Week 2 - The stress management process

In week 2 of stress management (week 32 on the Otago Polytech calender) we'll be looking at the stress management process, and you will be introduced to your first relaxation technique - breath retraining.

Tasks for the week

1. Continue on working on Causes of stress. It's looking at present as if there have been contributions from perhaps a quarter to a third of the class. We'll be using content from this document as the basis of our discussions later in this week, so if you haven't contributed yet, please do so. Try being a bit creative with the words that you search for, or using different search engines, otherwise you'll probably come across the same information that previous people have. If everyone spends an hour or so looking into this, we should end up with a fairly comprehensive document. Some work needs to be done on consolidating some of the information that's there (particularly in the Work-related section). Remember to reference your contributions & try to avoid low-quality sources of information.
   
   
2. Read through Introduction to the stress management process. This really is an introduction. We will come back to much of the material in greater depth later in the course.
   
   
3. Stress management application 1: Breath retraining
   The stress response is associated with upper chest breathing. One way to short-circuit the stress response is to breathe from the diaphragm. The handy thing about breath retraining is that due to it's simplicity you can use it at any stage you become aware that you are experiencing stress.
   
   In accordance with relaxation training theory, you must first gain experience with using this technique yourself before you are able to apply it with clients. Click on the above link & select download, then save it to your computer. Make sure you know where you have saved it so that you can use it in the future. Put aside 5-10 minutes each day over the next week to sit down & practice this technique. Also try to notice if you are becoming stressed at any stage, and try to breathe from your diaphragm if you are.
   
   
4. On Wednesday, I'll begin an email-based discussion around subjective assessment for stress and stress-related condtions. This discussion will continue until the end of the week. Make sure you're regularly checking your emails & participating.