Powerpoint that gives an introduction to the sources and kinds of stress, and some recommendations and suggestions for reducing one's stress.

5. Hans Selye (SELL - yuh), a Swiss researcher, proposed that when we face stress, our bodies go through three stages. In the Alarm stage, our bodies use up available energy and produce protective stress hormones (such as adrenaline) to help us cope with the stress (short term). If the stress continues longer, we go into the Resistance stage, during which our body continues to supply high levels of those same hormones to help us cope with the stressor. This can go on for days, weeks, or even much longer until the stressor is gone, or … if it continues … we move into the third stage, Exhaustion, in which we can experience serious danger to our health. This is because we cannot physically function permanently at the Resistance stage – it’s just too much for our body to continue functioning endlessly at that high level of energy and resource consumption required in Resistance. During Resistance, our immune system is weakened as well, which leads to an increased likelihood of illness and disease. Selye did his work primarily on animals, so of course us humans have some emotional and mental factors that have some saving grace for us, but this model is helpful in showing us the dangers of ongoing stress, especially when we don’t recognize it and try to find ways to productively deal with it. Level of normal resistance Alarm stage Exhaustion stage

9. You may have heard that ‘the only thing that doesn’t change is that things keep changing.” If you think about all those examples of distressors and eustressors we looked at back on slide # 4 (use your back arrow  to page back if you want to see them again, and your forward arrow  to come back here), you can understand why Kurt Lewin (leh - VEEN), a psychological researcher, said that all stress has to do with some kind of change, whether it’s change in the weather (hurricane, flood), change in some relationship (divorce, marriage, death, birth), change in your financial or social situation, and on and on. Dr. Lewin described three states; the Present state, The Transition state (which is the Change Event), and the New state. During that Transition, we of course have thoughts and emotions about the change, and then behavioral reactions. He went on to suggest that although we have no control over the Change Event, we do have control over our thoughts, which in turn can affect our emotions and behavior about that Change. So our behavioral reaction then is affected by our perspective (which is, of course, what really determines what kind of thoughts and emotions we have about that Change. Let’s take a closer look at perspective.

14. A college professor instructing a class full of high-powered, driven, MBA candidates decided to make a point to this group of overachievers. He announced to the class, “It’s time for a quiz.” There was shuffling in the room as the students pulled out pen and paper and prepared themselves to expound on some esoteric principle of macroeconomics. To their surprise, the professor produced a large, wide-mouthed glass jar from behind his desk. As the class looked on, the professor placed a series of fist-sized rocks into the jar until the rocks reached the top of the jar. “Is the jar full,” he queried the class? One particularly eager student raised her hand, but could not even wait to be called on. She proclaimed, “Yes, professor, the jar is full.” “Are you sure,” asked the professor, patiently? He produced a jar filled with small pebbles and began to pour them into the first jar until they filled all the space between the larger rocks. When he’d finished he asked again, “Is the jar full?” Skeptical, from being burned the first time, someone said, “Probably not.” Smiling, the professor pulled out a jar of sand and poured it into the first jar. The sand seeped into the crevices between the pebbles and filled the space. As the sand reached the top, the professor had one of the students come to the front of the room and pat the sand down and smooth it so that it was even with the top of the jar. “Now is the jar full?”

23. 1. Stress … d. can be good or bad, depending on your perspective 2. Which of the following was not one of our definitions of stress: c. mental, spiritual, emotional or physical participation in an activity that requires our attention and concentration 3. The two kinds of stress that Hans Selye theorized are c. Distress and Eustress 4. The General Adaptation Syndrome model has three stages. They are: a. Alarm, Resistance, Exhaustion 5. A common factor in virtually all varieties of stress is: c. Change

24. Developed by Lee Lundberg - Human Resource Management Services.