THE UPSIDE OF STRESS
RESILIENCE
INTRODUCTION
Have you ever described yourself as being “stressed out”? Stress is the way your body and mind react to everyday challenges and demands. Sometimes, stress comes on quickly, like when you are late and running to catch the bus. In other cases, stress can build slowly for days, like when you feel the pressure to perform well in a sports event or on a final exam.
Stress is a natural part of life. In many cases, the situations that cause it are unavoidable. How much a stressful event affects you, however, depends partly on your perception of it. For example, you might believe that a disagreement with a friend has ruined your friendship. Your friend, on the other hand, might believe that you’ll be able to work out the problem in the end. Because of the way you perceive the argument, you will probably feel more stress over it than your friend does.
Your reaction to stressful events and how you tackle those events depends partly on your previous experiences. For instance, if you have always struggled with math you're not likely to want to do math homework. It's not fun for you and it brings up feelings of failure. So, you avoid doing the work to avoid that feeling. It's human nature to avoid discomfort. However, if you love math, and you've had success with it... and you are planning on a career that uses math as part of the job, then your are much more likely to want to do the work and maybe even find pleasure in doing it. As a young child, we all learned how to respond to stressful events from family, friends, and community. As adults, we can choose to learn new tools for navigating potentially stressful life events and feel a sense of control over our inner, emotional life.
TAKE AWAY MESSAGE
Stress is a natural part of life.
It's human nature to avoid things that don't interest us and are hard to do.
Your reaction to stressful events depends partly on your previous experiences.
How you think about a challenge determines whether you will experience positive or negative stress.
THE STRESS RESPONSE
When you perceive something to be dangerous, difficult, or painful, your body automatically begins a stress response. For example, if you are walking by your neighbors’ house and their dog suddenly starts barking, you might feel startled and your heart might start racing. The sudden, loud noise is a stressor that that affects you automatically, without any thought.
The body’s response to stress is largely involuntary, or automatic. It involves both your nervous system and your endocrine, or hormonal, system. The physical stress response is the same regardless of the type of stressor. It involves three stages:
Alarm Your mind and body go on high alert. This reaction is sometimes called the "fight-or-flight response" because it prepares your body either to defend itself or to flee from a threat.
Resistance If your exposure to the stressor continues, your body adapts and reacts to the stressor. You may perform at a higher level and with more endurance for a short period.
Fatigue If exposure to stress is prolonged, your body loses its ability to adapt. You begin to tire and lose the ability to manage other stressors effectively.
The Alarm stage of the stress response, or “fight or flight” is the emergency reaction system of the body. It is there to keep you safe in emergencies. The stress response includes physical and thought responses to your perception of various situations. When the stress response is turned on, your body may release hormones like adrenaline and cortisol that increase your heart rate, blood, pressure and breathing rate. All in an attempt to help you either "fight" or "fly" away from the challenging or threatening situation. The bad part of this is that the stress response can work against you. You can turn it on when you don’t really need it and, as a result, perceive something as an emergency when it’s really not. It can turn on when you are listening to the evening news, weather forecasts, the war in Ukraine, other crimes, and just thinking about past or future events.
THE NEWS CAN MAKE YOU ANXIOUS
Have you noticed that when you watch the news reports that you feel your body respond to the images and tone of voice used by the reporter? Do you feel a little more anxious while watching it? Feeling anxious is often how people describe the body sensations created by stress. News reports are engineered to hijack our stress response to get us to pay attention. Our attention = $. You can choose the amount of exposure you have to the news and in what format you obtain the news. I recommend that we all limit watching the news on TV and online, and opt to read it rather than listening to it. This will help you to take charge of your experience, and decrease your overall stress level or "allostatic load".
REFLECTION Questions
(Use the shared google doc, Label it "Upside of Stress - Reflection Questions")
What stressors are you experiencing today?
How might the media, family, community, and peers be influencing your stress response (positive and negative)?
How can you decrease the amount of stress you feel related to school, work, family, or current world events?
Take a 5 minute brain and body break
TAKE AWAY MESSAGE
Stressors activate the nervous system and specific hormones.
There are three stages of the stress response: alarm, resistance , and exhaustion or fatigue.
Feeling anxious is often how people describe the body sensations created by stress.
Our thoughts and beliefs about a situation can greatly impact how our body responds to a stressor, and thus how we experience the stressor.
Our exposure to news reports about COVID-19 and our world can amplify our stress response.
MAKE STRESS YOUR FRIEND!
Watch the TED TALK
Embracing stress/adversity is more important than reducing stress/adversity. To get good at stress/adversity, When we view the stress response as helpful we create a biology of courage!
Three ways to be better at stress and thus more resilient:
Find the MEANING of stress and its UTILITY in the immediate experience. Chase what gives you meaning - it's better for your health than avoiding discomfort.
Adopt a GROWTH MINDSET - how you think about stress matters! Trust yourself to handle life's challenges, and trust that resources are available to help.
Seek HUMAN CONNECTION/support, help someone else and be of service to others. Caring creates resilience.
TAKE AWAY MESSAGE
How you view stress matters!
Stress is your body's natural reaction that helps you to take on new challenges.
When you change your mind (thoughts) about stress you can change your bodies response to stress.
Your body believes your thoughts.
Oxytocin a hormone, released during stressful events, that motivates you to seek support.
Oxytocin strengthens your heart and protects you from the negative physical effects of stress.
Human connection and caring for others creates resilience.
When you view your stress response as helpful, you create an internal biology of courage.
You can trust yourself to handle life's challenges, and you don't have to face them alone.
Chase meaning is better for your health than trying to avoid discomfort.
When faced with a difficult decision go after what creates meaning in your life and trust yourself to handle the stress that follows.
FRIDAY CLASSES - STOP HERE
RESILIENCE & POSITIVE SELF TALK
Resilience is the ability to adapt and cope in the face of adversity, trauma, or significant sources of stress (like COVID-19). To be resilient means to bounce back from a difficult situation. Being resilient does not mean that you do not experience distress, it simply means that you manage it well. There are many ways to boost your resiliency: showing compassion to yourself and others, practicing keystone habits, movement, green exercise, breathing exercises, flow states, and self-talk are a few that we have explored in this class.
Remember what Kelly McGonigal said in the TED Talk - You can get good at stress ( aka manage it) by choosing your thoughts about a stressful event. When you change your thoughts you change your experience. You can change your thoughts by improving self talk. So if you want to feel a sense of agency - self control - get serious about your self talk. Self talk is what we say to ourselves, our inner voice. Self- talk often occurs unconsciously, and can act as a subtle running commentary of your life occurring in the background of your mind.
POSITIVE SELF TALK
Consciously listen to what you are saying to yourself, and monitor whether it is good or bad.
Try to counter your negative thoughts will positive ones. Instead of thinking 'I'll never be able to do this', think 'If I practice and work hard, I will be able to do this'. Tell yourself that you have the ability to overcome difficult problems.
Avoid speaking in finite language e.g. 'I will NEVER be able to do this', rather say to yourself, " I can't do this, yet", and "I will be able to do this with a little help from the teacher".
ACTIVITY : Complete the Life Journal PDF to learn more about positive self talk and how to apply it in your daily life. Positive Self Talk.
Improve Self Talk by asking different questions:
Instead of asking questions that amplify stress:
Why does this have to happen to me?
Why am I so unlucky?
Ask yourself questions that build resilience:
What can I learn from this?
What can I do better?
What are the positives (silver lining) of COVID-19?
How does this school work help me get to where I want to be?
How can I serve others?
TAKE AWAY MESSAGE
Choose your thoughts snd you choose your experience.
Use positive self talk to build resilience.
Take a another movement break.
PRACTICE ASSIGNMENTS
Journal Reflections (do not hand it -enrichment)
Life Journal - Positive Self Talk (do not hand in - enrichment)
Post Reading Google Form EXIT SLIP
Optional Kahoot
REFERENCES & ENRICHMENT OPPORTUNITIES
Huberman, Andrew. (2020) Huberman Lab of Neuroscience. Breathwork, Good Mental Health, & Tools For The Brain
McGonigal, K. (2015). The upside of stress: Why stress is good for you, and how to get good at it. Books by Kelly.
Health Education online Text. McGraw-Hill. Chapters 3 & 4.