STRESSED  DESSERTS

STRESSED  DESSERTS Bridget H. Melnyk MSW, LCSW

About Me… Master’s in Social Work from Rutgers University Licensed Clinical Social Worker At least 2 years post-graduate clinical experience Passed two licensing exams Experience working with children, adolescents and adults Worked in schools, summer camps, and hospitals Currently have a private practice

What about you? Tell me a little about yourself… What interested you in today’s discussion?

What is Stress? stress/strɛs/ noun 1. importance attached to a thing: to lay stress upon good manners. Synonyms: significance, meaning, emphasis, consequence; weight, value, worth. 2. Phonetics . emphasis in the form of prominent relative loudness of a syllableor a word as a result of special effort in utterance. 3. Prosody . accent or emphasis on syllables in a metrical pattern; beat. 4. emphasis in melody,rhythm, etc.; beat. 5. the physical pressure, pull, or other force exerted on one thing by another; strain. 6. Mechanics . a. theaction on a body of any system of balanced forceswhereby strain or deformation results. b. the amount of stress, usually measured in pounds per square inch or in pascals. c. a load,force,orsystem of forces producing a strain. d. the internalresistance or reaction of an elastic body to the external forces applied to it. e. the ratio of force to area. See also strain1 ( def23 ) , shear ( def 19 ) , torsion ( def 3 ) . 7. Physiology . a specific response by the body to a stimulus, as fear or pain, that disturbs or interferes with the normal physiological equilibrium of an organism. 8. physical,mental,oremotionalstrainortension:Worry over his jobandhiswife'shealthputhimunderagreat stress. Synonyms: anxiety, burden,pressure, oppression; effort, exertion, struggle, strain. 9. a situation, occurrence,orfactor causing this: The stress of being trapped in the elevator gave himapounding headache. 10. Archaic. strong or straining exertion.

Good vs. Bad Stress How can stress be bad for us? Stress can cause a number of medical problems Stress can lead to anxiety and/or depressive disorders Stress can result in panic attacks How can stress be good for us? Stress can motivate you Stress can keep you safe Stress can make you more productive Stress can help you problem solve Stress actually helps us survive in times of trauma

Bad Stress

5 minute stress busters Take a “serenity break”… Take time to tune out from whatever it is you’re doing…listen to music, look at family photos, take some deep breaths, whatever it is that will help you feel peaceful Laughter is the best medicine… Finding something to laugh at is a simple way to release some stress Try and remember and relive the last time you had a full hearted belly laugh Watch a clip from a movie that’s made you laugh in the past Watch a clip from a favorite comedian Look up some jokes online Practice laughter therapy The Archer The Group Swing “Oh, no you didn’t!” Lion King Lottery Winner ChooChoo!

5 minute stress busters Make a connection… As humans one of the things we value the most is our connection with others… Call a friend Reply to an email or text message you’ve been meaning to but haven’t Workout… Leave some weights under your desk and do some light lifting Engage in these exercises at your desk/chair/etc.: The Hot Air Balloon The Angry Cat Dancing at Your Desk Write it down and try journaling! It helps to get your emotions out and to clear your thoughts

5 minute stress busters Sleep on it… (My personal favorite!) Take a nap Recent research has found that napping may reduce your risk of death from heart attack and increase productivity, alertness, and concentration… Play! Take a moment to play a game on your phone Play a round of solitaire Do a crossword puzzle or suduko Tea Time… Tea (not coffee) continues to have much researched medical benefits including warding off cancer and increasing your metabolism

More coping strategies Boxed breathing Positive Affirmations Guided Imagery Yoga Meditation Progressive muscle relaxation

Progressive muscle relaxation Loosen your clothing, take off your shoes, and get comfortable. Take a few minutes to relax, breathing in and out in slow, deep breaths. When you’re relaxed and ready to start, shift your attention to your right foot. Take a moment to focus on the way it feels. Slowly tense the muscles in your right foot, squeezing as tightly as you can. Hold for a count of 10. Relax your right foot. Focus on the tension flowing away and the way your foot feels as it becomes limp and loose. Stay in this relaxed state for a moment, breathing deeply and slowly. When you’re ready, shift your attention to your left foot. Follow the same sequence of muscle tension and release. Move slowly up through your body, contracting and relaxing the muscle groups as you go. It may take some practice at first, but try not to tense muscles other than those intended. Right Foot – Left Foot – Right Calf – Left Calf – Right Thigh – Left Thigh – Hips/Buttocks – Stomach – Chest – Back – Right Arm/Hand – Left Arm/Hand – Neck/Shoulders – Face

Stress is Just Stress… What if we looked at stress in a non-judgmental way? What if we did not see stress as good or bad – but just accepted it for what it is? Accept the feeling of stress Accept the physical symptoms Heart racing Perspiration Rapid breathing

Nick WalLenda On June 10, 2011, Wallenda hung from a helicopter 250 feet (76 m) off the ground using only his teeth to hold on On June 15, 2012, he was the first person to walk a tightrope stretched directly over Niagara Falls on June 15, 2012 On June 23, 2013, he became the first person to high-wire walk across a Grand Canyon area gorge But how does he do it? He shared how he is able to perform stunts like this: by seeing the physical manifestations of stress as positives. Yes, the body will start to shake on the tightrope. But this is not a sign of weakness; it is instead a natural response that is preparing him for what is to come. In moderate amounts — and perhaps this comes with decades of training — stress can be helpful in willing strength and focus when it is needed most.

Stress is just stress… The study: Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison asked almost 29,000 people to rate their level of stress over the past year as well as how much they believed this stress influenced their health — a little, a moderate amount or a lot. Over the next eight years, public death records were used to record the passing of any subjects. The findings: People who reported having high levels of stress and who believed stress had a large impact on their health had a whopping 43% increased risk of death. On the other hand, those that experienced a lot of stress but did not perceive its effects as negative were amongst the least likely to die as compared to all other participants in the study.

Stress is just stress… The study: Lead author Michael J. Poulin of the University of Buffalo and his team interviewed almost 850 people, ages 34-93, living in Detroit, Michigan. Participants were asked to report stressful events they had encountered in the past year and how much, in the same time period, that they had assisted others. Deaths that occurred within the group in the next five years were tracked using obituaries and public death records. The findings: Every major stress event increased an individual’s risk of death by 30%. But, overall, this increase was erased for those who reported high rates of helping others, even if they additionally dealt with a lot of stress. The evidence suggests that giving to others significantly reduces stress-induced mortality.

Stress is just stress… The study: Employees at a financial institution were asked to take a test on their stress mindset before and after watching three videos over the course of a week that either presented stress as enhancing or harmful. In a second study, students who had previously taken a survey on their stress mindset were told in class that five of them would be randomly selected to give a speech that would also be videotaped. For each student, mouth swabs were taken to measure cortisol levels. Each was also asked to decide, if chosen to speak, whether or not they would receive feedback from their peers and business school experts who watched the footage. The findings: In the first study, not only were many people influenced by the message of the videos. Those that viewed the video that approached stress as enhancing reported better work performance as well as less psychological complications. As for the students, those who naturally saw stress as helpful had a more moderate cortisol response upon hearing about the speech possibility — and they were more likely to request feedback.

Stress is just stress… So maybe it’s not necessarily the stress that we have in our lives… ….But the way we look at the stress and perceive it as either positive or negative

MINDFULNESS Have you ever noticed that when you are doing quite familiar and repetitive tasks, like driving your car, or vacuuming, that you mind is often miles away thinking about something else? You may be fantasizing about going on a vacation, worrying about some upcoming event, or thinking about any number of other things. In either case you are not focusing on your current experience, and you are not really in touch with the ‘here and now.’ This way of operating is often referred to as automatic pilot mode. Mindfulness is the opposite of automatic pilot mode. It is about experiencing the world that is firmly in the ‘here and now.’ This mode is referred to as the being mode. It offers a way of freeing oneself from automatic and unhelpful ways of thinking and responding.

Mindfulness Benefits: By learning to be in mindful mode more often, it is possible to develop a new habit that helps to weaken old, unhelpful and automatic thinking habits. Mindfulness training does not aim to immediately control, remove, or fix an unpleasant experience. Rather, it aims to develop a skill to place you in a better position to break free of or not ‘buy into’ these unhelpful habits that are causing distress and preventing positive action.

Mindfulness exercises Mindfulness consists of observing, describing, participating fully and being non-judgmental… One minute of mindfulness Conscious observation Ten second count Mindfulness cues You can also search online for free mindfulness exercises or free guided mindfulness exercises by a certified instructor

Stability of MindMindfulness benefits include a much more balanced outlook on life, and a state of mind that is less likely to bounce around from one thought to the next. Flexible AwarenessMindfulness will help train you to take command of your awareness, so that you can shift your attention from depressing or angry thoughts to more positive ones with greater ease. Self AwarenessMindfulness trains you to become aware of what is going on inside you and how your inner world of thoughts and feelings is reacting to the events that are taking place in the world around you. When you develop this kind of awareness, you will be more aware of inner disturbances if they arise, and therefore more able to take steps to maintain a positive outlook if they do. Oftentimes, stress and anxiety build up over a period of time because we are not paying attention to what is going on inside us. Non ReactivityThrough mindfulness, and especially through the practice of mindfulness meditation, you learn to observe your thoughts and feelings and any environmental circumstances with a more detached outlook. You learn to stop labelling the events in your life as “bad” or “irritating” or “boring” and so on. Instead, you learn to simply accept things as they are without reacting to them. Of course, this does not mean that you stop working to change the things in your life that problematic for you, but it does mean that you will not be so burdened by problems that you may once have deemed to be intolerable. Non reactivity is summed up nicely by the ever popular “serenity prayer”:

Buddhist Monk MatthieuRicard - born in France, a son of the philosopher Jean-François Revel, Ricard has a doctorate in cell genetics and serves as the French interpreter for the Dalai Lama. Researchers decided to see if Ricard, with decades of meditation under his belt, would respond differently to being startled than those of us with decades of being generally anxious under our belts. They put him in a room and asked him to meditate. Then the researchers played a 115-decibel “burst of white noise,” equivalent in volume to a gunshot. The results: Ricard’s response was so minimal it was almost impossible to see

STRESSED  DESSERTS

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