hi I'm Luanne Helms a psychologist in Utah State University um counseling and Psychological Services welcome to the stress management and wellness Workshop this Workshop consists of six different parts the first part will be discussing stress and different ways to manage it Parts two three and four will be practicing a wide variety of relaxation skills in part five I will share with you cognitive behavioral and emotional skills and then in part six we will develop a Wellness Plan together so what are some things that stress you out tests test balancing school and family balancing school and family I was just going to say pretty much the same thing balancing School balancing work running out of money also dating and balancing school is rough stuff for me so balancing different demands maybe the dating and different relationships oh giving presentations might be something to stress someone out so one of the things with Stress Management is knowing what your sources of stress are for you as an individual so not compared to other people you know if you can own what your stresses are then you can be more prepared for them and you can know to practice skills to get your stress level down before those different events in your life so not thinking about well this shouldn't stress me out because it doesn't seem to stress them out focusing on this is my personal stressor and there are a variety of different sources of stress and so you might look up here and notice a few different things that come to mind um so in addition to school and some of the different demands there's different environmental stressors we also have interpersonal stressors um physiological stressors and then one thing that some people don't think about is intrapersonal stressors so inpersonal stressors are stress between people and intrapersonal stressors are factors within us that create more stress so as you glance at this and you don't have to say which ones can you maybe think of does some of these things uh relate to some of these okay so and this is just a small list the nice thing about the interpersonal stressors is these are ways of um thinking that are mostly learned and so you can unlearn them okay so in addition to knowing what your sources are you also want to know you know how do you know you're stressed how you know you're getting there so what are some of your symptoms of stress I get really Snappy like with my roommate or with my friends like don't have very long fuse okay so being really short and snappy yeah okay I start feeling overwhelmed with little things as well so things that normally don't stress me out start stressing me out okay so kind of things on your plate kind of uh cause you more stress than they do normally yeah okay build up okay and I have a tendency to miss those little things entirely just I don't remember to do them because I'm focused on the big things that I got to get done okay so some things uh you forget about so I I know I'm stress when I start participating in avoidant Behavior like playing video games or watching movies or sleeping in just I can tell that I'm avoiding important things I need to do because I'm stressed out about it yeah so there are kind of a lot of different behavioral symptoms that people have shared for me I often get headaches when I'm stressed out um I get like pain in my neck or in my back that's where I kind of carry tension I think so some back pain other physical symptoms I might cry easier things will just get to me more emotionally yeah yeah so knowing how our um maybe body and our behavior and our emotions tell us that we're stressed out so kind of knowing that we're getting there so if this is um the list could be like 10 times longer than this but here are some common things are there any that you kind of go oh yeah that's me too oh what might be a few that you're like oh okay I get really accident prone like I'll stub my toe or hit my knee on something and just be really absent minded I think when I'm stressed out or have a lot to do yeah so we might be thinking about all the stuff we have to do and not pay attention and walk into things or yeah I have problems sleeping okay so sleep difficulties I pressing that quite a bit I think that hey if I don't do it now I'm okay now but it just builds up the stress yeah so with a lot of the behavioral stuff anything with some of the physical things yeah I think the TR like the trouble concentrating one is uh I'll think about a million things at once or I won't be able to hold my attention as much as I normally would okay for sure yeah I I eat eating yeah yeah so stomach issues are sometimes common when we have stress problems sometimes people eat more and sometimes people don't feel hungry at all yeah so um part of our symptoms are related to the flight response and I won't go into a lot of details but basically our body is wired to protect it from danger so it's a protective mechanism that if I'm out on a hike and I see a mountain lion the figh ORF flight response gets triggered and my body prepares to fight or flee the situation and so the blood goes to major muscle groups and out of our extremities and that's why when people are stressed sometimes their hands and feet are cold so our breathing gets really shallow and um our pupils dilate all these different chemicals are uh being released to prepare us to fight or flee the muscles get tense and when that happens um digestion slows because who cares about digesting your food if you're about to get attacked by a lion you know so that's why sometimes people have stomach problems probably why I get headaches is because you get muscle tension okay and another thing that happens is our immune system is suppressed because who cares about fighting off our germs if I'm about to get attacked by a lion and so sometimes people are stressed and then they get sick so it also has a challenge with our memory if I'm about to get attacked by a lion who cares if I can recall the names of the presidents so so one thing is just knowing that that's a natural response to protect us from danger fortunately we're hardly ever in physical danger occasionally things happen where we are but the figh ORF flight response actually gets triggered over and over again throughout our day in our society even though we're not about to get attacked by Alliance so is that like when I'm going in to take a test and my mind just completely goes blank is that like yeah what's even if I've studied a lot yeah so it makes it hard to recall the information that you want to recall so that's a good example too the test isn't going to kill you so it might feel like that and maybe you're having thoughts like I can't do this um thoughts that I'm in Jeopardy and so a lot of times we're not actually being attacked by the lion but our thoughts are triggering the figh Orly response and then there's things outside of us that are trying to trigger it like the news tries to trigger it you know it says things like uh something in your house can kill you find out 11 what it is you know so outside of us we're always getting these messages to watch out and the challenge with that is we need to work on um the fight ORF flight is is constantly being triggered with our thoughts and with external stimulus we have to work on triggering the relaxation response because people aren't walking around telling us relax so we have to tell ourselves and we have to work on triggering that relaxation response and calming that down a little bit because the chronic figh ORF flight can really wear us out sorry can I ask you something real quick so is it I mean it sounds like it's kind of the same thing that happens when you get up to perform if you get performance anxiety you get nervous it's the same thing yep okay so same example SS like it so okay yeah so if I'm up here and I'm getting nervous and I'm thinking I can't do this or what if I make a mistake then that flight or flight's going to get triggered a little bit and the challenge with it too is that it wears us out and a lot of times when it comes to Stress Management people think well I don't have time for Stress Management I don't have time to take care of myself or I don't have time to maybe take a 10-minute break so but the thing to remember is if you don't take time for Stress Management it'll cost you more time in the long run so if you don't take time and you go go go and then you crash because you've gotten sick because you haven't taken time for Stress Management and you worn out your immune system you know has anyone ever been sick for finals so that's one issue you know sometimes too people will be anxious and they'll study and study and in 4 hours they're all anxious trying to study well if they would have took a half an hour for some stress management and then studied for two hours they might have retained more information and so it makes us not think so straight and then another huge issue is sometimes when we're stressed out we have a short fuse and we behave in ways that we regret we say things we wish we didn't we do things that we wish we didn't and that takes a lot of time to feel guilty about that to think about that to try to repair it so that does take a lot of time in our life and so if we take more time just for taking good care of ourselves and keeping our stress at a manageable level we will save time in the long run but you have to really be invested into doing this and with the fight ORF flight I mean it's meant to protect ourselves so having some some stress can be a helpful thing it's just having too much too often that we have to manage we don't want to not have stress we don't want to not have anxiety sometimes but we do want to have it at a level that we can manage so one of the skills is we want to be able to rate our stress level so using the sources of stress and symptoms of stress knowing where you're at at any given moment on a scale of 1 to 10 so 10 being your most stressed out and one being very calm so right now in this moment since I'm presenting and that's one of my sources of stress I'd say I'm about a seven that's pretty high for me so if you don't mind maybe giving yourself a number in this moment between 1 and 10 six six proba like a four okay about a five okay probably about a three okay so knowing that there's variability and not comparing yourself to other people checking in with yourself and rating that now most of the time people think you know I was just going along and the stressor happened whatever that is let's say a test and boom my stress went up but really what typically happens is maybe I had a really cruddy breakfast and I didn't get a good night's sleep and my roommate said something I wish they didn't and I thought about the test and I thought I'm going to blow it and then the test happens and you don't have very far to go so the skill of knowing where you're at at any given moment and then having techniques to just bring it down a notch or two and having a variety so there isn't one thing that you use that that takes you from a nine to a two just keeping your fuse as long as possible so you're less likely to get to an 8 n or 10 and an 8 n or 10 for some people that's a panic attack or maybe you're you're can't believe the words that are coming out of your mouth cuz you're so stressed out or maybe you freeze you can't think straight so knowing where you're at at any given moment so what are some of the things that you do to decrease your stress level to bring it down a notch or two um I like to play the piano take a break to go play the piano that's something that I love or just listen to music yeah um I have a list on my iPod it's like a relaxation list that I'll use that's a great idea so using music we can um have playlist to help us feel confident or relaxed um an empowerment list so making a playlist of different songs that will trigger the mood that you want more of yeah and then playing music too is a great activity other ways that people I'll go on a run and just exercise and try and get out and just let it go away yeah so running why why would running be helpful when it comes to the fight ORF flight response would wouldn't it like get rid of it physically if you're having a physical reaction to it then you could do something physical maybe to to try to get rid of it or help it yeah so one of the reasons that exercise is so helpful for um anxiety and stress is fight ORF flight prepares us to do something physical and when we exercise we're actually taking that system to fruition so in addition to all the great benefits of exercise in helping to build confidence in helping to manage anxiety and depression it's good for our body and fight ORF flight is kind of wearing out our body um doing some exercise helps us to bring that to fruition having some physical activity and that doesn't um you know maybe you can't go for a long run and right before presentation maybe doing a few push-ups or some squats or something to get that energy out sometimes is really helpful other things that people do I think another thing that a lot of people do is just talk to someone talk to a friend that's something you can do maybe like right before presentation or something you can call a friend and be like hey a little nervous let's just talk for a little bit yeah um I do that sometimes yeah so having a good support system is really important um having maybe a variety of people to talk to and knowing in your support system that you might have different people for different things like my friend Jack might be a great person for me to vent to um but my friend maybe Jill might be good for a different perspective so and knowing or this other friend might be great for just going to a movie or having fun with and taking a break from the things that are stressing me out and so trying to have a support system where you do have a variety people to turn to and and don't expect people to be really what they're not so if I have a friend that you know every time I call wants to cheer me up by telling jokes and I really need a shoulder to cry on maybe that's not the best person to call and so kind of figuring out what I need when it comes to support systems so and support systems and maintenance of them are pretty challenging at times um but working on having healthy relationships and healthy communication with my support system yeah other things I like to sleep like sometimes if I'm really feeling stressed I go to bed I wake up feeling a lot better I don't know if that's good or bad but yeah that's what I do yeah so um not thinking about it good or bad but maybe observing it a little bit as far as does this help me is it effective and it may be that you're not getting enough sleep and you actually do need more sleep and so it would be effective or if you're just avoiding because sometimes if we avoid too much we don't work through those feelings and we end up causing more stress so in some situations it could be a good technique and in other situations maybe not so helpful yeah yeah like I'll watch a movie or TV show or something with friends and sometimes I feel like not as stressed afterwards but other times I feel more stressed later on so I don't know kind of same thing if that's yeah helpful or not paying attention yeah I mean movies are often like music too that they could trigger a different mood and so you deciding what kind of mood you want to trigger know so when it comes to Stress Management a great technique is humor and so if there is a a movie that makes you laugh or cheers you up and gives you a break in that way but if you're already feeling really down maybe you don't want to watch Old Yeller and stay there or something so paying attention to that how those movies make you feel and you might even have as part of your toolbox of Stress Management things certain movies that you pull out every once in a while that maybe make you feel relaxed or empowered or hopeful oh any other things that people do I've got something else when it's my workload that's stressing me out and I feel like I have too much on my plate um writing it down writing down what I need to do either making a too list or getting it on my calendar helps me feel like I've gotten something done and then it helps me um organize it so that I can tackle it cuz if it if I just have it all piled up then sometimes it just feels too overwhelming to actually start it but I know that once I start it I can definitely do it so as long as I just you know write it down figure out what I need to do first then that helps me feel just a little bit less stress yeah so writing a list prioritizing Crossing things off you know and being able to kind of Chunk it down because sometimes we feel overwhelmed when we're thinking about all of it and if we can chunk it down and say okay what's first and what piece can I do and taking care of it one piece at a time so so there is a wide variety of things that we can do and um thinking about maybe time and nature um does anyone use meditation or yoga are no people that do some so um in the Counseling Center we have uh animals because petting pets and being around pets or watching children play there's a variety of things that sometimes can be helpful so we've we've talked about knowing what your sources and symptoms are being able to rate your stress level and then figuring out for yourself what are a variety of things to bring it down a notch or two so what I would encourage you to do is to make a list kind of spy on yourself and observe the things that kind of bring it down and then figure out how you sprinkle more of that into your life and in Parts two three and four we'll practice some relaxation skills thank you