Activities for Stress Management and Prevention Jeffrey A. Kottler and David Chen. Part I (5% of Course Grade) Due Date June 13 th 2012

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1 Activities for Stress Management and Prevention Jeffrey A. Kottler and David Chen Part I (5% of Course Grade) Due Date June 13 th 2012 Instructions: Please complete the following exercises thoroughly. Even though there is no limit on the length of each exercise, your work will be evaluated based on the thoughtfulness and effort put into it. Use a different color to complete your answers. Thanks!

2 Chapter 1- The Meaning of Stress Activity 1.1: Matching Questions Directions: Find out how much you know the history of research on stress by completing the following matching questions. Leaders/Researchers Events/Influence 1 Oriental doctors, A Adaptive function of fear and stress Greek doctors 2 Claude Bernard B The fight-or-flight; response/homeostasis 3 Charles Darwin C The general adaptation syndrome 4 Sigmund Freud D Homeostasis and fight-or-flight response 5 Walter Cannon E Allostasis 6 Hans Selye F Theory of anxiety and unconsciousness 7 G The importance of moderation and avoidance of excess in food, sex, thoughts, and emotions, etc. 8 Sterling and Eyer H Allostatic load 9 Bruce McEwen and Elliot Stellar I The internal environment Answer sheet Activity 1.2: Understanding the Meaning of Stress. Directions: The following statements are not accurate. State why they are false by using evidence cited in the text, or examples from your life, to refute the fallacious statements.

3 1. Stress is the same for everybody. 2. The relationship between stress and the incidence of illness is simple and straightforward. 3. Stress is always bad for you. 4. Stress is everywhere, so you can't do anything about it. 5. Whenever someone experiences a stressor, he/she will inevitably experience physiological arousal or emotional anxiety. 6. If someone does not display symptoms, it means that he/she has no stress. 7. Only major stressors cause damage to your health. 8. Your goal in stress management class is to completely eliminate stress. Activity 1.3: Sentence Completion Exercises Directions: In these exercises, complete the sentences as many times as you can with different endings. 1. I feel most stressed out when 2. I feel most relaxed when 3. When I feel stress, I would normally (talk about how you feel, behavior, and think) 4). If I had known more about the harm of excessive stress to my health, I would Activity 1.4: Reflections on what you learned Directions: Write down your initial impressions and goals. You have just begun this journey exploring the nature and meaning of stress in your life. Based on your introduction to this subject in your first classes and readings, what would you like to accomplish before the course is completed? Write down several of your most important goals in the space provided. After the semester is over, you will have the opportunity to go back and review these first impressions, comparing them to what you actually accomplished.

4 Chapter 2- The Body s Reactions to Stress Activity 2.1 Physiological Basis of Stress Directions: Test your understanding of the following concepts by completing the following matching questions (refer to Chapter 2 in the text): Neural Structures Clues 1 Nervous system A Consisting of organs that process food sources, converting them into useable energy 2 Endocrine system B Allowing us to move when our muscles contract 3 Cardiovascular system C Collective name for all of the neurons in the body 4 Respiratory system D Consisting of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems 5 Immune system E Increasing the bodily metabolism and energy expenditure 6 Musculoskeletal system F Producing hormones and emptying them into the bloodstream 7 Digestive system G Delivering oxygen, hormones, nutrients and white blood cells to the body 8 Reproductive system H The adrenal cortex hormones that affect metabolism of fats and carbohydrates 9 Autonomic nervous system 10 Sympathetic nervous system 11 Parasympathetic nervous system I J K The endocrine gland under the hypothalamus that secretes hormones that control other glands An adrenal cortical steroid hormone that regulates mineral metabolism and fluid balance Also known as sensory relay center

5 12 Hypothalamus L Playing an important role in memory, spatial navigation, and stress termination 13 Thalamus M An abbreviation for corticotrophinreleasing factor 14 Limbic system N An abbreviation for adrenocorticotropic hormone 15 Hippocampus O The endocrine glands on top of each kidney that secrete stress hormones 16 CRF P The endocrine gland in the neck that secretes the hormone thyroxin 17 ACTH Q Providing defense against foreign invaders 18 Glococorticoids R Also known as the seat of emotions 19 Mineralcorticoids S Processing emotions and activating the fight-or-flight response 20 Pituitary gland T Dedicated to the production of offspring 21 Thyroid gland U Providing oxygen and nourishment to the body s cells 22 Adrenal gland V Reducing the bodily metabolism and energy expenditure Answer Sheet

6 Activity 2.2: Understanding the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Systems Directions: Fill in the spaces provided to indicate the effects of the autonomic nervous systems on these target organs. Effects of the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Systems on Selected Organs Effector Sympathetic System Parasympathetic System Pupils of eye Sweat glands Digestive glands Heart Bronchi of lungs Muscles of digestive system Kidneys Urinary bladder Liver Adrenal medulla Blood vessels to Skeletal muscles Skin Respiratory system Digestive organs

7 Chapter 3- Sources of Stress Across the Lifespan Activity 3.1: Interview Exercises Directions: Complete the following exercises by interviewing people of different age groups. 1. Interview a middle-aged adult (using only first name and age), like your parents or relatives. Describe his/her stressors and challenges in daily activities. Also mention their resources in coping with their challenges. 2. Interview a senior citizen 65 years and older (using only first name and age). Describe his/her stressors and challenges in daily activities. Also mention their resources in coping with their challenges. 3. Based on your interviews and previous experience, analyze your past life in terms of its stressors and challenges and how you have dealt with them. Also, project into the future as to the kinds of stressors you might confront when you reach that age. Describe how you plan to deal with them in the case of some adversities. Activity 3.2: Going Back into Time It has been said that adolescence is by far the most stressful period of life, fraught with so many simultaneous stressors related to biological changes, social pressures, identity development, struggles with love, sex, peer acceptance, parental authority, school pressures, family conflicts, drugs, and so on. Go back in time to your own high school years and recall the most difficult challenges you faced. Write down a few of those that still make you shiver with apprehension.

8 What might have helped you to cope better with these stressors? Activity 3.3: Going Forward in Time Project yourself 10 years in the future, to the next stage in life development in which you are reasonably settled into your life and work. Given your personality, history, aspiration, and goals, what do you anticipate will be the greatest stressors you will face? How do you intend to prepare for them?

9 Chapter 4- Adaptive and Maladaptive Behavior Activity 4.1: Theoretical Models of Coping and Adaptation Directions: Write the name of the appropriate term or theory in the space provided. Use each term only once. Behavioral model Cognitive model Humanistic model Psychoanalytic model Sigmund Freud Carl Rogers B. F. Skinner Aaron Beck Dynamic systems model Classical conditioning Operant conditioning John Watson 1. This theory has the assumptions that people are basically growth-oriented and increased awareness of self and others leads to improved self-esteem and personal functioning. 2. This psychologist advocated stress reduction primarily through the establishment of trusting relationships with others, the kind that permit you to honestly and genuinely talk about how you feel, in a context of acceptance and respect. 3. Based on this theoretical model, self-defeating behaviors occur because of unresolved conflicts from the past that continue to weigh on your mind, even if this is not within your conscious awareness. 4. This psychologist applied the concept of classical conditioning in the treatment of phobias. 5. This psychologist theorized that we spend our life trying to reconcile instinctual drives (id) with that of our conscience (superego) while the ego acts as the negotiator and mediator of these two often conflicting forces. 6. One of the assumptions in this theoretical model suggests that your interpretations of the world determine both your perception of stress and how you manage it.

10 7. The cognitive behavior therapy was developed by this psychologist. 8. This theoretical model posits that dysfunctional behaviors are learned through environmental conditioning, and thus can unlearned. Activity 4.2: How Defense Mechanisms Respond to Stressors Directions: Test your understanding of the following concepts of defensive mechanisms based on the psychoanalytic traditions by completing the following matching questions. Defense Mechanism Description 1 Rationalization A Distancing yourself from painful feelings by presenting overly rational explanations 2 Denial B Converting unacceptable impulses or desires into more socially acceptable outlets 3 Intellectualization C Distracting yourself from unpleasant situations by escaping 4 Projection D Behaving in the exact opposite way that you really feel in order to ward off threatening material 5 Repression E Trivializing behavior in order to avoid responsibility 6 Sublimation F Converting negative feelings from one person or object to another that is more acceptable 7 Fantasy G Perceiving that others hold those undesirable qualities that you find most unacceptable in yourself 8 Regression H Justifying a situation through faulty logic 9 Reaction I Burying painful memories into the unconscious formation 10 Minimization J Reverting back to coping strategies of an earlier time in development 11 Displacement K Pretending that something unpleasant didn t really happen Answer Sheet

11 Activity 4.3: Unresolved Issues It has been said that stress is caused, in part, not only by current circumstances that put you under pressure, but also by unresolved issues from the past that come up again and again. Examples of this might include such things as problems with authority figures, early child trauma, co-dependency in relationships, unstable parenting, lack of confidence due to early failures, and so on. What are some of the issues or recurrent problems in your life that arise repeatedly in slightly different forms? Activity 4.4: Assessing Your Anger Directions: Answer the following questions honestly; 1. Recall the last anger episode you experienced. What triggered it? Describe how you reacted to it and how you dealt with it. 2. Complete the following sentence completion exercises: (1). I become angry when (2). When I am angry, I tend to (3). After each episode, I tend to (4). Regarding how anger affects my health, my belief is that

12 Activity 4.5: Stress Journal In this chapter you were advised to keep a stress journal as a way to assess and monitor what upsets you most. Keep a notebook around for one whole day, or even several days in a row, and note the following information every time you notice yourself feeling anxious or upset about something. Day/Time Place Context What Happened? Reactions Thoughts.

13 Chapter 5- Individual and Cultural Differences Activity 5.1: Personality Traits and Stress Directions: To assess your understanding of keys concepts regarding personality traits and stress, complete the following True/False questions. 1. Stress responses are not only the result of universal human physiological functioning, but also of individual traits and personalities. (True/False) 2. There is a clear and definite relationship between personality traits and cancer based on solid research. (True/False) 3. A helpless personality would attribute the loss of a job to an external and unstable factor. (True/False) 4. Men and women are prone to different stress-related health vulnerabilities. (True/False) 5. Research shows that men tend to have more complaints about stress-related symptoms because men are under more stress most of the time. (True/False). 6. Culture can influence stress and coping in various ways including the types of stressors experienced, the appraisal of these stressors, the choice of coping strategies, and the institutional mechanisms for coping with stress. (True/False) 7. Acculturation stress refers to both the cultural and psychological changes that result from continuous contact between two or more cultural groups. (True/False) 8. Gender and sex are synonymous and can be used interchangeably without causing confusion. (True/False). Activity 5.2: Assessing Type A Behavior You learned in the chapter about a kind of personality style (Type A) that is far more prone to stressful reactions because of the compulsive, competitive, driven, overly motivated way in which such individuals function on a regular basis. You may be able to recognize some of these characteristics in others you know, if not in yourself. Select someone you know (or yourself if appropriate) who demonstrates Type A behavior. Write down (or discuss in some groups) ways that the following qualities of this personality style significantly increase stress levels.

14 Being Competitive Strong Desire for Recognition Impatience with Self and Others Multi-tasking Hostility and Aggressive Behavior Activity 5.3: Cultural Identities

15 Directions: Everyone holds several cultural identities that include race, ethnicity, religion, family background, gender, sexual orientation, even geographic location, college major, and hobbies. How have your most dominant cultures influenced the ways that you experience stress? Activity 5.4: Understanding Gender-Related Differences in Stress Coping Approaches Directions: This activity encourages you to discuss differences in coping with stress. In small groups talk to one another about times in your lives when you have experienced stress. Based on these and other experiences, address the following questions in your discussion. 1. When you received a bad grade in a test, what kinds of reactions would you normally demonstrate? Males: Females: 2. When you had a fight with a colleague, what were the immediate things you would do? Males: Females

16 3. When feeling sick or realizing that you had some symptoms of a diseases, what were your reactions? Males: Females: 4. How kinds of books did you read in the past that may help you cope with stress? Males: Females:

17 Chapter 6- Challenging Stressful Thinking Activity 6.1: Redefining Stress You learned in this chapter that stress is based, in part, on the ways you perceive and interpret your experiences. What one person finds stressful, another might find exhilarating or fun and exciting. Think of a time recently in which other people around you were all stressed out about something but you felt very differently about the situation and were relatively calm, if not enjoying the moment. What were you telling yourself about what was happening that was different from what others might have been telling themselves? Activity 6.2: Stopping the Little Annoyances There are times when you consistently get upset about something that annoys you. You can t really do much to change other people s behavior, at least in the short run, yet you still allow these incidents to get underneath your skin over and over again. For each of the following common annoying situations, think of a way that you could talk to yourself inside your head so that you don t feel additional stress by these situations. We are not talking about what you say or do on the outside, but rather what you say to yourself on the inside.

18 A. Someone is speaking loudly on a cell phone in a public space B. A person on the freeway is driving slowly in the express lane, blocking you from driving faster. C. Someone is standing in line in front of you, chatting to the cashier as if he has all the time in the world. D. A teacher in one of your classes is giving a particularly boring lecture. Activity 6.3: A Thought-Stopping Procedure Directions: Think of a situation (e.g., taking a quiz or an examination, making a presentation in front of your class) where you often catch yourself thinking negatively. The following exercise allows you to analyze the situation and replace the negative thoughts with positive ones. 1. Describe the situation thoroughly. 2. Identify the negative thoughts in your head. 3. List a cue or cues that you may use as a signal to stop your negative thoughts. For instance, the word stop is a potent cue. Based on what you learned in this chapter about counteracting dysfunctional thinking that only makes the stress worse, dispute each of the thoughts that you found were unhelpful. Here are some cues to consider while disputing these irrational beliefs and cognitive distortions: What is the evidence that this is so? How are you exaggerating things? How are you distorting reality? How are you making absolute demands that things (or others) be a particular way? How are you expecting things of yourself (or others) that are unrealistic or pefectionistic?

19 4. List all positive and constructive thoughts you may use in the future to replace the negative ones. Activity 6.5: Understanding Cognitive Approaches to Coping with Stress Directions: Write the name of the appropriate term or theory in the space provided. Use each term only once. Donald Meichenbaum Rational emotive behavior therapy Albert Ellis Morita therapy Cognitive restructuring ABC theory of emotions Catastrophizing Miracle question 1. This therapy directs one's attention receptively to what reality brings in each moment and emphasizes the principle that simple acceptance of what is allows for active responding to what needs doing. 2.. Known by different names such as skeleton key or crystal ball, this mental strategy exercise is intended to help you see new possibilities for the future regarding a current problem. 3. This is a particular coping style in which people inoculate themselves against stress by building up a reservoir of positive self-talk or internal dialogue to deal with life s challenges. 4. This theory plots out, logically and sequentially, the mechanisms by which people become upset and how they might change negative feelings through certain thinking patterns that are deemed more rational and reality-based. 5. He is the psychologist who coined the term cognitive restructuring. 6. He is the psychologist who originated rational emotive behavior therapy and whose theory provided a framework for understanding the ways that irrational thinking in response to stressors creates severe emotional disturbance. 7. The goal of this psychotherapy approach is to teach people how to identify what they are doing to upset themselves and, in turn, to change the nature of their thinking in such a way as to produce a more desirable outcome.

20 8. This is a set of irrational beliefs represented by gross exaggerations of reality in which you think as if you have suffered the worst possible tragedy imaginable. Activity 6.6: Changing Your Negative Beliefs Directions: In this exercise you will answer a few questions in order to help yourself change a negative thought. 1. Recall a most recent event where you remembered an automatic negative thought occurs in your mind. Write down that negative thought. Comment on how much you believe this thought is true. 2. What is the evidence that this negative thought is true? 3. What is the evidence that this negative thought is untrue? 4. What is your core belief that generates your negative thought in the first place? 5. What is the evidence for and against the core belief? 6. What is an alternative thought, a more positive one that can replace the negative core belief? Chapter 7- Problem Solving and Time Management Activity 7.1: Problem Solving Strategies Directions: Think of an ongoing source of stress in your life and describe it below. This should be a situation that you have been struggling with for some time and have tried a variety of things to deal with it, most of them unsuccessfully. Write down all the things you ve tried to deal with this situation. Review your list again and circle those items that you have tried multiple times with similarly unsatisfactory results. It is clear, beyond much doubt, that these strategies do not work well even though you keep doing them. (Think of the example when a parent or teacher yells at a kid to stop doing something annoying but the behavior persists anyway. What does the adult do? Yell louder. With equally futile results.)

21 Resolve not to do those things again that you are fairly certain do not work. Until you are prepared to make such a commitment to stop doing what is positively not working you will not be able to free yourself up to experiment with alternative strategies which may work. What could you do instead of what you have already been doing? Make a list of as many possibilities as you can think of, at least a dozen or more. It isn t important that they seem practical the object of this exercise is for you to realize how many choices you have compared to the few that keep you stuck. Activity 7.2: Concern Versus Worry The chapter discusses the difference between being constructively concerned about things that you might somehow predict, control, or otherwise plan for, versus incessant worries about things that far beyond your control. For example, people spend a lot of time over-stressed thinking about the weather, other people s behavior, possible disasters, and worst-case scenarios. What are some examples of things in your life that you spend time worrying over and over, even though it appears to do little good? What are some ways that this worrying behavior might be useful to you in some ways? Think in terms of its distractive value, the self-pity or sympathy you might enjoy, or even the magical belief that you might somehow prevent disaster through magical thinking. Activity 7.3: Exercise on Separation Directions: Sometimes the inability to separate a problem from how you feel about the situation may impede your progress in obtaining solutions. The following is an exercise that is designed to help you separate the two. Step 1. Describe the problem thoroughly and objectively without reference to how you are feeling.

22 Step 2. Describe how you feel about the problem subjectively. Try to be as subjective as possible and don t use any fact. Step 3.What now seems clearer to you? Activity 7.4: Time Management Directions: Answer the following questions about the ways you use and misuse time. 1. List 10 ways in which you habitually waste time. 2. Describe below how you can use your time more productively. 3. Organizing your study and work areas can help you work more effectively. List five areas in which you need greater organization. Activity 7.5: Prioritizing Your Work Directions: Make a list of the most important goals, projects, and tasks. Determine to spend more and more time concentrating on finishing those few areas that can really make a huge difference in your life and career and less and less time on activities that produce little or no value.