Coping with Stress

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MTL: The Professional Development Programme
Coping With Stress
COPING WITH STRESS
Don’t chain yourself to crutches; set yourself free

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Coping With Stress
Attribution: All images are from sources where a Creative Commons license exists for commercial use. All icons are on subscription
from thenounproject. All clipart is from free sources. The MTL Professional Development Programme is copyright of Manage Train
Learn.
Coping with
Stress
Introduction: Many of us fool ourselves into believing that we are coping with stress
when we are not. An effective stress management programme doesn’t just deal with
stress when it crops up. It is an integral part of how we work and live. Here are 7 aspects
to coping with stress.

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Coping With Stress
1. THE
ROLLER-
COASTER
RIDE
There are some people in high-pressure jobs who
thrive on stress. They love the excitement and
unpredictability of it. They even become
addicted to the adrenalin it creates. For such
people work is like a roller-coaster ride and their
chief problem is not how to cope with the
pressure but how to manage when the ride
stops.
The adrenalin fix
Flickr attribution: /kapkap/516838605/

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Coping With Stress
Alcohol
According to the World Health Organisation
between 1% and 10% of the world's population
can be described as alcoholic. 20% of all male
admissions to hospital relate to drink. In France,
it is the cause of 10% of all deaths.
Alcohol is a widely-used crutch for those who suffer from stress. Current evidence suggests
that the amount of alcohol consumed world-wide is on the increase.
But alcohol is dangerous:
within 30 seconds of drinking, alcohol
affects the brain
a small amount of alcohol will quickly
affect the part of the brain that controls
inhibition
alcohol distorts the way we link sensory
inputs and muscular function. Although
we think we can talk better or drive a car
better with drink, we cannot.
judgment is seriously impaired.

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Coping With Stress
2. YOUR
NORMAL
RESPONSE
Understanding your normal way of handling
stress can provide insight into how well you are
coping. Temporary adaptive behaviour is a way
of dealing with stress which avoids facing up to it
by reacting aggressively or evasively.
Maladaptive behaviour does not recognize the
stress or its causes. It includes blotting it out with
harmful crutches. Adaptive behaviour is the
healthy response to stress. It is a recognition that
you have to change yourself in order to deal with
it.
Blotting it out with a daily crutch
Flickr attribution: /42843806@N00/8205886029/

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Coping With Stress
Up in Smoke
Tobacco is perhaps the most widely-used crutch
for people suffering from stress, anxiety and
worry. Although generally recognised now for its
negative effects on health, smoking is on the
increase amongst the young and women.
The list of diseases associated with smoking
seems to grow annually. These include
respiratory diseases, such as lung cancer, asthma
and bronchitis; circulatory problems, such as
raised blood pressure, arterial blockages and
strokes; stomach disorders, such as ulcers,
gastritis and indigestion; and mouth and throat
troubles from sinusitis to catarrh.
Smoking is directly related to 100,000 premature
deaths in the UK each year. In the USA, the figure
is 480,000. The Surgeon General in the USA
describes smoking as "the most lethal instrument
ever devised by man for peaceful use".
In the USA, smoking is responsible for 1
in 5 deaths. For every one person who
dies from smoking, about 30 more suffer
from at least one serious tobacco-related
illness.

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Coping With Stress
3. UNHELPFUL
CRUTCHES
If you are hooked on adrenaline, there’s a good
chance you use crutches to get you through.
These crutches include artificial stimulants, such
as drink, drugs and cigarettes and mixing with
others who are as hooked as you are. Before
beginning your personal stress management
programme, you need to lessen your reliance on
these unhelpful supports.
In a stupor with drugs
Flickr attribution: /jmikedimayuga/21491993598/

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Coping With Stress
Tranquillizers
Tranquillizers and sleeping pills are crutches
which are widely used by those who suffer from
stress. Because they are prescribed drugs, they
have the status of being more acceptable than
illegal drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
However, they are highly addictive. It is reckoned
that in the UK there are more than 3 million
people addicted to the tranquillisers Vallium,
Librium and Ativan - which are also known under
the chemical names of diazepam,
chlordiazepoxide and lorazepam - and sleeping
tablets such as Mogadon, or nitrazepam.
It is not just their addictive nature which makes
these drugs unacceptable crutches to people
facing stress. They also have worrying side effects
such as serious memory loss, depression, anxiety
and confusion. They thus cause the very thing
they are supposed to alleviate.
Every year, over 60 million prescriptions are written by American doctors forValium
and other similar-acting tranquilizers.
Did you
know?

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Coping With Stress
4. MALE AND
FEMALE
RESPONSES
The genders handle stress in quite different
ways. When a man is under stress, he suspends
the communicating functions in the left side of
his brain and seeks solutions in the right side of
his brain where his creative thinking cells are
found. When a woman is under stress, she finds
it easier to share her problems with others
because, unlike a man, her speech functions are
located in both the right and left sides of the
brain. So, if your normal responses to stress
aren’t working, be willing to learn from the
opposite sex.
Why men can’t talk and women do
Flickr attribution: /surreynews/14542140784/

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Coping With Stress
The 10 Stress Commandments
1
Thou shalt not be perfect,
nor even try to be.
2
Thou shalt not try to be
all things to all people.
3
Thou shalt leave things
undone that ought to be
done.
4
Thou shalt not spread
thyself too thinly.
10
Especially, thou shalt be
thine own best friend.
5
Thou shalt learn to say
"No".
9
Thou shalt never feel
guilty.
8
Thou shalt be boring,
untidy, inelegant and
inattentive at times.
7
Thou shalt switch off and
do nothing regularly.
6
Thou shalt schedule time
for thyself.
THE 10 STRESS
COMMANDMENTS
Patricia Ellis discovered the following Ten Stress Commandments on a doctor's surgery wall in New Zealand.

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Coping With Stress
5. YOUR
LEVEL OF
PRESSURE
Stress management programmes are not about
the complete elimination of stress. That is
neither possible nor desirable. You always need
some level of pressure in your life to motivate
you to do the things you have to do. Your
personal stress programme is about finding the
right level of pressure in your life at work and
home: enough to motivate you into doing work
from which you can derive personal satisfaction;
not too much that you feel swamped.
Letting off steam

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Coping With Stress
6. STRESS-
HARDINESS
Suzanne Kobasa carried out a retrospective study
of middle and upper-level managers. These were
prime candidates for high stress levels but they
demonstrated very little stress. Kobasa found 3
common characteristics amongst these
managers. They felt in control of their lives. They
were committed to the idea of who they were
and what they were doing. They believed in
change as the normal way of life. Kobasa called
them the "stress-hardy" personalities.
Under pressure
Flickr attribution: /psc49/14067842786/

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Coping With Stress
Managing Stress
Stress management techniques can be applied to four different levels of stress. These are:
3. MASTERING
STRESS
When we master stress,
we adopt a technique
such as relaxation and
add it on to our lifestyle.
Then when the signs of
stress arise, we are able
to contain them by
applying one or more
technique.
2. COPING
When we are just coping
with stress, we are likely
to be simply reacting to
the problem rather than
on top of it. Remedies
may work but the causes
will remain.
4.
EXTRAORDINARY
HEALTH AND
PERFORMANCE
Only by living in life-
enhancing ways can we
attain a level of positive
and highly
accomplishing personal
performance.
1. DISTRESS
When we are in distress,
we are close to clinical
levels of depression. If
this is only occasional or
transitory, then aspects
of stress management
may be valuable.
Otherwise, medical help
should be sought.

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Coping With Stress
7. A HOLISTIC
PLAN
A holistic stress management plan is one that
deals with all parts of your life: it deals with both
short-term and long-term stress; it encompasses
all states of the body, mind, heart and spirit; and
each part works with every other part. When you
create such a way of living, you don’t just
manage your stress; you create super-health.
Body, heart, and soul

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Coping With Stress
Be a Whole Person
"There has been much change over the past few
centuries - some of which has been good. One of the
consequences of this progress has been the speeding
up of the pace of life to a level never before
experienced. As a consequence, we are very much out
of touch with our own nature.
We, in the Western world, live in a society that does
not honour the seasonal nature of life with its cycle of
growth and decline, death and rebirth. Society often
only measures achievement in terms of end products
and defines success in terms of possessions. We no
longer value the intangible aspects of life and
community.
We constantly strive for happiness outside ourselves,
often consuming endlessly to fill the emptiness. This
imbalance can lead to people feeling cut off from their
real nature and causes much distress. To be a whole
person, we need to be in touch with all aspects of our
being: body, mind, emotions and spirit." (Dolores
Whelan)
Flickr attribution: /d_pham/8875449040/

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Coping With Stress
This has been a Slide Topic from Manage Train Learn
AFinal
Word
Nobody in the modern world should feel they have to "cope" with stress. Coping means just
getting by or getting by with the support of crutches that are only temporary or harmful. When we
know so much about the nature of stress, there is only one way of coping: and that is with a
personal stress-defeating management plan.

Coping with Stress

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