples:
• “May be it will rain so heavily tomorrow that presentations will be canceled.”
• Using alcohol, drugs overeating to avoid stress
 Stress Management Techniques (continue)
2. Turn Threat into a Challenge
• The best coping strategy when a stressful situation might be controllable
• Treat the situation as a challenge and focus on ways to control it
• Example:
• If you experience stress because your car is always breaking down, you might
take a course in auto-mechanics and learn to deal with the problem yourself.
 Stress Management Techniques (continue)
3. Make a Threatening Situation Less Threatening
• When a stressful situation seems to be uncontrollable, you need to take a
different approach.
• It is possible to change your appraisal of the situation, view it in a different
light, and modify your attitude toward it.
• Research supports the old truism, “Look for the silver lining in every cloud
 Stress Management Techniques (continue)
4. Take physical action
• Changing your physiological reaction to stress can help with coping.
• Biofeedback can alter basic physiological processes
• It can allow people to reduce blood pressure, heart rate, and other consequences of
heightened stress through conscious thought.
• Examples:
• Praying, yoga and meditation.
• Exercise can also be effective in reducing stress
 Stress Management Techniques (continue)
• Prepare for stress before it happens
• A good strategy for coping with stress is proactive coping, anticipating and
preparing for stress before it is encountered.
• Example:
• If you’re expecting to go through a one-week duration in which you must
take a number of major tests, you can try to arrange your schedule so you
have more time to study
 Stress Management Techniques (continue)
• Change Your Goals
• If you are faced with an uncontrollable situation, a reasonable strategy is to
adopt new goals that are practical in view of the particular situation.
• Example
• For example, an athlete who has been in an automobile accident and has lost
full use of his legs may no longer aspire to be an athlete in but might modify
his goals and try to become a coach or instructor
 Conclusion
• Stress is a normal part of life and not necessarily a bad part. For example,
without stress we might not be sufficiently motivated to complete the
activities we need to accomplish. However, it is also clear that too much
stress can take a toll on physical and psychological health. The point, thus, is
to deal with the stress properly so that its negative effects can be reduced.