Managing Stress

Stress. A word I'm sure all of you can relate & understand, especially with this new world we're trekking called VIRTUAL LEARNING. Everyone experiences stress; it's a reaction/response we all give. Sometimes it's helpful & sometimes it can be harmful. For instance, it can sometimes help one focus and get the task at hand done. I'm sure we all have experience with this one. However, when stress is frequent and intense, it can strain your body and make it impossible to function.

Two kinds of Stress

Your brain comes hard-wired with an alarm system for your protection
When your brain perceives a threat, it signals your body to release a burst of hormones to fuel your capacity for a response
- This is called the “Fight, Flight, or Freeze Response”

Good Stress:

Keeps us alive!
When humans sense that we are in danger, our brains switch to survival mode, triggering a flight, fight, or freeze response within us.
In this mode, our body's only mission is to escape danger and return as quickly as possible to a regulated and safe state.
Universally, according to our biological makeup, we choose flight first. We have been hardwired to avoid and escape from dangerous situations. When we cannot escape our backup plan is to fight.
Then there are the times when we cannot connect with our biological training or process our current reality effectively, which leaves us in a state of limbo. Unable to think clearly or determine a course of action, we freeze.
Once the threat is gone, your body is meant to return to a normal relaxed state.

Bad Stress

However, the nonstop stress of modern life means that your alarm system rarely shuts off.
When the Flight, Fight, or Freeze occurs your Prefrontal Cortex shuts down (this part of brain is responsible for impulse control, memory, attention span, language, higher order thinking) and your brain then operates from the lower brain where Amygdala is located.
Reactions can include anger outbursts, insecurity, anxiety, disruptiveness, irritability, shock, numbness, difficulty concentrating and making decisions (more primitive responses).

Impact of Unhealthy Stress

Stress affects your entire body, physically & mentally. Some symptoms we can experience are:

Headaches
Trouble sleeping
Jaw pain
Changes in appetite
Frequent mood swings
Difficulty concentrating
Feeling overwhelmed
Compassion Fatigue

Compassion Fatigue

Compassion Fatigue

The experience of short-term exhaustion and traumatic stress reactions associated with exposure to the suffering of one’s clients/students.
- The weariness that comes from caring
A deep erosion of our compassion, of our ability to tolerate strong emotions/difficult stories in others
Evident in helpers’ professional and personal life
Can also happen to caregivers (“caregiver fatigue”)

Occupational Burnout

Characterized by :

•feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion

•increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job

•reduced professional efficacy

*SEE BURNOUT TAB TO LEARN MORE*

Secondary Traumatic Stress

We work so intimately and closely with individuals who have experiences with trauma or hardship or devastation, we start to take on some of what they are actually experiencing with regard to depression, avoidance, loss of appetite, substance abuse, etc.

Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS):

The emotional duress that results when an individual hears about the firsthand trauma experiences of another.

The essential act of listening to trauma stories may take an emotional toll that compromises professional functioning and diminishes the quality of life.

Vicarious Trauma

Vicarious Trauma is a profound shift in worldview due to the repetition of traumatic stories and images. It is this cumulative process of being exposed to horrific stories that alter the way we see the world. Rather than seeing the world as safe, we see it as dark and dangerous.

This can occur by

viewing graphic news reports
gruesome or frightening television shows and various other media
hearing a detailed traumatic story from another person
viewing crime scene evidence
working in a court room
attending a debriefing or a conference where disturbing images are described or shown

Who is at Risk?

Our mind may immediately go to

Emergency/crisis responders
Mental health professionals
People new to the profession and managing a lot of trauma

& these are true. One we often miss but also experience compassion fatigue are, Teachers!

Teachers are also at risk. If we think about some of the statistics which state that up to 70% of students in a campus have experienced trauma and others which stated that 1 in 4 students in a classroom experience trauma, we can see that teachers are at risk of compassion fatigue.