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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

‘Stress CPR’ Developing Personal Resilience Managing Negative Stress Workbook - Dave Algeo, Stress(ed) Guru © Algeo Training Limited March 2015 "1 dave@stressedguru.com

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

How to use this workbook This workbook is intended to be a practical support to those wishing to get to grips with negative stress, develop greater personal resilience and improve well-being.

Some of you may be accessing this resource following attending one of the Stress(ed) Guru workshops. You will find this supports the workshop content and provides more useful information tools, tips and support. If you haven’t attended a workshop, don’t worry, this workbook is a great place to start putting stress in its place.

The workbook provides you with an understanding of what stress is and is not, why it can become a problem for us, how to spot when we might be struggling and then provides the strategies and tools to deal with it.

There are reflective exercises throughout the workbook, designed to encourage thinking and action on your part. You might want to reflect on these with someone you know and trust to get that different view-point too.

The resources in the Member area, support the content in this workbook so check them out.

If you have any other questions, drop me a line and I will do my best to help you: dave@ stressedguru.com.

In the meantime, all the best with improving your health and reducing stress in your life.

Dave Algeo, StressedGuru

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

Contents

4 6 7 Introduction

Whatdoesit foryou?

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The‘mustknow’stressfacts.

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

Introduction.

I have so much I want to do and achieve in my life. I also want to enjoy the here and now, nurture and appreciate the relationships in my life and have fun.

The trouble is, I find that stress just gets in the way. The day to day demands of life and my own self-imposed pressures and expectations distract and absorb me, diverting my attention from what really matters.

Hold on though. I’m a so called expert on stress management aren’t I? Maybe, but I’m also human and I find myself falling for the seductive charm of stress quite regularly. The difference, however, is that I have learned to recognise when this happens a lot sooner than I used to. This gives me the opportunity to then return to the tools and strategies contained in this workbook. And, believe me I do. On a daily basis, these tools help me take care of myself, and keep stress in its place.

It wasn’t always like that for me. I have spent years enduring the crushing experience of anxiety. Despite having, on the face of it, a great life with lots of potential - secure job, great career prospects, lovely home and family, I still felt crushed. I had no idea why. I didn’t have a clue that things could be different.

As a perfectionist I approached life with utter self control, complete drive towards being the perfect… father, police officer, whatever. I spent my life in ‘it’ll be better when.. I get promoted, we get that house, we pay off that loan,’ and so on.

I had no idea who I was. I wasn't even sure there was an ‘I’ in the first place. I was trapped in a persona of my own creation.

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

A number of things led to significant change in me.

One was my then, seven year old son saying to his mother, ‘Mam, Dad’s in a bad mood again, isn’t he?’ it was the ‘again,’ that got me.

I realised, that I was and had been in a bad mood for pretty much my son’s whole life.

I had also started to notice a quiet but insistent yearning inside me. I had tried for so long to quash it, but it grew more and more insistent. Something inside me wanted more. Something inside me was asking, ‘is this it? Is this all there is? Just years more of this soul crushing life?’ Something inside me was urging me to release the steel like self-control on my emotions. I was acting human, but not being human.

It started to dawn on me, that I was only doing half of this ‘human being’ thing.

And so began my work to free myself of the anxiety, the stress and the self-destructive mindsets. It has taken years, to finally say I am, on the whole, free from the crippling aspects of my mindsets.

This workbook, I hope, will be to you a resource to help you find more of yourself in this hectic world, enjoy more of your day to day life and believe that you can and that you deserve to be free and happy.

I’m also confident, that if you take the knowledge and tools here, and adopt a self-development mindset (there’s some amazing ‘stuff’ out there), you really won’t take as long as I have to find your place in the world.

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

What does it for you?

What gets you stressed?

Write down everything that you feel adds stress to your life:

First things first. Before looking at what stress is and is not, let’s start the process of identifying and writing down what is creating stress for you. So complete the following exercise - http://bit.ly/whatdoesitforyou to save printing out the whole workbook. Alternately grab some paper and pen and get started:

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

The must know stress facts In order to keep this workbook focused on what we can do about stress rather than digging deep into fully understanding what is stress, the following are the top 10 ‘must know stress facts.’ In the Member Area you will find a further reading list should you want to dig deeper into the science and psychology of stress. For now, let’s equip ourselves with the essentials:

Think Stress Response The word ‘stress’ has come to mean so many different things to different people anxiety, weakness, soft and fluffy, an excuse….

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When looking to manage our stress levels, let’s think in terms of the things that cause the activation of the ‘stress response’ within us; the ‘stress response’ itself (explained ahead); and the consequences of that response.

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

It’s all about SURVIVAL.

Our stress response has evolved as a survival mechanism.

Our senses transmit information about a situation to our mind, which then has to decide;

“Am I safe or under threat?”

If the decision is ‘under threat,’ the mind activates the ‘fight or flight’ response. This then equips the body to proceed with that course of action.

It can occur in an instant, often before we are even consciously aware that there is a threat present. It's about gearing up to deal with the threat in order to survive, and then restoring us to our former (unstressed) state, once the threat has abated.

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

Am I safe or under threat?

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Immediate Threats.

Some dangers and threats are immediate. Back in the day, when we were living in caves, hunting and foraging for food to live, our bodies evolved to handle the various threats we encountered. Upon realising that we were in the presence of a dangerous predator, say a sabre-toothed tiger, the stress response was immediate and all-consuming.

Our breathing and heart rates soared, our adrenaline pumped, and all our attention and energy becomes focused on our immediate survival.

This is an example of the acute stress response - a big reaction for a big threat, to be maintained for a short time.

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

A big reaction for a big threat.

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Anticipating Threats.

Our stress response can be activated in ANTICIPATION of a future threat or challenge Whilst the stress response itself has not greatly changed, what we deem a threat has.

Thanks to our mind’s ability to recall past events and think about future possibilities, we are capable of activating our stress response when simply imagining a threatening situation.

So we can worry about a threat that might occur tomorrow, next week, or next month, and subsequently activate our stress response.

Remember, the situation need not be life-threatening for our mind to perceive a threat and activate the response.

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

Chronic Stress.

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

Some dangers and threats last over the longer term. Back to the caveman. In addition to sabre-toothed tigers, there were other threats to survival. There were periods of hunger, competition for scarce resources, hostile environments, and a host of other daily physical challenges. Our bodies also used the stress response to adapt to these long-term threats. When food was scarce, our metabolism and other bodily functions would slow down so our continued survival required less food.

This is an example of the ‘chronic stress’ response. It is our body's way of surviving those longer term threats or challenges.

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

What does it for you?

What may create stress for one person may not for another.

Take Christmas as an example. For some it’s a non-event. For others it’s a wonderful time for celebration, relaxation and reflection. For yet others, it is an incredibly stressful time that begins with the annual ritual of untangling the tree lights and ends only after the last straggling relative has gone home for another year.

How can this be? Christmas is Christmas isn’t it? Well, the day itself, the 25th of December, is the same for everyone.

However the values, customs, social beliefs, and past experiences that we bring to a situation determine its effect on us. This is where our individual make-up can leads to our differing responses. Hence you will find you share some common causes of stress with others, whilst, no doubt, having your own unique stressors.

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

Stress is not the problem.

STRESS IS NOT THE PROBLEM Our stress response in itself is NOT the problem.

There is actually a positive purpose for stress, when used and managed properly. The stress response is activated as a result of our brain perceiving a need for action.

The stress response engages our body, and we get moving. When the alarm goes off in the morning, it is the stress response that get’s us up and out of bed.

Stress is not the problem.

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

Today, we may not face sabre-toothed tigers, but we do face plenty of demands. In fact that’s all the sabre-toothed tiger was back then - a demand. Something requiring all our attention, focus and action. And it is our sense of control over those demands which dictates the level of our stress response.

It is our appraisal of our ability to cope or handle the situation that will govern our response. This appraisal (can I deal with this?), is based on factors such as my skills, knowledge, resources available to me, strength and so on. It is also dependent upon more psychological factors such as my belief in whether I can handle it, my past experiences in dealing with this or similar situations, and my confidence levels.

As a result, it is our appraisal that will dictate whether we see the stressor as a threat (something which could damage us), or a challenge (something to which we can rise, meet and overcome).

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

Can I handle this?

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

The

r o f d e e n

? t r o supp Throughout our evolution, we have found that supporting and protecting each other is a valuable survival strategy.

Today is no different. Granted some of us tend to be more ‘outgoing’ and ‘social’ than others, but we all need a level of support from others.

The irony of stress is that many of us tend to keep it to ourselves, not wishing to appear weak and not wanting to put upon others.

Research suggests that when we are facing high demands and a lower sense of control, a lack of support can make the situation far more damaging.

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The consequences The stress response evolved to help us out of sticky situations, but it was meant to be turned on for short periods of time when needed, then turned off.

However, if the stress response turns into chronic stress, it can contribute to the development of serious physical conditions such as hypertension, heart disease, stomach problems and even cancer. It can also lead to psychological issues such as clinical depression, anxiety and panic disorders.

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

Spotting When Stress Becomes A Problem Having an overview of the ‘must know stress facts,’ we can now move into what we can do when stress becomes a problem. It has evolved to be a valuable survival mechanism. However, it can become a problem for us if we find ourselves overwhelmed or overloaded.

‘Overload’ or ‘Overwhelm?’

When we experience the strain of too many demands and too little control, we need to act.

However, a lot of effective ‘stress management’ relies on getting ourselves into a more rational, calmer state. These can be incredibly effective. The trouble is, we often try to apply these when the stress levels are at ‘critical.’ Therefore, we need to distinguish between the terms ‘overload’ and ‘overwhelm.’ This will help us identify what kind of tactics are most appropriate.

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

Overload.

I’m using this word to describe the ‘in the moment’ experience when the demands become so much we lose the capacity to think rationally and cope effectively.

In stress terms ‘overwhelm’ refers to the buckling process. In other words, we buckle under the strain of the demands in that moment (this can be physical or psychological - panic attack, unable to think or articulate thoughts clearly). At times like this, all rational thinking goes out of the window. We resort to simple, basic survival tactics - anger, fear and other emotions.

This is where the first three ‘preparatory’ Stress CPR steps become vital.

We deal need to deal with ‘overwhelm’ (using the ‘preparatory steps’) before we can get to grips with the underlying core problem - the ‘overload’ and the reasons for it (‘Stress CPR’).

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Workbook - Developing Personal Resilience, Managing Negative Stress

Overwhelm.

This term relates to the ongoing state of carrying more than we are routinely capable of carrying over longer periods of time.

Don’t get me wrong, pushing ourselves, whether physically or psychologically, in order to grow, will inevitably involve some controlled overloading. This is positive.

Under these circumstances, overload is likely to be short term and allow time for recovery and adaptation.

The trouble is, we often take on so many demands over time that we can become exhausted more easily. And, since we have so many demands on the go, we often ditch the very thing we need to help us cope with those demands - quality rest and recovery time.

That’s where the second three steps of ‘Stress CPR’ become all important.

Overall, negative stress can hit us in the moment and leave us feeling like we are drowning and unable to cope (Overwhelm), and grind us down over time with excessive demands and reduced control (Overload).

We will look at the tactics to deal with these shortly, however, before we can apply these tactics, we need to learn to recognise when we become overwhelmed and overloaded.

We need to spot the warning signs.

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The Warning Signs.

Thankfully when we start to experience more negative stress, there are some give away signs. The trouble is we can often be so distracted by the demands of the moment that we fail to spot them. In other words, we can become too stressed to spot we are too stressed.

The key to overcoming this problem is to reflect on those warning signs at times when the pressure isn’t at those levels and identify some ‘red flag’ warning signs. those are the signs that you, or trusted others, are most likely to notice. It is about recognising these in advance, tuning in to them and being alert to them.

What are the warning signs? Well, we can be pretty unique in our responses, but we tend to share some common ones too.

Whatever the warning sign they do tend to fall into the following categories - behavioural (our actions), physical,, thoughts and feelings (see next page for some common examples in each of these areas).

Over to you...

Using the questions in the exercise ahead (after the examples page), reflect on what your primary stress warning signs are. Grab some paper and a pen and jot down your thoughts or link to the worksheet here - xxxx - to print out the exercise sheet without printing out the whole work-book.

Identify your ‘Stress Warning Signs’ Use the boxes below to reflect on your own warning signs. In other words, how does negative or overwhelming stress affect you? it can be valuable to ask a trusted friend or loved one for their thoughts too.

Physical signs What does negative stress do to you physically?

Behavioural signs How does negative stress change how you act of behave?

Emotional signs What does negative stress do to you emotionally?

Cognitive signs What does negative stress do to your thinking?

My top 3 stress warning signs Reflect on your notes in the four boxes above and identify the three most noticeable signs?

Overload.