Stress Management Approaches - Term Paper Example

? Stress Management Stress management approaches can be either biological or psychological with the aim of lessening the negative effects brought about by stress. Stress has been known to have major impacts on the person involved although some positive effects do surface because of stress; the most worrying are the negative. This is due to the impact that it has on the affected person and in extreme cases, it could lead to suicide, murder or physical harm to themselves and or others. The biological approach to stress management basically tries to control how the body responds to stress through reducing one’s psychological activity and the best biological method that is well known and accepted to manage stress is drug therapy. The anxiolytics as they are now known, after the name being changes from minor tranquilizers, work by reducing heightened psychological activity at the same trying ensuring that they do not induce tiredness. Once the brain records a drop of the level of excitation due to the effect of suppressed chemicals that excite the neurons in the brain, then the affected person feels calmer. Anti-depressants have been used for a long time to manage stress but the beta-blockers are now becoming more popular as an alternative to the anti-depressants. As compared to the anxiolytics, these drugs do not alter the chemical balance in the brain but instead reduce the psychological activity therefore lowering increased heart rate and blood pressure. Hence adrenalin cannot speed up the psychological activity when the affected person experiences stress therefore initiating a fight or flight response as is typical in human beings. The anxiolytic drugs have an advantage that is they are very effective and work with great speed to relieve a person from the stress that he is going through. If the stress is short term then the use of these drugs is justified but on long term, it might not be recommended. These drugs are also pocket friendly, that is, affordable as compared to the psychological approaches to that are used to manage stress. They are easily accessible through prescription as compared to psychological approaches, which are not so available. The psychological approaches require that one makes time while the drugs can just be taken and one waits for the change in psychological activity (Cardwell and Flanagan, 2003). On the other hand, the drugs have some drawbacks associated with them; one of them being the side effects that they carry, these include being dizzy, feeling drowsy, decrease in alertness and lethargy. In the long term, they are not recommended as some can lead to drug addiction with the individual being physically dependent and tolerant to the drugs. Some of the drugs have also been associated with the likelihood of increased risk of type 2 diabetes especially if the patient uses the medicine for a long period. Though the drugs may be effective as a short term measure, they do not address the source of the problem from its roots, they do a good job of calming the individual but they do not terminate the stressor. Stress Inoculation Training (SIT) is yet another approach to stress management that is cognitive-behavioural; it was masterminded by Meichenbaum in 1976 whose main belief is that this procedure should be used before stress reaches levels that are deemed critical. This approach works by changing the way one views stress, if a change can be made to the way one thinks about stress then they can change the way they respond to it. SIT reasons that people find some situations more stressful than others because they think they are the worst possible situations to find themselves in. There are three main stages that SIT uses to change the negative perceptions to positive ones. The first stage is cognitive preparation; in this stage, the doctor and the patient go through the various ways the client the client thinks about stress and how he deals with it, for example getting drunk in a pub. The doctor or therapist in this case then takes a step further by assessing to what level the patient uses internal dialogue that is negative, for example a statement such as, this is too hard. The patient is then encouraged to think about why he uses the negative statements on himself and in the next step, the patient is taught some of the general ways that he can use to reduce stress and even more so, steps that are customized to him (Lehrer, Woolfolk and Sime, 2007). To counter the negative self-statements, the patient is helped to come up with preparation statements that help him be ready for the situation that he considers stressful. He is taught how to confront and at the same time handle situations that cause him stress and finally he is given lessons on how to cope with the fear of being overwhelmed by his situation. The third stage, which is applying the lesson in real life, follows; in this case, the doctor helps the patient through situations that would be considered even more threatening. This is usually in a series of steps, once he has mastered a moderately difficult situation; he is then presented with a more difficult one. The advantage of using the SIT method is because unlike drugs, which only try to make the person calmer on the surface, the SIT goes to the root of the problem and handles the stressor itself. SIT also has no adverse side effects as compared to the drugs, one cannot get addicted, therefore making it riskier as an approach of stress management. Research has also indicated that SIT actually works; it has been noted to reduce cases of examination-associated stress and some phobias. However, sit, unlike drug therapy, requires training and is therefore not a good means of treating stress that is acute such as an interview. It is also important to note that how effective the SIT method is, largely depends on an individual’s personality factors and it might therefore not work on everybody (Dobson, 2009). As compared to drugs, it is not available everywhere and it requires time to build on anything substantial and get the client back to good health. The method that one uses to manage stress is dependent on many aspects such as the complexity of the problem and the urgency of the situation; using drug therapy is convenient as a short-term measure and it saves on time but on the other side it has side effects and can lead to addiction. Then the Stress Inoculation Training method is advisable as a long-term measure, despite it being time consuming, it is very effective in addressing the issue from its source. References Lehrer, P. M. Woolfolk. R. L. Sime, W. E. (2007). Principles and Practice of Stress Management. Third Edition. New York: Guilford Press Dobson, K. S. (2009). Handbook of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapies, Third Edition. New York: Guilford Press. Cardwell, M. Flanagan, C. (2003). Psychology AS: The Complete Companion. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes. Read More