[Tutorial] Managing Stress and Coping with Loss

[lpxxfaintxx]

I know some of you are feeling stressed. As the rate of suicides are going up, I'm getting worried about some of you. A simple outline written by me. Sorry the format is all f'ed up, I guess MS Word isn't vB compatible :o

I. Stress and Your Health

A. What Causes Stress?
1. Stress is the body?s and mind?s respond to a demand. Stress can be caused by many different situations or events. Stress is caused by stressors, A stressor is any situation that puts a demand on the body or mind.

B.Types of Stressors
1. Environmental Stressors
a) Environmental stressors are conditions or events in your physical environment that cause you stress. For example: pollution, poverty, crowding, noise, and natural disasters.
2. Biological Stressors
a) These are conditions that make it difficult for your body to take part in daily activities. For example: having an illness, a disability, or an injury are biological stressors.
3. Thinking Stressors
a) Any type of mental challenge can cause stress. A good example of this is taking a test.
4. Behavioral Stressors
a) Unhealthy behavior, such as not getting enough sleep or exercise can lead to stress. Using tobacco, alcohol, or drugs also puts stress on your body.

C.Life Change Stressors
1. Any major life change, whether positive or negative, can be cause of stress. For example: death of a loved one, getting married and other personal events can cause stress.

D. Physical Response to Stress
1. Imagine that you are riding your bike and you suddenly find yourself in the path of a fast-moving car. You feel a sudden burst of energy that allows you to get out of the way. Now imagine that you are a goalie in a soccer game. The ball has been kicked by an opposing team player and its headed straight to the goal. Your heart starts to beat faster as you jump for the ball and make the block.
2. In both of these situations, your body responded to a stressful situation but in a different way. When the car was ion the path of your bike, the response was to move away or ?take flight.? When the soccer ball was coming to the goal, the response was to confront the situation, or ?fight.? The physical changes that prepare your body to respond quickly and appropriately to stressors is called the fight-or-flight response.
3. During the fight-or-flight response, your body provides you with the energy, reflexes, and strength you may need to respond to the stressor. Your body releases epinephrine.

E. Emotional and Behavioral Response to Stress
1. The way you respond to a stress emotionally and behaviorally depends on whether you consider the stress to be positive or negative.
2. A positive stress can help you respond well in a stressful situation. A positive stress that energizes one and helps one reach a goal is called eustress.
3. Negative Stress ? Distress is a negative stress that can make a person sick or keep a person from reaching a goal. Distress can keep you from doing your best, no matter how capable you are.
4. Try to Make Stress Positive ? Obviously it is better to approach stressful situations as positive and not negative ways. However, it is not always easy to control your response to a stressor. One way you can help yourself experience eustress is to be optimistic about dealing with a stressor.

F. Long-Term Stress Can Make You Sick
1. If your body experiences stress continuously over a long period of time, you increase your risk for a wide range of stress-related diseases. Long-term stress can cause changes in your body that can lead to a heart attack. Long-term stress can also weaken your immune system, the system of your body that defends against infections. As a result you are more likely to suffer from infections, such as a cold.
2. The general adaptation syndrome is a model that describes the relationship between stress and diseases.
a) Alarm stage ? In the alarm stage, the body and mind become alert. This stage includes the events brought on by the fight-or-flight response. All of your body?s efforts go into responding to the demand.
b) Resistance Stage ? If the stress continues, your body becomes more resistant to disease and injury than normal.
c) Exhaustion Stage ? In this stage, your body cannot take the resistance to the stressor any longer, especially if several stressors occur in a row.

II. Dealing With Stress

A. Take Care of Yourself
1. Stressful events will occur throughout your life.
2. Whatever stressors you experience, learning to manage them will help you remain healthy throughout your life.
3. People who are in better physical health are more likely than others to resist developing an illness.
4. Exercise Regularly
a) Exercise will not only keep you physically fit, but it will also relieve tension. Tension is a physical effect of stress marked by straining of muscles.
5. Get Enough Rest
a) You should get at least 9 hours of sleep every night.
6. Eat Right
a) Eating nutritious foods gives you vitamins, minerals, and energy you need to deal with everyday demands.
7. Learn to Relax
a) Using relaxation techniques can help you relieve tension and reserve energy for fighting illness.
8. Breathing Exercises
a) One relaxation technique is deep breathing. It require completely filling the lungs with air instead of taking shallow breaths.
9. Tension-Releasing Exercises
a) When you are under stress, it?s common to hold the tension in your muscles.
B. Build Resiliency
1. The ability to recover from illness, hardship, and other stressors is called resiliency.
C. Change Your Attitude
1. You have control over the number of stressors in your life. Because stress is caused by how you perceive a new or potentially threatening situation, you can change to see the situation as a challenge instead of as a problem.
2. Use Positive Self-Talk
a) Say or think positive things to yourself.
3. Be confident about yourself
a) The better you feel about yourself, the more positive your perception of a situation will be.
4. Don?t Worry About Things Out of Your Control
a) Accept the things you can?t change, and then make the best out of the situation.
D. Manage Your Time
1. One of the most common stressors is time management.
a) List and Prioritize your Projects ? The first step is managing time is to make a list of your projects and to prioritize your goals.
b) Know and Set Your Limits ? One major reason that some people have hectic schedules is that they don?t know their limits when they commit to projects.
2. Make a Schedule
a) Enter your priorities first
b) Be realistic
c) Prepare for problems
d) Make time to relax
e) Do it.

III. Coping with Loss

A. Effects of Loss
1. There are many forms of loss. Some examples of loss are the death of a family, the divorce of one?s parents, the death of a pet, a breakup with a boyfriend or girlfriend, and a move away from your home.
2. Loss can cause stress
a) When you experience loss, you can feel the physical and emotional effects of stress.
B. The Grieving Process
1. To express deep sadness because of a loss is to grieve
2. The 5 Stages of the Grieving Process
a) Denial
b) Anger
c) Bargaining
d) Depression
e) Acceptance

C. Funerals, Wakes, and Memorial Services
1. A wake is a ceremony that is held to allow family and friends to view or watch over the deceased person before the funeral
2. A funeral is a ceremony in which a deceased person is buried of cremated.
3. A memorial service is a ceremony to remember the deceased person.
D. Help for Dealing with a Loss
1. Get plenty of rest and relaxation
2. Share memories and thoughts about the deceased
3. Express your feelings by crying or by writing in a journal
E. Helping Others
1. Sometimes people feel uncomfortable in the presence of a person who has experienced a loss.
2. Show your support through simple actions
3. Let the person know that you are there for him or her
4. Tell the person that you have faith that he or she is strong.
5. If the person seems depressed, avoids family and friends, or doesn?t seem to be making any progress, tell a trusted adult.


IV. Preventing Suicide


A. Facts About Suicide
1. Suicide Is the act of intentionally taking one?s own life.
2. Many people who have considered suicide considered it only for a brief period in their life.
3. Most people who have attempted suicide and failed are usually grateful to be alive.
4. Suicide does not happen without warning.
5. The use of drugs or alcohol can put people at risk of acting on suicidal thoughts because their judgment is impaired.
B. Teens and Suicide
1. Suicide is the fifth leading cause of death for ages 25 to 64. It is the third leading cause of death for people between the ages of 15 and 24.
C. Changes During the Teen Years
1. Sometimes the physical and emotional changes during the teen years may make teens feel more emotional, impulsive, and focused on today.
D. Warning Signs for Suicide
1. Feeling hopeless
2. Withdrawing from family and friends
3. Neglecting basic needs
4. Experiencing loss of energy
5. Taking more risks
6. Using alcohol and drugs
7. Giving away personal things.
E. Giving and Getting Help
1. Take all talk of suicide seriously
2. Tell your friend that suicide is not the answer
3. Change negative thoughts into positive thoughts
4. Don?t keep a secret

[ScAreCroW]

I myself have taken counsulling(sp?) courses. I have helped very many people that are in a state of depression, and have been "cutting" themselves. I have never failed. I am here to offer help. Anyone who needs help just add me on msn. daniel_blinn@hotmail.com . It will be 100% confidential. Just don't ask for help if you don't need it. Because it takes a big toll on me. But if you are even slightly upset, contact me.

[XCreepingDeathX]

I just masturbate and all my stress vanishes.

[K? Pŕo?ćtiόnŹ]

"Cause life is a game that no one wins,
But you deserve a headstart the way your life's goin',
So throw in the towel cause your life ain't ****,
Now take that towel and hang yourself with it,
Life's short and hard like a body-building elf,
So save the planet and kill yourself,
If you're feeling down-and-out with what your life's all about,
Lift your head up high and blow your brains out,
Lift your head up high and blow your brains out,
Lift your head up high and blow your brains out,
Lift your head up high and blow your brains out."

[XCreepingDeathX]

Originally Posted by megazord

"Cause life is a game that no one wins,
But you deserve a headstart the way your life's goin',
So throw in the towel cause your life ain't ****,
Now take that towel and hang yourself with it,
Life's short and hard like a body-building elf,
So save the planet and kill yourself,
If you're feeling down-and-out with what your life's all about,
Lift your head up high and blow your brains out,
Lift your head up high and blow your brains out,
Lift your head up high and blow your brains out,
Lift your head up high and blow your brains out."

[SC_Modder]

Right when I think a serious thread would result from the first post . . .

[dt_spectre]

Originally Posted by XCreepingDeathX

wow i like ur sig.

thats a slipknot player? i think.

[Mikepr]

NO suicidal ideas??????? jk



DAAMMM SRY FOR REVIVING SRY SRY SRY

[xmcm]

Originally Posted by XCreepingDeathX

I just masturbate and all my stress vanishes.

too much info bro....

[K? Pŕo?ćtiόnŹ]

tards

[gamepin126]

I don't understand how people become stressed. I mean, I can understand having an urgency to get things done, but when they're done that's it. There's no unresolved stresses which take time to adjust from. There's uneasiness but that's just when you're taken out of a comfort zone, and I've never been in one that didn't eventually familiar.

I usually fit things into 2 categories: This is inline with where my life's-plan, and the other is not. The former takes priority to the latter, and everything becomes simple.

Death: Really doesn't bother me much. I've had a few grandpas and grandmas die, a few uncles, as well as friends. All of whom I was close to, but I didn't cry once. I just see these incidents as extended vacations. You don't cry when you haven't visited someone in a week, or a month. Perhaps you'd like to see them, but you never cry over not being able to.

I see mourning and crying as a waste of energy and is utterly ridiculous considering that crying gets absolutely nothing done other than make yourself look extremely unappealing and provokes questions like "how do you feel?" which, to me, invokes my pure hatred of stupidity and complicates something that isn't necessarily complex.

Probably thinking that I'm an emotionless statue, but we all know that's not true. I love, laugh, hate and function every bit as normal as I perceive normal to be.

Accepting things at face-value will make your life infinitely simpler.

[ScAreCroW]

I like to live life with a lax view. I never get stressed. Or nervous. Or Anxious. And as for that crying or grieving issue pinner has. Well mourning a death isn't redundant. It emotionally matures you. There's living life calmly, and then there's living life blindly.

However, I'm not choosing to oppose pinner's way of life. If anything I'm for him since he is one of view that actually think about their actions and consider the benefits of no-stress/worry.

I am however, hating on the people who have no outlook on life or who are, well, emo. Crying over everything. What's the point. You have one life.

Be happy, be free, be yourself.

Read Robert Fulghum bitches