HOP’s first Mental Health week presentation is complete. Dr. Mark Aronson talked about stress.

What is stress?

  • Pressure
  • Overwhelmed
  • Anxiety
  • Threat — perceived
  • Loss of control

Your body reacts with increased heartrate, sweating, stomach acid, GI tract.  One thing my therapist always tells me is your body doesn’t lie.  If your body is reacting, there is something going on worth exploring.

Chronic Stress:

  • the physical symptoms above
  • headaches
  • insomnia
  • muscle tension, backaches
  • impaired immune system
  • fatigue
  • heart attack, stroke, ….

Mental, emotional reactions:

  • depression
  • cognition & concentration impaired
  • anxiety
  • anger, rage, blaming people, constantly irritated

Identify the stressors. Could be physical things in your environment. Could be your own thoughts. When you think of all the “shoulds” in your life. Those might tell you about what you consider stressors.

“The 4 A’s” Strategies for Dealing with Stress:

  • Avoid — unnecessary stressors
  • Alter — the stressful situation, the physical environment, interactions with people
  • Adapt — change your thinking, your attitude
  • Accept — the serenity prayer, accept what you can’t change

 
The 5th strategy.  Have some fun.  Try to find something pleasurable to do each day.

The 6th strategy.  A healthy lifestyle (balanced: eating, drinking, exercise, sleeping).

Some of the stressors in your life may be relationships you have.  With your spouse, your children, your parents, your colleagues.  Setting limits, learning to say “no” is an important strategy for altering the situation.  But the converse is true as well.  Learning how to express yourself, not bottle up your emotions, and asking for what you want or need.  Mark’s wife, Brenda Forte LCSW, will be talking Friday morning on “Communicating Compassionately.”  Brenda will speak at 9am in the multi-purpose room.

We finished the session with 2 exercises.  A simple breathing exercise.  And a relaxation exercise.  Incorporating small, daily habits like this is part of creating a healthy lifestyle.  Tonight at 7:45pm, John Grund, LCSW, will be presenting “An Introduction to Mindfulness: A lifelong Tool for Achieving Well-being.”  John will expand on these mindfulness exercises.