Table of Contents/Introduction   

1. The Meaning of Stress  

    Participants should know what stress means and how it can be clearly understood. Understanding the meaning of stress provides a sound basis for managers in particular who want to get the best out of themselves and those with whom they work. Understanding stress also helps us to understand how it can interfere with individual and company performance.

2.  Stress-shared perspectives   

    It is important to realize that stress has two main dimensions. The first is one we all share. We have to manage significant demands made on us in work and now-work environments...The second dimension is highly individual. Each one of us here has his/her way of coping with the demands made on us.

3. Count me in   

    Sometimes it is necessary to identify and establish the specific situations that are stressful to individuals and groups at work...

4. Stress alert schedule   

    Burnout can be a serious stress problem for staff in any organization... It is therefore essential to be able to prevent the problem and combat it if it arises.

5. What stress does to us and out performance   

    Clearly it is vital to know what stress does to us and our performance - a useful way of finding out is to evaluate specific situations and their consequences for individual and organizational performance.

6. Are you stress-prone?   

    Staff in organizations clearly have to cope with the many and varied demands made on them at work and in their personal lives. However, they also have to be made aware of how stress-prone they might be as people.

7. Cafeteria coping       

    Everybody has a wide rand of coping skills for managing stress... By identifying a wider range of coping skills we can 'dip into' them when we need them most. This is called cafeteria coping.

8. The stress and coping interview  

    We need to know in some detail the sources of stress for individual participants and how well they cope with it... The stress and coping interview helps us to establish and clarify this information.

9. Team coping  

    Individuals don't always have to cope on their own. Many sources of stress can come from demands made on teams at work. It is therefore useful for teams to be familiar with group methods of coping to solve individual, team and organizational problems.

10. Stress management   

    One of the most effective ways to manage stress is to learn to relax. The main benefits are a reduction in tension and improved general performance. Practicing stress management systematically helps us to realize these benefits.

11. Overcoming fear and anxiety   

    Fear and anxiety often interfere with the performance of staff, by breaking in to disrupt the achievement of goals... Fortunately, we can identify fearful situations and manage anxiety so that they do not undermine us in important personal and business matters.

12. Overcoming anger   

    Anger can be very destructive in our personal and business lives....We can over come this by practicing a sequence of methods that help to "stressproof" us from the damaging effects of anger.

13. Selecting a stress management strategy  

    Individuals as groups in an organization are often faced with demanding situation which require far more careful examination and selection of the strategies they use to manage stress... Using a systematic approach to identifying stress and selecting a stress management strategy activity makes a direct impact on stress and combats troughs in personal group performance.

14. Coping networks  

    One of the problems with stress is that we just don't use the management routines that are available to us. This is partly due to:

        (i) Being unaware that they exist

        (ii) Being aware that they exist but failing to use them

Using coping networks is one way of putting this right and achieving much more control over stress.

15. Lifestyle changes  

    Sometimes several events all occur within about six months to a year of each other. These are known as life events and make demands for adjustment of the individual.

16. Stress control breathing   

    Our level of stress in whatever we do is reflected in our breathing...Gaining more control over our breathing gives us more control over stress

17.  Benefits versus costs in coping   

    Sometimes the coping behaviors we adopt to manage stress do not bring benefits. Sometimes they involve costs.

18. The stress count  

    It is important to take stock of how much stress we may be undergoing...This helps us to get both a specific and a 'helicopter' view of ourselves and the effect stress is having on our personal lives and working relationships.

19. Personal control  

    It is useful to know which areas of our personal and working life we control and which areas need more control.

20. Stress rehearsal record  

    There are many situations that we have found stressful and where we would have preferred to cope in a different way. By specifying these situations we can choose to cope differently to manage stress. This is done through a 'Stress rehearsal'

21. Goal-directed coping   

    Coping is often adopted to achieve specific goals. Staff in organizations can use goal-directed coping as a means to increase their personal effectiveness.

22. Improving concentration  

    One of the stress signals that we should look out for and manage better is any lapse in our concentratio.

23.  Creative Scripting  

       Sometimes we find that the forms of coping we employ are either no longer effective or actually cause us harm and obstruct us from achieving our goals..."Creative Scripting" is a method of generating new and imaginative ways of managing stress and keeping the edge on our performance.

24. Spotting Shyness  

    Shyness is a particularly painful form of stress. It hurts personally and it gets in the way of our personal effectiveness. We need to be able to identify those situations that lead to shyness.

25.  Stopping Shyness  

    Shyness can be very stressful. It interferes with what we want to say, how we say it, and the way we come over to other people...Stopping shyness is therefore crucial, especially where the job demands interacting with others.

26. Controlling Shyness   

    Shyness can be controlled by committing ourselves to a clear program of specific actions based on building confidence and positive thinking.

27. Guiding decisions  

       Our minds determine the decisions we make...Mind-guided decision-making procedures help to manage the mind under pressure.

28. Goal management for overcoming stress  

    Sometimes we are far too vague in deciding what we want to achieve...By relevant goal setting we can avoid excessive stress

29. Increasing concentration  

    By increasing our concentration we are in a better position to cope with significant occupational and personal situations to make demands on our concentration.

30. Keeping cool under fire  

    Managers and other staff in organizations must know how to deal with unpleasant situations at work. They need to become expert at identifying "tricky" situations and practice overcoming suspicion and resentment.

31. The pursuit of pleasure  

    The tell-tale signs of stress often appear when we no longer pursue those activities that give us pleasure...The pursuit of pleasure is an effective way to combat excessive stress.

32. Releasing resentment   

    Releasing resentment in a controlled and constructive way frees managers and other staff to perform more effectively.

33. Decisions and stress   

       Decisions are crucial to business success...Practicing decision making helps to combat stressful situations.

34. Silencing stress  

        Our buys world is full of noise...The silencing method can be easily used to overcome stress and return to a calm, composed and alert state.

35. Automatic thinking  

    Automatic thinking involves immediately linking situations and thoughts without any intervening analysis...It is therefore useful to discover out own pattern of automatic thinking and the kinds of unnecessary stress we experience.

36. Thought Control   

    Thinking influences whether or not we experience stress. Being able to gain greater control over our thinking means we can achieve more control over stress.

37.  Pinning down shyness   

    Shyness affects how we relate to others. Shyness first needs to be identified. We can do this by identifying the sources of shyness and its effects on staff in organizations.

38. Significance scaling  

    Not every demand made on us is one that leads to excessive stress...It is the demands that we regard as being significant that require coping to manage stress. It is therefore helpful to be able to prioritize the significant demands in our lives...

39. Defending Yourself       

    We often defend ourselves when dealing with difficult situations and people...Knowing the kinds of defense mechanisms there are and which ones we use helps us to decide what benefits and costs are involved for our personal and work lives.

40. Adjusting your defenses  

    It is important to be able to identify those of our defense mechanisms that need to be changed and decide the alternative action that must be taken...Adjusting our defenses also makes it possible to be more realistic about our goals in life.

41. Encouraging confidence   

    Confidence is vital in managing stress...Encouraging the development of confidence is good for all staff, their personal lives and their organizations.

42. Confidence for 'me'  

    We can increase our ability to manage stress by identifying our personal rights and exercising them.

43. The broken record   

    A practical way assertiveness can be used to manage stress and influence business outcomes is to use the broken record technique...Like the record you should keep repeating your message over and over. You will find that other eventually acknowledge what you are saying and often act on what you say.

44.  Making requests  

    Managers spend a great deal of their time making requests to others. An effective technique to reduce stress is to start making requests more assertively.

45. Refusing requests  

    Just as we can learn to make requests assertively so we can manage stress better by refusing requests in an assertive style as opposed to being aggressive...Refusing requests assertively helps to maintain order, control and efficiency in our relationships with other at work.

46. Risk and drinking behavior   

    Drinking alcohol is not a problem. It becomes a problem when it gets out of control. A practical way to keep alcohol under control is to plot the frequency of our consumption and assess the risk we run from the patter of our drinking behavior.

47.  Alcohol control  

    Alcohol itself is not a bad thing. But when our drinking gets out of control it can have catastrophic consequences...Controlling alcohol is an indirect means of controlling the quality of our work behavior and personal lives.

48. Deadline Stress  

    Every manager has to manage time...by disciplining our behavior and managing deadlines more effectively we cut out a great deal of unnecessary stress.

49. Managing Conflict   

    Much of our life involves managing conflict...It is useful to know how we manage conflict and how we can tackle more difficult situations at work and in our personal lives.

50. Job stress scale  

    The Job Stress Scale can be used to begin to examine our jobs and what might be done to make them less stressful but still challenging and satisfying.