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Stress Management (Ruthstiver) NASW Approved

By
Barbara A. Brehm

Course Outline

This book is designed to help you understand the nature of stress, identify your personal stress patterns, and develop and implement strategies for increasing your resistance to the negative effects of stress by improving your ability to cope with stressful situations. An understanding of stress management will help you develop enjoyable and healthful ways to let go and relax. By increasing your understanding of stress and improving your stress resistance, you can make each day a little more joyful, meaningful, and personally fulfilling.

Stress management is the cornerstone of the wellness philosophy. This is the belief that in a given situation you make choices that determine and change the nature of your experience, thereby affecting the quality of both your daily life and your long-term health and well-being. Your stress response patterns interact with other wellness components: sleep, diet, and exercise habits; substance abuse and addiction; your sense of self-esteem; and your capacity to take responsibility for your own life. Learning to manage stress can help you perform better in school, at work and even at play.

An important premise of this book is that stress is a fact of life and indeed provide the spice of life. Not all stress is distress; often only habitual perception makes it so. You cannot and would not want to get rid of all sources of stress, but you can change or eliminate some of them. You can also change your physical and psychological response to stress. You can increase your stress resistance by strengthening your positive self-esteem, by developing an inner strength for challenging times, and by nurturing your ability to see life’s changes as learning experiences.

Another theme of this book is that stress management does not always require hard work. Many of the suggestions offered in this book are relatively simple to incorporate into your daily life. You are encouraged to build on the many ways you are already managing stress effectively. Specific goals-setting and action-plan exercises throughout the book help you design concrete lifestyle changes to increase your stress resistance.

Learning Objectives

  1. Describe the stress cycle.
  2. Explain the body-mind interaction to stress.
  3. Define and give examples of direct and palliative coping techniques.
  4. Describe components of wellness and how wellness relates to stress.
  5. Discuss how stress management can affect college students.
  6. Give examples of a specific stressor and a coping response.
  7. Explain the Yerkes-Dodson law.
  8. Complete a personal stress cycle diagram
  9. Describe the fight-or-flight response in terms of the nervous and endocrine system.
  10. Describe several physiological reactions to stress: specifically from the
    • Sympathetic nervous system
    • Utonomic nervous system
    • Reticular formation, and
    • Adrenal medulla
  11. Discuss the helpful and harmful impact of the fight or flight response on the cardiovascular and digestive systems.
  12. Explain the General Adaptation Syndrome.
  13. Define key organs and systems involved in physical stress responses.
  14. Describe the ways stress affects the cardiovascular system.
  15. Explain how stress may lead to various illnesses.
  16. Give examples of stress-related musculoskeletal problems.
  17. Describe how stress interrelates with the immune system.
  18. Discuss the Type A behavior pattern.
  19. Measure personal stress events and abilities to cope using various assessments.
  20. Develop and complete a detailed personal stress log.
  21. Develop and implement a stress management action plan.
  22. Describe several common strategies for coping with stress and their respective benefit and uses.
  23. Explain Lazarus and Folkman’s model of stress and coping.
  24. Define problem orientation.
  25. Describe the key steps in an effective problem-solving process.
  26. Describe steps in the decision-making process.
  27. Outline an action plan for achieving goals.
  28. Define spiritual health in terms of clarifying values.
  29. Develop a semester plan for schoolwork.
  30. Identify obstacles to organization.
  31. Describe effective methods for reducing procrastination and obstacles to organization.
  32. Complete an action plan for using study skills.
  33. Describe the three communication styles and their respective strengths and weaknesses.
  34. Explain how communication influences stress.
  35. List the steps needed for assertive communication.
  36. Practice active listening.
  37. Describe the blood glucose regulation cycle.
  38. Explain and list the basics of good nutrition.
  39. List ways to improve dietary habits.
  40. Discuss and give examples of how food, body image, society and stress are interrelated.
  41. Outline the Food Pyramid.
  42. Describe three direct ways that exercise increases stress resistance.
  43. Explain the role of hormones in exercise and stress reduction.
  44. List and explain recommendations for how often to do what types of exercise.
  45. Design an exercise program to meet basic health and fitness needs.
  46. Cite examples of how each of the five senses bring pleasure and reduce stress.
  47. Explain why optimism, humor and laughter are buffers against stress.
  48. List several external events that can contribute to stress resistance.
  49. Name two stress-reducing activities that increase mindfulness.
  50. Explain where self-talk comes from and describe its positive and negative influences.
  51. Define “awfulizing,” “selective abstraction” and “cognitive restructuring.”
  52. Give an example of an irrational belief and ways to question and change that belief.
  53. Develop an action plan for stress reduction through cognitive intervention.
  54. Define self-esteem and self-concept.
  55. Describe several steps to improving self-esteem.
  56. Explain how to change irrational beliefs.
  57. Explain the relationship between self-esteem and stress management.
  58. Explain how Type A behaviors impact stress and health.
  59. Describe the three elements of hardiness.
  60. Discuss ways to change Type A behavior and to reduce hostility.
  61. Give examples of applying hardiness training to increase stress resistance.
  62. Describe five guidelines for practicing relaxation.
  63. Experience and complete three exercises for relaxation.
  64. Explain how physical activity improves the relaxation response.
  65. Give examples of three mindfulness and breathing activities.
  66. Explain why meditation is a useful stress reduction technique.
  67. Describe four basics of meditation.
  68. Define and describe three types of visualization exercises.
  69. Give examples of positive self-talk.

Course Contents

  1. Chapter 1: What is Stress?
  2. The Fight or Flight Response: Survival of the Most Stressed?
  3. Stress and Health
  4. Stress and Your Life
  5. Coping Strategies and Problem Solving
  6. Time Management Part I: Clarifying Values, Making Decisions and Setting Goals
  7. Time Management Part 2: Organization, Study Skills and Confronting Procrastination
  8. Communication Skills
  9. Nutrition, Health and Stress
  10. Physical Activity and Stress Resistance
  11. The Pleasure Principle
  12. Stress? It Depends on your Point of View
  13. Self-Esteem
  14. Hardiness Revisited
  15. Relaxation Techniques: Decreasing your Physical Stress Reactivity and Increasing Self-Awareness
  16. Meditation and Visualization: It’s the thought that counts

Customer Comments

“I liked the practical exercises throughout the book.. This helped reinforce the learning.

– S.S., RN, CA

“This course was helpful in understanding stress and how to cope with it.”

– D.G., RN, CA

“I took my time with the exercises. I will use them with my clients as well with myself.”

– V.D., RN, CA

“Very informative and practical knowledge.”

– A.L., LPCC, OH

“Very informative for me and for conveyance to my friends.”

– F.E.M., RN, CA

“Very informative and thorough.”

– D.W., RN, NV