facilitating personal growth
COACH'S TIPS
Mastering Stress: Part I
How Are You Managing?
by Carol A. Henry
If there is one word that characterizes today's world, it's stress: job stress, role stress, stressful relationships, life stress! The primary sources of stress in our lives are:
; external events
; conflicts in relationships
; internal pressures and expectations
; life crises
Often, the events themselves are not as important in determining stress levels as our emotional reaction to them. In fact, stress is more than just an event; it consists of the event (called the stressor), plus how we feel about the situation, how we interpret it, and what we do to cope with it. Both positive and negative events can be stressful, because both require change and adaptation. How much stress we experience depends on how much adaptation the situation requires. Marriage requires as much change and adjustment as divorce, a job promotion, and almost as much as job loss.
Managing Stress
Stress management is a juggling act; most people can handle one or two sources of stress well, perhaps even three. Effectively coping with stress can cause an exhiliaration known as eustress. But when there are too many stressors, or they contiue for too long, you can begin to experience distress.
This occurs when:
; you don't feel in control
; you see few or no options for handling the situation
; stress is prolonged
; there are too many simultaneous stressors
Extended periods of distress leave you vulnerable to infection, physical illness and disease.
How Are You Managing?
by Carol A. Henry
If there is one word that characterizes today's world, it's stress: job stress, role stress, stressful relationships, life stress! The primary sources of stress in our lives are:
; external events
; conflicts in relationships
; internal pressures and expectations
; life crises
Often, the events themselves are not as important in determining stress levels as our emotional reaction to them. In fact, stress is more than just an event; it consists of the event (called the stressor), plus how we feel about the situation, how we interpret it, and what we do to cope with it. Both positive and negative events can be stressful, because both require change and adaptation. How much stress we experience depends on how much adaptation the situation requires. Marriage requires as much change and adjustment as divorce, a job promotion, and almost as much as job loss.
Managing Stress
Stress management is a juggling act; most people can handle one or two sources of stress well, perhaps even three. Effectively coping with stress can cause an exhiliaration known as eustress. But when there are too many stressors, or they contiue for too long, you can begin to experience distress.
This occurs when:
; you don't feel in control
; you see few or no options for handling the situation
; stress is prolonged
; there are too many simultaneous stressors
Extended periods of distress leave you vulnerable to infection, physical illness and disease.
Addicted to Stress?
Stress can be addictive in much the same way as alcohol, caffeine or nicotine. Stress created by power, ambition, and over-achievement can create a rush of adrenaline that is difficult to resist.
Stress-seeking people are characterized by:
; procrastination
; inability to relax
; head-on confrontation of problems
; dogged commitment to self-improvement
; risk-taking nonconformist attitudes
; a need for social contact
; becoming easily bored
; thriving on deadlines
There are also those people who seem to be "stress carriers": they don't have ulcers, they give them!
Stress-inducing managers, for instance... pile on the work and fail to give adequate directions; demand immediate answers; pull employees off one project to work on others; set unrealistically high goals to try to make employees work harder.
Stress can be addictive in much the same way as alcohol, caffeine or nicotine. Stress created by power, ambition, and over-achievement can create a rush of adrenaline that is difficult to resist.
Stress-seeking people are characterized by:
; procrastination
; inability to relax
; head-on confrontation of problems
; dogged commitment to self-improvement
; risk-taking nonconformist attitudes
; a need for social contact
; becoming easily bored
; thriving on deadlines
There are also those people who seem to be "stress carriers": they don't have ulcers, they give them!
Stress-inducing managers, for instance... pile on the work and fail to give adequate directions; demand immediate answers; pull employees off one project to work on others; set unrealistically high goals to try to make employees work harder.
Carol A. Henry • 3401 Bristol Road • Fort Worth TX • 76107
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© Carol A. Henry 2010 - Some rights reserved
Carol A. Henry owns all the rights to this material. This document and any part of it may not be republished, repackaged, and/or distributed in any way or for any purposes without express and prior written consent from Carol A. Henry or her legal representation.
You may, with the following credit, distribute this 100% unchanged article to your blog, website, or forum, or email list, providing you do not charge anything for this free information:
Carol A. Henry, LPC, LMFT
Carol serves clients in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where she works with individuals, couples, and families. She has facilitated training workshops for businesses, consciousness groups, as well as area recovery and church groups. Her counseling services include web-enabled video counseling. More information: www.carolahenry.com
Carol A. Henry owns all the rights to this material. This document and any part of it may not be republished, repackaged, and/or distributed in any way or for any purposes without express and prior written consent from Carol A. Henry or her legal representation.
You may, with the following credit, distribute this 100% unchanged article to your blog, website, or forum, or email list, providing you do not charge anything for this free information:
Carol A. Henry, LPC, LMFT
Carol serves clients in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where she works with individuals, couples, and families. She has facilitated training workshops for businesses, consciousness groups, as well as area recovery and church groups. Her counseling services include web-enabled video counseling. More information: www.carolahenry.com