A member of Cambridge University Health Partners Coping with stress
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- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- Introduction
- Section A Section B Section C Page 3 Page 7 Page 31 2
- Negative stressful event
- Number of smaller difficulties
- Stressor
| Pride in our care A member of Cambridge University Health Partners Coping with stress Updated August 2017 Introduction Stress is a common experience in modern life. It is our emotional response to demands that are made of us by others, by outside events, or even by ourselves. Feeling over-burdened at work, reacting to a major life event or coping with a difficult situation we were not expecting are some examples of things people report as causing a high level of stress. Humans are good at problem-solving, it is something we engage in without even realising it and short-term ‘stress’ can be healthy as it can help us meet daily challenges and motivate us to reach our goals. Some people are able to accept the inevitability of stress in day-to-day life and resolve it as it arrives. For other people stress is a continuous and intrusive problem and can sometimes be out of proportion to the event. It can reach such high levels that it interferes with everyday life and can disrupt relationships with others. Stress can lead to a feeling of despair and can provoke a strong physical reaction from the body. If stress is prolonged it may even lead to illness. This manual is designed to help you develop a good understanding of stress. It will explain how life style alterations and changing the way you think about things can be used to reduce the stress reaction. It will also describe techniques of relaxation that can be used to reduce the physical symptoms of stress.
Education about stress Introduction What Is stress? Identifying the components of stress Strategies to cope with stress How to cope with daily hassles Time management Being assertive Balancing competing tasks Social support Taking care of yourself Relaxation Summary
Section A Section B Section C Page 3 Page 7 Page 31 2 Section A: Education about stress What is stress? Stress has become a very widely used term, however not everyone agrees on how to define it. Stress consists of: Negative stressful event You may have a single major stressor. This could be a negative stressful event such as receiving a large bill, or having a pressing deadline at work. This is an objectively stressful event, however the way you see the event may have an impact on how much stress it creates. You may perceive this event or situation to be very overwhelming and outside of your control, which would increase the amount of stress which it placed on you.
You may have a number of smaller difficulties which all add up to a large amount of stress. These could be concerns in different areas of your life, such as your children having school difficulties at the same as you having trouble maintaining a relationship. Other things which might build up your stress level could be commuting to work; working/living in a noisy building; work taking place outside your house or having visitors to stay. Stress can be measured to some extent by the amount of changes that have taken place in your life recently. How you react to these changes can have a big impact upon how much stress they create. Stressful life events do not necessarily have to be negative events.
The life change or extra demand, which causes problems Perception How you view ‘the stressor’, and see it as relating to you Response The way your body, behaviour and thinking patterns change 3 Some examples of potentially stressful life events are: Getting married • Moving house • Christmas • Retirement • Starting a new job • When stress becomes a recurring problem in people’s lives other areas suffer as well. With constant stress looking after your physical health becomes less of a priority. Less time can be found to take regular exercise or enjoy sports and activities that you may otherwise have become involved in. In an attempt to reduce stress people often indulge in things such as alcohol, smoking, drinking large amounts of coffee or eating fast foods; which can be bad for our health and effect us physically. When stress becomes such a large part of our lives it can change the way we think about ourselves; the world in general and our future and we start to view these three areas in a more negative way,. This in turn adds to our stress. If the cause of our stress appears to be inescapable then our future can seem very difficult and further stress will seem unavoidable and indeed, never ending.
Having less physical and mental resources to draw upon due to the effects of stress, means that your emotional state can become more erratic. You may find that you become tearful when you would otherwise have been able to cope. Emotional reactions to events and situations may be more extreme if you are suffering from stress. Things that would have made you slightly anxious or upset now seem to cause great anxiety or deep sadness. Think about the past year, what were the three most stressful events in your life? Make a note of these stressors in the box below and in the column record whether they were major causes of stress, smaller repeated difficulties that were adding to your stress, or a positive event that you also found stressful. 1. 2.
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