Oh, blue hands. Today from student wellness and health promotion, we present basic stress management. Throughout this presentation, we'll be taking breaks to learn and practice different breathing exercises that will help you feel calmer when you're experiencing stress or anticipating that you'll be facing stressful situation. Deep breathing exercises allow you to calm down when you're experiencing stress. Studies show that when practice daily deep breathing exercises reduce people's cortisol levels by at least 50%. Cortisol is a hormone responsible for stress and stress. Different visual guides can help you focus on your breathing and help you keep a good pace without rushing through the exercise. Posture matters to the best of your ability. Sit up straight with shoulders, back, feet planted on the floor, and your chin and thighs parallel the floor. You may need to come to the edge of your chair to do so. Now we're into practice. Alternate nostril breathing. Close your eyes. Use your thumb to cover one nostril. For example, your right thumb to cover your right nostril, or your left thumb to cover your left nostril. Breathe in deeply through this one nostril. Then hold your breath. Remove your thumb and use your pointer finger to cover the opposite nostril. Right pointer finger over your left nostril or your left pointer finger over your right nostril. Breathe out slowly through this nostril. And pause. Breathing deeply through this same not stone. Then hold your breath. Remove your pointer finger. In our return your thumb back to the nostril you started with. Breathe out slowly through this nostril. Then pause. You can repeat this exercise for several cycles, focusing your mind on your breathing. There are many campus resources at the University of Delaware, for instance, the counseling center, whose phone number is 302312141. Their website is www dot you del.edu slash counseling, student wellness and health promotion, whose phone number is 3028313457 and his website is www.util.edu slash student wellness. There's also the UD helpline. His phone number is 3028311001. This number is available 247365 days a year. You can use this number to reach a sexual offence support, SOS, victim advocate or a mental health professional. I encourage you to take a moment to use your phone or screenshot it on your computer to save this slide and then put your phone away. The nine wellness dimensions there, nine dimensions of wellness that impact human life. These wellness dimensions are social, emotional, financial, environmental, creative, physical, intellectual, career, and spiritual. We use a wellness wheel model to demonstrate how all of these dimensions play a role in a person's life. In the center of our wheel is an inner circle which says you. This represents all the identities that a person brings with them as they navigate life. For example, being an athlete, a female, a first-generation college student, the oldest sibling, HIV positive, et cetera. These identities impact how a person experiences and interacts with the wellness dimensions. And likewise, how the wellness dimensions may shape a person's ability to express themselves through one or more of their identities. You can learn more about the wellness dimensions at www dot you DO.edu slash 007607. Our learning goals today are that students will be able to demonstrate one breathing exercise to reduce stress, students will be able to explain the differences between acute and chronic stress. And students will be able to describe one strategy to prevent stress. This program will address emotional, physical wellness and emotionally well person strives to cultivate awareness, acceptance, and management of a full range of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Emotional wellness enables a person to feel empowered to engage in self-care, asked for help, grow from experiences, develop autonomy, and improve executive function. Resources to support emotional wellness may be found at www dot you del.edu slash 0079 to nine. If physically well person strives to nurture a healthy connection with their body. This connection is maintained and improved through regular exercise, balanced nutrition, good hygiene, recognition of the body's warning signs, proper illness care, quality, sleep, and C46. Physical wellness enables a person to feel empowered to be responsible for one personal health. Identify areas for realistic improvement and celebrate areas of success. Resources, physical wellness, maybe found at www.UDL.edu slash 007930. Now we're going to try balloon breathing. Follow along with the graphic to try this exercise. Place your hands on your abdomen to focus on the air coming into and out of your belly as opposed to your chest. Breathe in through your nose for four seconds. 1234. Feel your abdomen expand like a balloon filling with air, letting your hands and arms expand outwards. Balloon isn't fleeting inside of you. Hold this breath for four seconds. Breathe out through pursed lips for four seconds. Fill your ad, feel your abdomen deflate like a balloon, releasing air. As you bring your hands and arms back in towards your body. Pause for, for more seconds. 1234. Now we're going to try it with the graphic on the screen. So we'll wait until it sets up breathing in, holding, breathing out. Holding 321. Now you can recycle it. Again. Experiencing stress is normal. The center for counseling and student development at UT has collected the following mental health statistics. 20 to 40% of college students struggle with mental well-being issues. 10% of UD students use CCSG services. Social concerns are the most common cause of stress among college students. There are three main types of stress. Acute, episodic, and chronic. Acute stress is the most common type of stress. It's your body's immediate reaction to a new challenge, event or demand and triggers your fight, flight or freeze response. Acute stress can look and feel very similar to excitement. You may feel acute stress or excitement when you attempt to beat a major boss in a video game, or when you have an upcoming exam to study for, everyone experiences acute stress sometimes and if managed well, it is a normal part of life. Episodic stress is when acute stress happens frequently. If you were having episodic stress about score, finances, friends, et cetera, it may be a sign that you need to reevaluate the stress management strategies that you currently use because your approach isn't working very well anymore, you may need to find new strategies to prevent stress more effectively or recover from stress more quickly. It is normal that as you go through life, you're coping mechanisms to manage stress will need to change as other factors in your life change. Chronic stress is stress that doesn't go away. Chronic stress takes a toll on your physical and mental health. And it may result in long-term consequences to different systems in your body. Prevent chronic stress from developing by reducing the number of episodic stress experiences. Chronic stress is best addressed by working with a mental health counselor as managing it requires comprehensive strategies which are beyond the scope of this program. Understanding the different kinds of stress allows you to recognize what triggers your stress, how to more effectively manage your stress. And when your stress has reached a point that it's beyond your ability to manage without professional help. Self-care versus self. Self soothe. When you do a self-care action, you're setting yourself up to better respond to a stress stressor. For example, dedicating a specific day each month to review your budget. You can think of it as a proactive thing. When you engage, engage in self soothe behavior, you're allowing yourself the time and space to recover from a stressor. For example, drinking a cup of tea to relax after a difficult exam. You can think of this as a reactive thing that you do. Using both together can help you manage acute stress and episodic stress. When working with a mental health provider to develop a management plan for chronic stress, you will incorporate several strategy types of self-care strategies into the foundation of the plan. Resources can be found at www dot u del.edu slash 007914 Resources include 11 tips on looking after yourself as it relates to self-care and self soothe. The following images were created by Diana's in her article, The unspoken complexity of self-care. Where she explores the differences and similarities between self-care and self soothe strategies. Notice that depending on when or how you're using a particular strategy, you could be engaging in self-care or self soothe behavior. For example, if you exercise regularly, that would be self-care. Whereas if going for a run specifically because you had a rough day, we're stressed about an upcoming exam that would be self sooth. Self-care examples include going to therapy, napping, eating well for your body, meditating, taking ownership of your finances, getting medical care, massage, exercise, saying yes and know when you really mean it. Yoga and setting and keeping boundaries. These are activities that help you find meaning and support your growth, growth, and happiness. Self soothe. Examples are TV bingeing, bubble baths, fancy beverages, singing loudly, getting out into nature, cajoling fresh flowers, time off from home responsibilities and exercise. These activities provide distraction an and or comfort times. When does seek help? It is critical to be able to recognize when your stress becomes too much to manage on your own. And for you to understand when it's time to seek help. Most people need to build a support system to best handle stress. These may be casual relationships that we build with our friends or family. You may also choose to include people with a more official role, like an array, the counseling center or career services. You should seek professional help when experiencing carrying out your normal functions of daily living, which may include but is not limited to falling and staying sleep, starting your day, eating, socializing, going to class, and doing your work. If you're experiencing excessive fear, worry, or sadness, that creates difficulties with normal functioning. Or if you feel like you could potentially harm yourself or someone else. These are all reasons to contact the counseling center and gets a mental health professional to work with. Now we're going to try another breathing activity. This one is called breathing like a square. Breathing like a square is very similar to balloon breathing. Instead of visualizing your body expanding and contracting like a balloon, you'll be visualizing your breath. Moving along the sides of a square, holding your breath on the vertical sides and breathing in or out on the horizontals sides. We're going to do this exercise twice. Let's begin. Once it gets to the inhale. Breathing slowly through your nose. Home. Exhale through your mouth. Hold. Try it again. Either breathing in holding. Exhaling. Holden. When you do this exercise, your breathing slowly through your nose for accounted for, your holding for, accounted for. Then you are releasing slowly through your mouth for accounted for, and you're holding again for a count of four. Strategies to set yourself up for stress free success. Now, we'll be examining three strategies to proactively prevent stress by setting yourself up for success on a daily basis. These strategies are time blocking, removing distractions in mind, shifting. Difficulty with time management is a very common issue for a lot of people, including college students. Using your time effectively is useful for preventing stress from occurred. Time blocking is a helpful stress management skill because it can help prevent stress from occurring. You divide your day into blocks of time. Each block is responsible for a specific task or group of specific tasks. This allows you to be mindful in the present moment and not worry about your next move. When creating your schedule. Using time blocking, you should consider how much time you need for each task. Some people prefer completing all their little tasks before conquering their most time consuming work, whereas others feel less overwhelmed by prioritizing their largest projects. Also include breaks and buffer time in-between activities to clear mind and reset your focus as you move from one task to the next. Buffer time is also helpful in case you or someone or something else happens that is out of control, out of your control and causes you to run late. Lastly, be flexible and understand that things may change. Deadlines get pushed back, unexpected assignments and signed work shifts come up, and sometimes friends cancel plans. Google calendar isn't helpful, is a helpful scheduling tool when practicing time blocking, because you can move things around and said, firm start and end times. Removing distractions in your environment is especially useful strategy when doing homework, studying for an exam, writing a paper, or preparing for a presentation. It is also good when. It is also good when to create a space that is more conducive to engaging in meditation, exercise, hobbies or pleasure reason. Removing distractions may look like putting your phone on silent, turning off app notifications and putting it away until you've accomplished your goal. Because of the out of sight, out of mind principle. People can be distractions as well. Setting clear boundaries with friends and family when you have something you need to do, reduce the risk of being distracted from accomplishing your goal. Here are some examples on how to communicate your barriers. I'm sorry, I can't talk right now. I'm trying to only focus on my assignment, but I'm happy to give you a call as soon as I'm done. It was good seeing you, but I actually have to get going now. I started meditating every day and it really helps with managing my stress. I should probably had hometown. See you tomorrow. Thanks for the invite, but I think I want to stay home tonight. I want to wake up early tomorrow and be really productive. Maybe we can grab dinner tomorrow night instead. When possible. Let roommates, family members, or friends know in advance when you need some space to yourself. You can do this by putting in a common space and sending them a quick reminder text. Mind shifting. Think about a time you had a negative mindset towards something. Maybe it was a homework assignment, a person or even lousy weather. Can you recall the consequences of having a negative perspective towards that thing? This could look like not completing a task, getting into a fight with someone, or not accomplishing your goals for the day. Shifting your thinking in a more positive way may improve the outcome of a potentially stressful situation. Mindful strategy you can use to prevent stress from occur. For example, instead of saying, I'm too overwhelmed to do this task, tell yourself, I can break this down into smaller pieces and focus on one piece at a time. Do you notice how this shifted from saying you can't do something to how you can make it feel less overwhelming and more manageable. Mind shifting could also mean challenging yourself to do something you don't want to do. Instead of neglecting and task or responsibility, try giving yourself a reward after you accomplish a task. Even though you don't wanna do that task, you have something you enjoy to look forward to after you get it done. Guided candle meditation. Got a candle meditation is a useful strategy to use when you're feeling stressed or overwhelmed. It allows your mind to focus on one thing, the candle. When you concentrate on one thing, the muscles around your eyes can contract less. Your heart rate may slow down and you're, you experience and if you experience racing thoughts, they may slowly shut down one by one. There are several benefits of candle meditation that may be useful for common issues among college students, including improvements in mental health and sleep. Practice this daily to increase the length of time you can engage in this exercise. Start with ten seconds, work up to 30 seconds than a minute. Aimed to eventually be able to do a two to five minute long session of daily candle meditation. We recommend using a flickering colors, changing LED candle. If you use a real candle, do not look directly into the flame. This practice may be done in your room or on the go. Try to find a comfortable space and sit up straight and uncomfortable spot. Put your candle at eye level so you don't strain your neck or slouch or back. Then you'll flip the switch at the bottom of the candle to turn it on and set up a timer for ten seconds. Nom electric timer that makes a sound when time is up, such as a wind-up egg timer is ideal to reduce any distractions that take away from your practice. If there are any machines, are devices running around you like a TV or radio? Turn them off if you can. Put your phone on silent and place the screen out of so you can have this moment for yourself without the risk distraction. Now we're going to take a minute to practice this technique together. Before we start playing the video, I want you to position, position yourself so you are sitting with good posture, with your back relaxed, straight, but not stiff. Close your eyes. Take a few moments to gently listen to the sounds going on around you. Now. Listen to the sounds your body makes. Listen to your breathing. Use this as an anchor. Take a slow, deep breath in through your nose for a count of four. Listen to the sound you make when you're breathing. As you exhale. Notice higher belly expands on the inhales. And as you hold your breath and slowly release it, notice how your stomach flattens on the exhales, breathing and again, 1234, holding it, breathing out slowly through your mouth. 1234, holding it. Slowly open your eyes and focus on the candle in front of you. Continue to slowly breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, focusing on your breath. As you watch the candle. Observe the candle as it fades from one color to the next. Without thinking about what the next color will be, simply observe and breathe. If your thoughts drift, center yourself by bringing your focus back to your breathing, taking slow, deep breaths. Return your observations back towards the candle. It's light and it's color. Continue to watch the colors of the candle, Flickr and fade. Flickr and fade. Now close your eyes and complete one final breathing cycle. Breathing in through your nose. 1234. Hold in. 1234. Breathing out through your mouth. 1234. Holding 1234. Now open your eyes and thank yourself for taking the time to be present and calm. At this point, you can take your phones back out and take pictures of this slide and the next slide. Resource links provided will help you explore tools and information related to using creative wellness to manage stress. Tools to reduce stress related to academics, more information about the differences between self-care and self soothe strategies. And a collection of videos, articles, and podcasts to prevent and reduce stress. On the first slide, we have 20 to make wishes creative art projects to reduce stress. We have a link for academics and well-being. And we have the article mentioned earlier, the unspoken complexity of self-care. And on the next slide, we have more information about managing stress, which you can find on our website at www u del.edu slash 007916. And finally, we have our we're excited for some of the gifts that we used for the breathing exercises. Thank you again for watching this presentation.
Basic Stress Management
From Angela DiNunzio Seguin December 18, 2020
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The learning goals for this program are:
Resources listed in the video:
- Students will be able to demonstrate one breathing exercise to reduce stress
- Students will be able to explain the differences between acute and chronic stress
- Students will be able to describe one strategy to prevent stress
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- Student Wellness and Health Promotion
- Date Established
- December 18, 2020
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