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Stress Management |
Issue
Stress-Management for Survivors of Childhood Cancer
Background
There is no "right" way to manage your stress or the feelings associated with your stress. It is important to discover ways of managing your stress that work for you. Feelings of anxiety or worry are often best handled by talking them out. Some people find it most helpful to talk openly and frankly with family and friends. Others prefer to speak with health professionals, clergy, psychotherapists or other patients. Expressing your feelings with someone you trust can do much to reduce worry and anxiety. Because our thoughts influence mood, behavior and physical reactions, most people who are anxious, depressed or angry are helped by making changes in their thinking. But many problems also require changes in behavior, physical functioning and environment (e.g., learning to say no to unreasonable demands, spending more time with supportive people, reducing stress).
Strong moods signal that something important is going on in your life. Those who have survived a life threatening illness very commonly develop strong feelings relating to their treatment or the impact of their illness on their life. Sometimes such feelings are not appreciated until time has passed after the onset of the illness. Identifying moods and their precipitating factors is a first step in identifying particular interventions to improve the situation.
Information
Stress involves changes that you must adjust to. Stress can be experienced from your environment, your body and your thoughts. Stress, some feel, begins with your appraisal of a situation--how you perceive, label and interpret your experience. Since stress can damage almost every body system, leading to disease, stress management is a critical factor in helping to promote health and recovery.
Relaxation has a recuperative, healing effect, allowing a person respite from external stress or internal stress relating to thoughts. The relaxation response normalizes physical, mental and emotional functioning.
The first step in reducing stress is to become aware of the major sources of stress in your life. It may also be helpful to become aware of how and where body tension is felt in different parts of your body.
There are scores of different techniques useful for managing stress. A few of the more popular techniques are listed and described below:
-Assertiveness training: a source of considerable stress in your life may come from how you interact with other people. Assertiveness training involves learning to state your feelings and assert your rights in a calm objective manner.
-Autogenics: this is a program that teaches you to respond quickly to commands to relax. Autogenic training involves learning to relax by concentrating on your body (e.g., imagining spreading warmth and heaviness throughout your body), focusing meditatively on your mind (e.g., imagining and visualizing different ideas) and special exercises for dealing with specific difficulties.
-Biofeedback: the use of instruments to become aware of bodily processes (e.g., muscle tension, skin temperature, brain wave activity, blood pressure) to help bring them under voluntary control (to promote relaxation).
-Cognitive behavioral approaches:
-Exercise: physical exertion can promote relaxation.
-Meditation: focusing your attention on only one thing at a time and holding your attention to that object, thought or idea.
-Progressive relaxation: progressively tensing different muscles or muscle groups and then relaxing these areas throughout the body.
-Relaxation breathing: learning and applying proper breathing techniques as an antidote to stress.
-Self hypnosis: through the power of suggestion and the skill of sharply focused thought, making positive suggestions for changes in your life and exploring unconscious thoughts.
-Visualization or guided imagery: while in a comfortable and relaxed state, using the imagination to develop images (visual or other sensory modalities) which further promote stress reduction.
Benefits of relaxation and stress reduction techniques can be optimized after they have been practiced regularly over time. Intellectual understanding of most techniques is of little value unless accompanied by firsthand practice. While the length of time required for particular relaxation techniques varies, it is best to practice the exercises of your choice daily. Select a quiet place where you can practice the techniques uninterrupted.
Resources
Borysenko, Joan. Minding the Body, Mending the Mind. Toronto. Bantam Books, 1987.
Borysenko, Joan.Guilt is the Teacher Love is the Lesson. Warner Books. New York, 1990.
Borysenko, Joan and Borysenko, Miroslav. The Power of the Mind to Heal. Hay House Incorporated, California, 1994.
Brown, Barbara. Stress and the Art of Biofeedback: New Directions for the Mind. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.
Davis, Martha, Eschelman, Elizabeth and McKay, Matthew. The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook. New Harbinger Publications, Inc. California, 1988.
Ellis, A. A New Guide to Rational Living. North Hollywood, California: Wilshire Books, 1975.
Gawain, Shakti. Creative Visualization. Mill Valley, California: Whatever Publishing Company, 1972.
Greenberger, Dennis and Padesky, Christine. Mind Over Mood: Change How You Feel by Changing the Way You Think. The Guilford Press, New York, 1995.
Kabat-Zinn, Jon. Full Catastrophe Living. New York: Delacorte Press, 1990.
LeCron, Leslie. Self-Hypnosis. New York: New American Library, 1970.
Luthe, Wolfgang (ed.) Autogenic Therapy. Six volumes. New York: Grune and Stratton, 1969.
Rimm, D.C. and Masters, J. C. Behavior Therapy: Techniques and Empirical Findings. New York: Academic Press, 1974.
Siegel, Bernie S. Love, Medicine, and Miracles. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.
Smith, Manuel J. When I Say No, I Feel Guilty. New York: The Dial Press, 1975.
Thich Nhat Hanh. The Miracle of Mindfulness! A Manual of Meditation. Boston: Beacon Press, 1976.
Key Words
relaxation, stress management, stress reduction, anxiety reduction