Stress Management

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Thursday, August 11, 2011

Stress Management: Either You Can be Right or You Can be Happy

Pronounce each and every word of each and every language correctly.
Being dressed prim and proper every minute and every hour of all the days of an year.
Never squeeze the tooth paste tube or shaving cream tube or moisturizer tube or for that matter any such other tube in its middle.
Following each and every dining table manner and telephone etiquette and every other social etiquette to the letter as described in numerous etiquette and manners manuals authored by all kinds of self proclaiming experts.
Never leave the clothes on the beds of the bedrooms or on the floors of bathrooms even for a second.
Make sure that toilet seat is always covered without fail and flush at least twice after having done the thing in the toilet.
Always eat the perfectly nutritious food in every meal everywhere. Never ever exceed the calorie and other specifications set out by the numerous nutrition experts.
Always sleep on the right side of the bed and let the spouse sleep always on the left side of the bed.
Sticking to punctuality in each and every situation.
Loading the washing machine or dish washer in the right way- as thought out as right by self.
All the time trying to set out goals of all kinds and trying to meet those goals and getting upset when not meeting them.
Pushing the son(s)/daughter(s) to become champions in many things right around their age of 5 or 6 and feeling upset when they fail to meet such expectations.
Presenting self, spouse and children as the most mannerly creatures of the earth.
Never miss the deadlines in professional or any other type of jobs.

and the list can go on and on.

Trying to be reasonably effective and efficient is understandable because that can be met within your capabilities and within your other resources. But then excess of anything is bad. When you set out some crazy ideals for self and are likely to expect them from your spouse, children, parents, subordinates and colleagues, it becomes too much for yourself and everyone else around you. And then stresses and strains develop because such tall expectations are beyond the available capabilities and resources. That leaves you and others not only stressed but it is likely to disrupt the human relations from time to time. That further adds to your and others' woes.

Many times what is right or wrong is never very clear. Different people do things differently and to each one that may be right. So, on trivial and many other issues, insistence on achieving a particular "right way" may be inviting unnecessary stresses. Yet, on some important issues of life what is realistic and achievable must definitely be discussed and what capabilities and other resources of self and others will be required to achieve them must be assessed.

The whole discussion here does not promote accepting a compromising or sloppy attitude towards life but warns all of us against being obsessed about being "right" or "perfect" (as defined by self) all the time.

Being flexible and setting realistic and achievable goals within the means of capabilities and resources is the golden path traversing on which will be least stressful and yet meaningfully fulfilling.

For More Guidance, Assistance, Training and Consultation
Contact: prodcons@prodcons.com

Training in all the soft skills and various management functions/techniques is imparted by Prodcons Group’s Mr Shyam Bhatawdekar and/or Dr (Mrs) Kalpana Bhatawdekar, eminent management educationists, management consultants and trainers- par excellence, with distinction of having trained over 150,000 people from around 250 organizations.

Also refer: (Prodcons Group) http://prodcons-group.blogspot.com/, (Training Programs by Prodcons Group) http://training-development-function.blogspot.com/, (Productivity Consultants) http://productivity-consultants.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Stress Management: Most Sound Albeit Bit Difficult Way to Tackle Stress: Developing Competencies

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/

Refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia “Management Universe” at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/

For free tutorials on “Train the Trainers” program, refer: http://train-trainers.blogspot.com/

Four fundamental elements of improving your overall competencies and therefore, your capabilities and effectiveness[1] at any given point of time are:

· Values
· Knowledge base
· Paradigms
· Willpower

More quality and quantity of these elements within you make you more effective.

These elements are acquired by the human beings from the environment from any of its entities and these can be acquired at any age. Even if you missed out on acquiring them early on, you can catch up with them later in life.

Everyone is free to acquire them and anyone can acquire them. There is no restriction of any sort on any human being.

These four elements finally culminate into making a human being more skilled and more competent. Human beings develop and improve continuously their skills and competencies based on these four elements. Then they use these skills and competencies to perform all kinds of tasks and activities required to achieve the goals set by them for their personal, family, professional and social lives.

The more skilled and competent the human beings become by the acquisition of the four elements, the more effectively they are able to perform the tasks and activities and to achieve the resultant goals or objectives. They feel confident of meeting any kind of challenges in life. They feel that they have the required capabilities to tackle the demands put on them and therefore, stresses and strains do not get created.

So how do we make this model work for you? We give below certain doable recommendations:

1. Set your short term, medium term, long germ and life time goals for your personal, family, professional and social life. The guidelines given below in serial number 2 through 30 are to help you acquire the right kind of overall competencies to make you effective to accomplish your chosen goals.

2. Sharpen your desire to learn the right kind of values, knowledge and paradigms. Become a strong willed person.

3. Learn about the various basic human values. These are not too many.

4. Correct those values that you might have already formed but now you realize that they need review and correction.

5. Formulate your own value structure that will guide you throughout your life. These values will normally not change under ordinary conditions. They are more permanent (as compared to the paradigms).

6. Then always be guided by your values or principles.

7. Do not waver from your values under the trying circumstances. You may face many dilemma situations in your life.

8. There are principled paths guided by values and there are unprincipled paths without any value structure. Both run parallel to each other and never meet. Both may give success. But the principled path will always give you more overall effectiveness in your life. Unprincipled path may even destroy you completely.

9. Knowledge is unending. It is enormous. Try to acquire as much knowledge as you can. It is extremely difficult to acquire all the knowledge.

10. Therefore, start with the knowledge that is required for achieving the goals or objectives of your personal, family, professional and social life.

11. You will need to acquire three types of knowledge: rational knowledge, emotional knowledge and spiritual knowledge pertaining to all the four spheres of your life- personal, family, professional and social life.

12. New knowledge will emerge continually. No one can stop it. Your existing knowledge may become incorrect and obsolete over a period of time. So, keep acquiring new knowledge.

13. Always look out for the most authentic sources of knowledge. Acquire knowledge only from the authentic sources or otherwise you are in a danger of assimilating incorrect or erroneous knowledge and related information.

14. Knowledge backed up and validated correctly by the relevant facts and figures, supported by experiments and real life results is likely to be more authentic. Other pieces of knowledge may be mere hearsay.

15. Read a lot. Read every day. Read authentic literature. Do not waste your time reading inferior or erroneous literature.

16. Attend courses, seminars and workshops to listen to the real experts to enhance your knowledge.

17. Acquire knowledge to help you enhance and sharpen your “willpower to do” or “willpower to perform”.

18. Often revise those concepts and their related details that are very important in life and may be difficult to understand and assimilate.

19. Teach others what you learnt. Your learning will become more effective. You will get more clarity on the subject when you start teaching.

20. Always be on lookout for the implementation aspects of what you are learning so that you can implement the knowledge properly.

21. Paradigms or your day-to-day thinking patterns guide you to take particular directions and steps towards accomplishing your various tasks and activities that ultimately steer you towards your goals or objectives. There are hundreds of them in your mind. Therefore these should be absolutely correct and up-to-date.

22. You should derive your paradigms essentially from your values, knowledge base and related information base. Keep checking frequently to ensure that these three remain in consonance with each other.

23. Since a repository or directory of all the latest paradigms is not available or published anywhere, keep your eyes and ears open to sense the new and emerging paradigms in all the spheres of life. Grasp them and internalize them.

24. Keep introspecting the appropriateness or correctness of your paradigms on an on-going basis. Frequently correct your wrong paradigms or mindsets.

25. Develop flexibility for accepting the correct paradigms even if they are quite in divergence with your existing mindsets.

26. Develop those paradigms that will help you to sharpen your “willpower to do” or “willpower to perform”.

27. Decide on the skills and competencies that will be required by you to effectively tackle the tasks and activities that will lead you to your goals and objectives.

28. Use your values, knowledge and paradigms to learn, develop and master those skills and competencies. Practice them lots to achieve the highest level of expertise in them.

29. Implement those skills and competencies to carry out your tasks and activities.

30. Keep moving towards achieving your goals or objectives by applying your values, knowledge, paradigms, willpower to do and skills/competencies.

[1] HSoftware (Human Software) (The Only Key to Higher Effectiveness authored by Shyam Bhatawdekar and Dr Kalpana Bhatawdekar

For More Guidance, Assistance, Training and Consultation

Contact: prodcons@prodcons.com

Training in all the soft skills and various management functions/techniques is imparted by Prodcons Group’s Mr Shyam Bhatawdekar and/or Dr (Mrs) Kalpana Bhatawdekar, eminent management educationists, management consultants and trainers- par excellence, with distinction of having trained over 150,000 people from around 250 organizations.

Also refer: (Prodcons Group) http://prodcons-group.blogspot.com/, (Training Programs by Prodcons Group) http://training-development-function.blogspot.com/, (Productivity Consultants) http://productivity-consultants.blogspot.com/

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Stress Management: Life Style Suggestions (Tips on Daily Life)

Given below are certain simple suggestions or tips on how to lead your daily life. Improving your life style itself can reduce the existing stresses and control the occurrence of stresses in your life.

Prepare for the next day's important items of work on the evening of the day.
Do not keep awake late in nights.
Sleeping between 10 PM to 11 PM will be a good idea.
Sleep for around 7 to 8 hours every night. Therefore if you sleep at 10.30 PM, waking up around 6 AM to 6.30 AM is a good idea.
Wear loose and comfortable clothes while sleeping. Do not wear tight and uncomfortable clothes.
Before sleeping take stock of the meaningful work your did during the day. It will give you the satisfaction of having achieved something on daily basis and you might get sleep as soon as you hit the bed and may get sound sleep.
Do some planning for the day, week , month and year ahead. Setting up objectives/goals/targets will facilitate their achievements in smoother and efficient manner. Do not rely only on your memory. Write down. Making the lists helps. Refer: (Goal/Target Setting) http://goal-target-setting.blogspot.com/
Learn and practice time management. Set priorities for work. This way you will not crowd your day with unnecessary and non-value adding work and will use your time on important and value adding activities without feeling stressed. Refer: (Time Management) http://time-life-management.blogspot.com/
If you have to cook, simplify the meals and use the home/kitchen tips throughout your work weak. For useful tips, refer: http://tastetherecipes.blogspot.com/2011/03/celebrating-my-100th-post-drink-and-few.html and http://tastetherecipes.blogspot.com/
In addition to spending time on your professional work, set some time aside and do your hobbies, play an outdoor game, do gardening, read light literature and watch an interesting program or movie on television.
Go for a walk frequently during the week (for around 45 minutes to an hour at one time). Exercise few days in a week. Refer: (Walking) http://walking-plan.blogspot.com/ and (Exercises) http://exercises-plan.blogspot.com/
Socialize with people. Weekends can be used for this purpose.
Spend lots of time with your family as often as possible.
Love your family members unconditionally and demonstrate it by hugging them and expressing, "I love you lots and lots and lots." Develop intimate emotional relationship with your family members.
Learn to listen and listen a lot. Refer: (Listening) http://listen-skills.blogspot.com/

Learn to praise others and praise them well. Refer: (Positive Strokes) http://positive-strokes.blogspot.com/
Share your emotions and feelings with those who are intimate with you.
Go out for picnics, excursions, sightseeing and travel few times in an year.
Indulge in eating leisurely breakfasts, lunches, evening tea and dinners with your family on many of your weekends.
Do eat out once in a while in a relaxed environment.
If you are married, develop intimate emotional and physical relationship with your spouse.
Do not try pleasing everyone around you.
Laugh a lot. Do not take life seriously all the time. Lighten up. Develop your sense of humor.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Stress Management: Lack of Self-esteem or Lack of Self-worth

Lack of self-esteem or lack of self-worth is one of the causes of stress.

Feeling of lack of self-worth emanates from a lopsided pattern of thinking or from your destructive view of the self.

At times it is because of constant comparison of one's achievements with those of others by self or by other people making one feel less of an achiever. Some of such people also get into a habit of always feeling awed by others' achievements and creating an inferiority complex in themselves. For them grass is always greener on the other side or neighbor's wife is always more beautiful than mine syndrome.

Other times it is setting up unrealistic goals and not achieving them.

Some people look down upon their successes all the time. They rate their achievements as insignificant. They believe that they could have achieved more than what they did so far. They are unnecessarily harsh on themselves.

A habit of only looking at failures more than looking at the successes and discounting most of the successes as not worthy of being called as successes also leads to lack of self-worth.

It also happens sometimes that one has not really done an objective assessment of one's success or achievements and has created a false feeling of being a loser because of one reason or the other. It may be fictional all you know.

We also come across situations when the person stressed due to lack of self-esteem is aware that he had not been putting in efforts towards achieving something that will boost his self-worth. This often time happens due to apathy towards life due to laziness or lack of will power.

In all of these situations one thing is sure that the feeling of lack of self-esteem will suck any person into a vicious circle that can be called as diminishing spiral of self worth. The feeling that I do not achieve much most of the times will further put a brake on one's actions and that will further result in non-achievement. Thus it constructs a diminishing spiral and generates lots of stresses all along.

One needs to break this diminishing spiral. For this it important to think straight and objectively about the self- shun the fictional and destructive thinking.

From now onwards, start thinking more about what you achieve on an every day basis and reduce thinking about what you could not achieve. Count your achievements or successes of the day, howsoever insignificant they may seem to you or to others. They are your successes and so, count them. Also think about those strengths of yours which helped you achieve those successes. It will be good habit to write them down as your daily journal and keep on accumulating your successes into this journal.

In addition, try to recall all of your previous achievements and successes from your childhood till today- the day from which you have decided to review your achievements on a daily basis. Document all of these life long achievements also in your journal.

Include even your normally termed very small achievements. Examples: "I told my kid a nice story that delighted him". "I help my wife in cooking". "I completed the official assignment in time today". "I bargained and saved money in today's purchases". "I checked my anger throughout the day". "My interpersonal relationship with my boss improved significantly today because I came to his rescue in a top level meeting". "I enrolled myself in an evening MBA course". "I did not get promotion but I did get a good raise".

As you keep adding your new successes and achievements in your journal on a daily basis, also revise or re-visit your previous achievements and successes by reading and re-reading them. It is your affirmation system- affirming to you that your are good, you are a winner.

By doing this you are shattering your own bleak picture that you had imagined about yourself and bringing in the desired brightness.

That is the start of reversing the spiral. You have now arrested it's tendency to diminish and now it will start increasing in the right way. It will turn into a positive spiral and your self-esteem or self-worth will start improving day by day. In days, the improvements will be more synergistic.

And finally, the continual improvements in your self worth will pull you out of the stresses and strains.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Stress Management: Social Readjustment Rating Scale

Self Rating or Self Assessment on Social Readjustment Rating Scale

(Also read all the previous posts on this page for more benefits).

Introduction

Every change in your environment or in your life, even if it is a pleasant one like taking a vacation etc, creates some stresses. You need to cope up with such stressors. The cumulative effect of these changes in your life may make you vulnerable and then you may become susceptible to falling sick etc. So, it's good to know as to how much have you suffered due to these changes in the previous one year's period and if you have gone through many critical changes, you must take proactive actions to keep yourself fit and fine despite them.

Given below is a self assessment exercise that you could undertake to your advantage.

Directions for the Self assessment Exercise

Read the following list of life events and enter the score for each event that occurred in your life in the past year. The score for each event is given by the side of the description of the event in red colored figures. If any even has occurred more than once, multiply the point value of the score by the number of times it occurred. When you finish, total your score.

Serial No, Description of the Life Event, Score for the Event

Death of spouse 100
Divorce 73
Marital separation 65
Detention in jail or other institution 63
Death of a close family member 63
Major personal injury or illness 53
Marriage 50
Fired at work 47
Marital reconciliation 45
Retirement 45
Major change in the health or behavior of a family member 44
Pregnancy 40
Sexual difficulties 39
Gaining a new family member (through birth, adoption, relative moving in etc 39
Major business readjustment (merger, reorganization, bankruptcy etc) 39
Major changes in financial status (a lot worse off or a lot better of than usual) 38
Death of a close friend or family member (other than close members) 37
Change to a different line of work 36
Major change in the number of arguments with spouse (either a lot more or a lot less than usual regarding child-rearing, personal habits) 35
Taking out a mortgage or loan for a major purchase (home, business) 31
Foreclosure on a mortgage or loan 30
Major change in responsibilities at work (promotion, demotion, lateral transfer) 29
Son or daughter leaving home (marriage, attending college) 29
Trouble with in-laws 29
Outstanding personal achievement 28
Spouse beginning or ceasing work outside the home 26
Beginning or ceasing formal schooling 26
Major change in living conditions (building a new home, remodeling, deterioration of home or neighborhood etc) 25
Revision of personal habits (dress, manners, associations etc) 24
Trouble with your boss 23
Major change in working hours or conditions 20
Change in residence 20
Change in schools 20
Major change in usual type and/or amount of recreation 19
Major change in religious (temple, church etc) activities (a lot more or a lot less than usual) 19
Major change in social activities (clubs, dancing, movies, visiting etc) 18
Taking out a mortgage or loan for a lesser purchase (car, TV, DVD player etc) 17
Major change in sleeping habits (a lot more or a lot less sleep or change in part of day when asleep) 16
Major change in number of family get-togethers (a lot more or a lot less than usual etc) 15
Major change in eating habits (a lot more or a lot less food intake or very different meal hours or surroundings) 15
Vacation 13
Holiday season (Christmas, Diwali etc) 12
Minor violation of laws (traffic tickets, jaywalking, disturbing the peace) 11

(Sources: T H Holmes , Holmes & Rahe, Ruch & Holmes)

Interpretation of Your Total Score

Now you have completed the exercise of your self assessment by adding the individual scores of each life event you met with. So you have with you your total score called the life change units.This score indicates the severity of life crisis.

Life crisis scores are interpreted as given below:

Mild: score from 150 to 199 life change units.
Moderate: from 200 to 299 life change units.
Major: over 300 life change units.

Life crisis increases as the life the life change units score increases. As the life change units score increases, your susceptibility to illness also increases progressively. So you should look after your health in case you have met with many critical life changes during the year and your life change nits are on the higher side of the scale.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Stress Management

(After you read this post, also read all the earlier posts on this page for more benefits).

What is Stress?

Stress has to do with demands, resources and uncertainties.
Demands are expectation and desires of self or others to be fulfilled, obligations and duties to be carried out and responsibilities and pressures to be shouldered.
Resources are your own resources like your physical strength, your knowledge, your talent and capabilities, your skills and competencies as well as any kind of physical/inanimate or human resources under your control or available for use as organizational support or social support.
Then there are uncertainties of the outcome or results in relation to the expectations, desires, obligations, duties, responsibilities and pressures as well as there are uncertainties about the existence and potency of the resources within you and outside you.
These uncertainties are then the main causes to trigger tension and stress in your mind.
In short, when your perceive that your resources will fall short of tackling the demands on you and therefore, you perceive uncertainty in meeting the expectations or you actually do not meet the expectations demanded of you, you will experience stresses.
When your resources can achieve the expectations demanded of you with certainty, there is hardly any stress. Since there may still be some uncertainty due to some unseen factors, there may still be a bit of stress but that stress will be somewhat positive type, good enough to boost adrenal level and your motivation to use your resources in the best possible manner to achieve the end result with certainty or near certainty. Such a stress is called challenge stress and it is good.
Other type of stress that is negative in nature is called the hindrance stress. This is an outcome of the hindrances in the resources to achieve the desired results. These hindrances are: lack of your capabilities, knowledge, competencies, skills and red tape in systems, lack of family or social support etc.
It is necessary to learn to manage this hindrance stress.

Causes and Sources of Stress

Demands made on you or changes happening around you making some more demands on you are the fundamental causes of stress. The list of causes and sources of stress is given below:

Environmental factors

Economic uncertainty: changes in business cycle, recession, loss of job, unemployment
Political uncertainty: impact of political systems like democracy, communism or dictatorship, instability of governments, wars, terrorism etc
Technological changes: Obsolescence in knowledge and skills of people due to constant technological changes, impact of technologies on people in variety of ways

Organizational factors

Role demands: pressures of job position, roles conflicts, transfers, promotions, job rotations, change of job
Task demands: hazards, overload, working conditions, deadlines, targets
Interpersonal demands: lack of support from bosses and colleagues, distrustful environment, politics

Personal factors

Family problems: death of loved ones, separation, divorce, marriage, pregnancy, childbirth
Economic problems: insufficient earnings, loss of job, over expenditure, debts, retirement
Personality problems: pessimism, submissive, aggressive, loner
Illness: Not well, injury

Early Warning Symptoms of Stress and Consequences of Stress

Physical symptoms

Nagging tiredness and continuous sense of exhaustion
Frequent illness
Sexual problems: impotency, frigidity
Excessive worrying of real and imaginary problems
Frequent crying or desire to cry
Insomnia
Headaches
Cramps and muscle spasms
Inability to sit without fidgeting
Nail biting
Nervous twitches
Tendency to sweat for no good reason
Lack of appetite
Craving for food when under pressure
Frequent indigestion
Frequent acidity and heartburn
Constipation or diarrhoea
High blood pressure
Breathlessness without exertion
Nausea
Fainting spells

Behavioral symptoms

Escapist tendencies like shirking or avoiding responsibilities and work both at office and home
Feeling of inability to cope
Difficulty in concentrating
Inability to finish one task before rushing on to the next
Difficulty in making decisions
Feeling of being a failure as a person, as a professional, as a parent etc
Feeling of being bad or feeling of self hatred
Personal negligence in terms of appearance, hygiene, safety
Lack of interest in life
Feeling of neglect
Loss of sense of humor
Constant irritability with people
Awareness of suppressed anger
Loss of interest in other people
Feeling of being the target of other people's animosity
Feeling of having no one to confide in
Inability to show true feelings
Intense fear of being alone
Intense fear of open or enclosed spaces
Constant or recurrent fear of falling sick
Extremism at work, in spending, alcohol, gambling
Dread of the future

Emotional or psychological Symptoms

Mental fatigue
Lack of concentration
Mood swings
Restlessness
Unusual impatience
General apathy towards life
Irritability
Unnecessary argumentation
Excess of aggressive or submissive or defensiveness
Insecurity
Forgetfulness
Low self esteem or low self worth
Suspiciousness
Getting frustrated with others

Possibility of Ailments Due to Stress

Hypertension
High blood pressure
Heart attack
Migraine
Hay fever
Allergies
Asthma
Peptic ulcers
Colitis
Constipation
Indigestion
Diarrhoea
Nervous dyspepsia
Diabetes mellitus
Tuberculosis
Overactive thyroid gland
Intense itching
Skin disorders
Rheumatoid arthritis
Menstrual difficulties
Depression

Tackling Stress

Prevention is always better than cure. Given below are certain tips to manage stress:

Resource sufficiency: One must continually work towards improving one’s thinking patterns, knowledge, competencies, skills and will power.
Plan (goal/target setting and time management): Set your personal, family related and professional plans properly on time line and muster the resources to achieve them accordingly. Your plans should be realistic and you should review them from time to time and modify them if necessary. Refer: (Goal/Target Setting) http://goal-target-setting.blogspot.com/ and (Time Management) http://time-life-management.blogspot.com/
Balance: Balance you personality. Your personality should not be extreme “A” type or extreme “B” types. Try to achieve a balanced personality. Refer the post Personality Type: Stress Management below on this page.
Physical exercises: Get into habit of doing some or the other physical exercises for around 30 minutes to 1 hour every day. Learn to play some outdoor game. Gardening can be a good exercise. Walking is the excellent exercise. Refer the post titled "Stress Management: Simple Steps - A to Z Mantras of Stress Management" below on this page.
Relax: Take a few minutes out and learn to relax by listening to good music or meditate or lie down and practice relaxation through auto-suggestion, take deep breaths several times a day.
Entertain: Entertain yourself alone or in company by enjoying concerts, dramas, movies, games and sports etc.
Social Interactions (fellowship): Invite or get invited at social gatherings like parties, weddings, dinners. In case of any stressful problem, talk it over with someone you trust.
Take a break: Move away from your family and professional settings for while, take vacation and go for an outing, excursion or travel.
Refrain from smoking and alcohol: If you are habituated to these, stop.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Personality Type: Stress Management

(You will benefit more in case you read all my previous posts and then read this one).

Personality Types

Type A

Urgency
Walks/moves quickly
Competitiveness
Eats quickly
Hates delay
Guilty when relaxing
Impatient

Type B

Relaxed
Walks slowly
Lots of relaxing hobbies
Good listener
Patient
Thoughtful
Takes time to make decisions

Balanced Personality

It will be a good idea to lead a balanced life by moderating extreme Type A or extreme Type B personalities.
Balanced personality can manage stresses well.

Action Plans For Type A & Type B Behavior to Achieve Balanced Personality

For Type A

Take a step back
Set attainable goals
Plan how to achieve your goals
Delegate
Aim to relax more
Make time for people
Say "no"

For Type B

Set quantitative goals
Stop procrastinating
Become more assertive
Assess appropriate level of quality

My Action Plan (Work Out an Action Plan for Self to Achieve Balanced Personality)

Score from work pattern exercise (refer the older post dated September 21, 2008) :
Score : Type A or B :
Action Plan : 1.
2.
3.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Stress Management: Simple Steps

"A to H Mantra" of Stress Management

Take Care of…………

A….. Anxiety: No (improve capabilities by improving competencies and skills: the HSoftware: refer URL http://humansoftware.blogspot.com/)

B….. Bottle (Alcohol): No

C….. Cigarettes (Smoking): No

D….. Diet (balanced diet): Yes

E….. Exercise: Yes

F….. Fellowship: Yes

G….. Good values and core beliefs: Yes (not necessarily associating with any religion)

H….. Humor: Yes

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Personality Type: Stress Management

Find Your Personality Type vis-a-vis Stress Management

Work Patterns Exercise: Assessing Yourself

For each of the following 10 styles of working there are two statements. If you think the left-hand statement best reflects you then circle the 1. If the right-hand statement is you then circle the 5. Shades of in between are represented by 2, 3 and 4 depending on which you feel closest to. Try and avoid too many 3s. Work as fast as possible.

Style (1) A bit last minute, often rushed and late. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Very punctual, never late.
Style (2) Very competitive. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Relaxed, not too competitive.
Style (3) When others are talking tend to interrupt. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Allow others time to finish what they are saying
Style (4) Try to do many things at once; always thinking of next step. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Take one thing at a time
Style (5) Quick and loud in speech, may bang and shout. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Slow, deliberate talker.
Style (6) Fast mover, walking, eating, driving etc. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Slow, deliberate mover.
Style (7) Hide emotions and feelings; they can be a sign of weakness. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Happy to express emotions and feelings; we are all human.
Style (8) Few interests outside work; do not have time for them. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Wide range of interests and social life.
Style (9) Ambitious, eager for promotion. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Enjoy the present; take life as it comes.
Style (10) Feeling good about myself is important- forget what others say. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Like to feel part of teams- other people are important.

Scoring: When you have finished the exercise add up your points in the circles and divide by 10. That is your score. The score will lie between 1 and 5.

Interpretation of your score and how to tune up your personality to manage the stresses:

Score 3: Perfect balanced personality. maintain it.
Score 2.5 to 3.5: You are still in the balanced personality zone. Make sure to maintain your score within this range even if you are not able to achieve a perfect 3 score.
Score below 2.5: You have type "A" personality. Lower scores will mean stronger type "A". You will need to take actions to change from your current type "A" to balanced personality.
Score above 3.5: You have type "B" personality. Higher scores will mean stronger type "B". You will need to take actions to change from your current type "B" to balanced personality.

Action Plan to Maintain Balanced Personality or to Change from Type "A" or Type "B" to Balanced Personality

Refer our post dated October 23, 2008 for this at http://managing-stress-strain.blogspot.com/2008/10/personality-type-stress-management.html

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Origin (Genesis) of Stress or Strain

Why Stress or Strain?

People around you (your bosses, colleagues, subordinates, customers, suppliers, spouse, parents, brothers, sisters, your boy friend/girl friend etc and you yourself have some or certain expectations from you.

You wish to fulfil those expectations for many reasons like feel happy, to make others feel happy, for self esteem, to improve your image on others, not become a subject of ridicule, laughter, blame, rejection by others etc. Therefore, your expectation from yourself is one of success and not failure. You want your expectations to be fulfilled.

That is the trigger to stress or strain.

The expectations in themselves do not create stress but it is your concern about the outcome of not being successful. What will happen if I don't succeed? What the people will think of me if I am a failure? Will I be seen as incompetent, will I become a laughing stock? Will people criticize me or blame me? Will some one shout at me? Will my relationship break? Will I lose money? Will I fail in examination? Will I fail in getting a job or a good job?

If you are sure of success, there in no tension and there is no stress. But when, in your own assessment of yourself, you feel that there are chances of partial or complete failure, stresses develop- the intensity and quantum vary.

You become successful when you assess that your capabilities (your knowledge, skills or competencies and your will power to succeed- in short your "human software (HSoftware))" are matching or exceeding the demands made on you by that particular stressful event or activity or situation. Then you meet those challenges and come out as winner. There is no stress or strain.

The links for details on HSoftware: http://humansoftware.blogspot.com/ or http://knol.google.com/k/shyam-bhatawdekar/management-in-life-profession-family/6txz9nck6g3/3#" .

However, when, as per you assessment, your capabilities (the HSoftware) fall short of those demanded by the stressful event, activity or situation and you assess that you may be a failure or are not sure to succeed, the stresses start developing. The intensity and quantum of stresses are directly proportional to the gap between your assessed capabilities and the ones that are demanded by the stressful event, activity or situation.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Meaning of Stress

When you are under stress or you are stressed, you are experiencing one or more of the states of mind and/or body given below. That in simple words, is the meaning of stress.

pressure
strain
anxiety
constant worry
nervous tension
tension
trauma
hassle
demands
difficulty
load
burden
effort
mental strain
uneasy
complicatedness
exertion
troubled
inconvenienced
harassed
irritation
annoyance
get on your nerves
disturbed
upset
suffering
pain
distressed
ordeal
shocked

Stress Management