Transcript


Video: Stress Management

Presenter: Jan Wright

A photograph of Speaker Jan Wright

New students and small business owners are usually so busy learning new tasks and meeting new challenges that they forget that they can experience stress, and the stress becomes chronic in their life. Remember that you are your business and that looking after yourself is the top priority.

One of the first things that you need to do is to be aware of how stress affects you. Fear of the future, performance anxiety, and self criticism usually impacts your health. So it's very important that you understand that you need to learn to manage your stress and not let stress manage you. Remember, you are your business, and taking care of yourself is top priority.

During this unit you will learn the three steps to stress management: awareness, how does stress affect you? You're going to learn to identify your biggest stressors, and remember that what stresses you may not stress somebody else.

You're also going to learn what your personal stress symptoms are. How does stress affect you physically, psychologically, and behaviourally? Then you're going to look at how vulnerable you actually are to stress.

You're also going to look at how to bring a new attitude to your stress management by replacing the negative tapes that you play with positive thoughts. Balancing your emotions is what leads to really good health. It may sound corny, but approaching life with a positive attitude is one of the best stress management techniques you can use. If you begin the day by saying something like, "Oh, I'm so stupid, I don't know how to use the computer," that immediately sets up a physiological response in your body right down to the cellular level. So one of the things you need to do is stop, breathe, and replace that negative thought with a positive thought. And the positive thought here may be, "You know, what? I don't understand how to do this, but I can e mail my instructor and get help."

You're going to learn, during this module, how to practice mind body techniques that will reduce your stress level. This is really important because as you go through this program, there are going to be times when you are going to experience stress and you need to know when to stop your work and leave what you're doing and just take a break.

Some people told me in the past that they've done something like worked for five or six hours at a time in this course. Can you imagine the stress that's happening to their mind and body? So always remember to get up and take a break and relax, get a glass of water, get something to eat, stretch, and do those kinds of things.

You're going to end this module designing your own personal stress management plan, and you're going to take a hold of the stress before it takes hold of you.

Transcript provided by: Accurate Realtime Reporting Inc.

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