Stress Management and Its Challenges - Research Paper Example

? STRESS MANAGEMENT Lecturer Stress management Introduction Stress management is a broad spectrum of psychotherapies and techniques that seek to control the level of stress of a person, especially chronic stress, often for reasons of improving their day to day functioning. Stress in this context refers to an emotional reaction with a negative impact. Stress is associated with numerous symptoms and these vary depending on individuals, severity, and situations. This may include decline in physical health and depression. Stress management process is pivotal to a successful and happy life in today’s society. Even though life offers multiple demands that at some point may be tough to manage, stress management provides numerous means of managing anxiety and maintain well-being of people. Although stress is usually thought of as an experience that is subjective in nature, stress level are actually measurable through the use of physiological tests such as the ones used in polygraphs (Lazarus & Folkman, 2008). Various techniques of stress management are available; some for self help while other for use by health professionals, which in turn may help people to limit stress and provide optimistic feelings of putting life situations under control, as well as promote the state of general well-being. This paper seeks to discuss stress management through different stress management techniques and tools. Stress is a feeling or condition experienced when demands exceed social and personal resources a person is able to mobilize. People feel stress when they have experience, time and resources to handle a situation, however, stress becomes undesirable when people cannot manage the demands that are put on them. Stress is hence a negative feeling. It is, unfortunately, an inevitable as an event consequence. It greatly depends on the perception people have on a situation and their actual ability to handle and cope with such situations. Stress can cause marginal and severe health related problems, and ultimately death in extreme cases. Although most stress management techniques and tools have previously shown positive impacts on minimizing stress, there only serve as guidance, and therefore readers are highly advised to seek help from highly qualified health professionals in case of their stress is causing them persistent or significant unhappiness or severe stress related illness (Elkin, 2001). The efficacy of various techniques and tools of managing stress may be hard to examine. This is because few of such techniques receive concrete attention from scholars. Subsequently, the quality and amount of evidence for the various tools and techniques widely vary. Some of them are accepted as effective treatments in psychotherapy use, and others have limited evidence that favor them. For this reason, there are many professional organizations that seek to provide and promote training in alternative or conventional therapies. There are numerous models of managing stress, each with a unique mechanism of controlling and limiting stress level. More research is, however, necessary in order to provide much better understanding of which the mechanisms of these stress management techniques operate and effective practically (Sedgeman, 2005). In order to address stress management, the process needs an all inclusive and participation process of all the victims. People in need of managing stress are then supposed to be put into groups of less than ten and given presentations via PowerPoint presentations and handouts given for reference. This will help them in understanding and mastery of stress management tools and techniques that is suitable for stressful situations (Davis, 2000). It is also important to discuss the technique of managing stress before applying it for practice. Sources of stress should also be highlighted so that people are aware of the origin of what they are dealing with. This will ensure that such stressful situations are avoided. The stress management tool that is effective for managing stress is a SWOT analysis of stress (Greene, 2001). SWOT technique of managing stress is an important tool because it helps the victims to do the following: Understand the sources of short term stress in their lives Understand the long term sources of stress in their lives Make the best use of available resources around them to handle their stressful situations Plan and manage stress Identify stress management technique that will help them handle their stressful situation according to their capacity As mentioned earlier, it is important to manage stress in groups. Through these groups, the people involved then identify their strengths that they feel they have during a stressful situation that could help them manage their stress. They do the same to their weaknesses, opportunities, and threats both in groups and at individual level (Hackman, 2002). In these groups, the member groups are then involved in participation by identifying and writing down the following: Their individual and group strengths; this will include things that they feel they are good at as a group or as an individual, their areas of expertise. Their individual and support network such as friends, family, government services, professional and powerful contacts. The resources they can draw as individuals and as a group such as money, power or assets The group members are then supposed to individually work through their stress diary and go through the times that they managed well their stresses and note the practical skills they used. This will include the times they managed intense stresses successfully. These will serve as their strengths in managing their stress. Another list that the group members need to work on individually are their limitations and weaknesses in their position (Hackman, 2002). This will include things like: Group and personal weaknesses; this will consist of areas where they know they are weak in and where people fairly criticize them. Lack of and inadequate resources; this includes situations where other people at the same level can access resources and where absence of such resources impact negatively on them. Bad situations: including where they experience problems with their relationships or poor environment. The groups then try to rationally challenge these weaknesses in order to assess if they are genuine and fair. The group then works again through their stress diaries and reflect on the times where they did not manage to handle their stresses well and identify places of difficulty in managing their stress. They then note what they think was the cause of poorly handling the stress. Through cataloging these, they will be identifying areas where they could possible change in their lives and develop new skills. In the next level, the group then identifies and brainstorms the possible opportunities they think are available to them. Through this, the group is involved by asking them to work through their strengths they previously identified and ask themselves how their identified strengths could help them manage their strengths. The group then needs to work through the weaknesses they identified. As these are their opportunities to change positively and develop new skills. Under the section of threat in the SWOT stress management tool, the group should then consider the impacts and consequences of not covering their weaknesses. Considerations should also be made to the kind of damage that will be done to their relationships with others, their happiness and studies if they fail to manage their stress. These will be the threats to their stressful situations and will stir them to manage stress effectively (Elkin, 2001). Eventually, the SWOT stress management technique requires that the efficacy of the tool be assessed. This will help the group determine whether they got the content and intent of the technique. In order to assess the efficacy of SWOT stress management tool, the groups can try to reflect on what they have gone through as illustrated in the stress management tool discussed. They then need to write down things like: their time management skills; create a to-do list in case of stress; avoid procrastination; how to develop self discipline; their daily schedule; how they organize their tasks and schedule the same. In addition, the groups need to carry out another SWOT Analysis of their past stressful situation. This will determine if the group has mastered the objective and function of the SWOT technique of stress management (Davis, 2000). Stress SWOT Analysis helps people individually and in groups to understand their unique stressful positions. Through examining their strengths, individuals will ensure that they recognize all their personal strengths, resources, skills, and social networks that can help them manage their stress. Through looking at their weaknesses, they will be able to identify specific areas where they need to change and develop new skills. The opportunities enable people to better see how they could take advantage of their strengths in order to manage their stress effectively. The threats will help the victims to realize the negative impacts of poorly managing stress, and this will be their source of motivation. Although many stress management techniques have been developed traditionally in order to deal with the impacts of stress, considerable studies have been conducted too on stress prevention. There are also a number of approaches of self help mechanisms to resilience building and stress prevention that have been developed. These have generally drawn on the practice and theory of cognitive behavioral therapy. As mentioned earlier, stress levels can be measured through psychological testing: Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale. Changes in the pressure of the blood and the response of galvanic skin can also be measured in order to test the level of stress, as well as changes in the level of stress. A digital thermometer may be used in evaluating skin temperature changes indicating activation of fight or flight response that draws away blood from the extremities. When the level of stress is known, it is then easier to apply techniques of stress management in order to limit stress levels. Stress management has both immune and physiological benefits. Positive outcomes can be observed by a combination of interventions of non-drugs: autogenic training, treatment of hostility or anger, biofeedback, talking therapy, and cognitive therapy for clinical depression or anxiety (Lehrer et al, 2007). Conclusion In summary, it is important to ensure that stress is effectively managed. In case of failure to manage stress, it can lead to backache, headache, neck ache, stomach ache, clenched jaw, tight muscles, low energy level, trouble sleeping, feelings of anxiety, anger, helplessness and depression, intense emotional signs such as easily irritated, forgetful, and impatient. Individuals therefore need to reduce stress levels in order to avoid the mentioned feelings and actions. The discussed stress management tool demands that in order to manage stress well, one needs to get away from stressor and develop new habits in order to remove individuals from stressor or at least distract them from the stressors. Change is something inevitable and even though people may resist change, it is important to distract yourself from your normal activities. This limits chances of stress resulting from boredom of repeating same activities every day. It may be difficult to change stressful circumstances, but at least we can reduce or change our exposure to such circumstances associated with stress. The stress management techniques discussed in this paper are based on simple principle of reflection and identifying your strengths and weaknesses, then working on them to limit stress and managing its impacts effectively. The techniques will, however, not change individual situations that cause stress, but will enable individuals to change the manner in which they handle these stressful situations (Bower & Segerstrom, 2004). References Bower, J. E. & Segerstrom, S.C. (2004). Stress management, finding benefit, and immune function: positive mechanisms for intervention effects on physiology. Journal of Psychosomatic Research 56 (1): 9–11. Davis, M. (2000). The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook, New Harbinger, Oakland, California, USA. Elkin, A. (2001). Stress Management for Dummies, Hungry Minds, New York, USA. Greene, D. (2001). Fight Your Fear and Win, Random House, New York. Hackman, J. (2002). Leading Teams – Setting the Stage for Great Performances, Harvard University Press, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Lazarus, R.S., & Folkman, S. (2008). Stress, Appraisal and Coping. New York: Springer. Lehrer, P. M. et al. (2007). Principles and Practice of Stress Management, London: Prentice Hall. Sedgeman, J.A. (2005). Health Realization/Innate Health: Can a quiet mind and a positive feeling state be accessible over the lifespan without stress-relief techniques? Med. Sci. Monitor 11(12) 47-52. Read More