Objectives
• Mind-body connection
• Assessment of stressors
and stress reactions
• Experience stress
management strategies
• Develop strategies to
assist stress management
and self-regulation
What is Stress?
• Assumptions:
– 1. Stress is ubiquitous
– 2. Stress can be both positive and negative
– 3. Stress is a result of both inside the body and outside
the body factors
– 4. Everybody has the capacity to alter their stress
reactions
– 5. The best way to understand the stress cycle is from
an holistic approach (mind, body, environment)
– 6. Today’s world has more stressful stimuli than ever
before.
The Nature of Stress
• Stress is a perceived demand or threat (Stressor) to
our mind, body, spirit/value system, or emotions
and its associated reactions in these same systems.
• Eustress is a term for positive stress—stimuli that
push us to act, take on challenges, meet deadlines.
• Distress = Negative stress, dangers, seemingly
insurmountable problems
• Too much stress, ineffectively coped with over a
period of time, becomes problematic.
Non-Physical threats can create
moderate fight or flight responses
Threats in form of:
• Emotional
• Intellectual
• Social/Value system
__________________
Stimulated by:
• Actual events
• Thoughts
• Imagination
Stressed Out!
• People can average 50
to 200 moderate F or F
responses a day.
• Accumulated stress
responses = Stressed
Out.
Positive vs. Negative Stress
Stimulus (Stressor)
Perceived as Eustress:
Positive stressor
Challenge
Impetus
Perceived as Distress:
Negative stressor
Danger
Insurmountable Barrier
Activation
Fight or Flight
Response
Development
Growth
New Experience
Feelings of Satisfaction
Chronic Stress:
Physical Symptoms
Psychological Symptoms
Decreased Coping Skills
Fight or Flight Response
Symptoms of Chronic Stress Reaction
(Examples)
Physical
Cognitive
Behavioral Emotional
Fatigue
Poor attention/
concentration
Change in
activity
Grinding teeth
Nightmares
Loss of appetite Guilt
Headaches
Blaming others
Alcohol
consumption
Irritability
Muscle cramps
Poor problem
solving
Withdrawal
Uncertainty
Anxiety
Theories of Stress
• Popular views
• Non-specific demand for adaptation (Selye)
• State of anxiety when events exceed coping ability
(Lazarus)
• Intricate phenomena including culturally defined concept
on the human condition
• Inability to cope with real and/or imagined threats to
mental/physical/emotional/spiritual well-being resulting in
physiological and adaptive responses
Assessments
PAC-CATS Health Behaviors:
– https://assesshealth.ucs.ksu.edu/cs_survey/
• Stressful events hierarchy
– http://www.spsu.edu/sis/psycho.htm
• Life style inventory
– http://www.nationalwellness.org/testwell/index.htm
• Kiersey Type Indicator
– http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp