KAPLAN UNIVERSITY

HW410 Stress: Critical Issues in

Management and Prevention

Stress
Management and
Prevention
1

Program Resource
Guide

KA P L A N U N I V E R S I T Y

Stress Management and Prevention

Program Resource Guide

By
Ashley Scott
Kaplan University
HW410: Stress: Critical Issues in Management and Prevention
5/27/2014

Table of Contents
UNIT

THE

NATU RE

OF

STRESS

Information to Remember
Resources: Exercises: Exercises
Tools: Journal Writing: Journal Writing
UNIT

THE

BO DY

AS

BATTL EF IEL D

Information to Remember
Resources: Exercises: Exercises
Tools: Journal Writing: Journal Writing
UNIT

F EAST

OR

FAM IN INE

Information to Remember
Resources: Exercises: Exercises
Tools: Journal Writing: Journal Writing
UNIT

ONE

PL ANET

UNDER

STRESS

Information to Remember
Resources: Exercises: Exercises
Tools: Journal Writing
UNIT

UNDER

STRESS:

WHAT

NOW?

Information to Remember
Resources: Exercises
Tools: Journal Writing
UNIT

AGEL ESS

WISDOM

OF

M EDITATIO N

Information to Remember
Resources: Exercises
Tools: Journal Writing
UNIT

SIGHT,

SOUN D,

AND

Information to Remember
Resources: Exercises

BO DY

WOR K

Tools: Journal Writing

UNIT

THE

WEL L NESS

M ANDAL A

Information to Remember
Resources: Exercises
Tools: Journal Writing
UNIT

APPLYING

PREVEN TIO N

TO

STRESS:

YOUR

PROF ESSI ONAL

Information to Remember
Resources: Exercises
Tools: Journal Writing
ADDITI ONAL

REF EREN CES

CRITICAL

INF ORM ATIO N

M ANAGEM ENT
L IF E

AND

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Unit

Unit 1: The Nature of Stress

Information to Remember:

Stress is defined as anything that can cause anxiety, trauma, or a constant

worry in a persons life

The stress response the body preforms is its way of reacting to the stressors

Stressors are anything that raises your stress and causes an impact on your
life

Resources: Exercises:

EXERCISE 1.2 My Health Philosophy, Seaward (2008)

I chose this exercise because it helps you pick up on what your stressors
are in your life. It also helps you realize your bad habits you perform when
you are under that stress. It also gives you the opportunity to look and see
where you see yourself 25 years later from now.

Tools: Journal Writing:

EXERCISE 1.5

Personal Stress Inventory: Top Ten Stressors, Seaward (2008)

I chose this exercise because it really makes you think of everything that is
causing stress in your life. It then categorizes if it a mental stress,
emotional stress or physical stress. Next it then asks you how long you have

had this stressor and if you see it as being a fear or anger. It very helpful in
picking apart your stressors.

2
Unit

Unit 2: The Body as Battlefield

Information to Remember:

The immune system has its own response system to fight off diseases and it
also recognizes disease which helps in the fight of them.

How someone deals with stress is called stress management and people can
cope their anxiety with physically means or psychological means.

Holistic is defined as not dividing the person but looking at all of the physical,
mental and social aspects of their life to treat an illness.

Resources: Exercises:

EXERCISE 2.2
Seaward (2008)

Immediate, Intermediate, and Prolonged Stress Effects,

This exercise was good in the aspect of that if helps you define your stress
reactions.

Tools: Journal Writing:

EXERCISE 3.1 Physical Symptoms Questionnaire, Seaward (2008)

This exercise is helpful because it asks you about what levels of stress you
are having and how often these occur. It also asks as to how long these

stressors are lasting for and if your score is over 30 you have a stress
related health problem and need to eliminate it from your life.

3
Unit

Unit 3: Feast or Famine

Information to Remember:

Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, who founded the analytical school of
psychology. Jung broadened Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytical approach,
interpreting mental and emotional disturbances as an attempt to find personal
and spiritual wholeness.

Anger is anything that causes annoyance, irritation or fury in someones life.

Sigmund Freud was the Austrian physician, neurologist, and founder of

psychoanalysis who created an entirely new approach to the understanding of
human personality.

Resources: Exercises:

EXERCISE 5.4 Anger: The Fight Response, Seaward (2008)

I chose this exercise for one reason is that it allows you to express how you
feel about anything that makes you angry. It gives you the opportunity to let
your feeling out and open up your mind.

Tools: Journal Writing:

EXERCISE 4.1 The Psychology of Your Stress, Seaward (2008)

This exercise is helpful because it asks you what defense mechanisms you
use in order to protect your own ego.

4
Unit

Unit 4: One Planet Under Stress

Information to Remember:

Time Management is a system relying on time and motion studies, which help
determine the best methods for performing a task in the least amount of time;
efficient and effective use of time to increase productivity.

Greenhouse Effect is the warming of the lower atmosphere and surface of

Earth. This occurs because of the absorption of long-wave length radiation
from the planet's surface by certain radiatively active gases, such as carbon
dioxide and watervapor, in the atmosphere. These gases are heated and
ultimately re-radiate energy to space at an even longer wavelength.

Ecology is defined as the environmental science, biology and natural science.

Resources: Exercises:

EXERCISE 7.5 Your Personal Value System, Seaward (2008)

This exercise allows you to identify what your core values are in your life
and what major value is the center of your values.

Tools: Journal Writing:

EXERCISE 6.1 Under the Gun: Stress and Personality, Seaward (2008)

This allows you to a stressor in your life, explain how you deal with this
stressor and why it is a stressor for yourself.

5
Unit

Unit 5: Under Stress: What Now?

Information to Remember:

Affirmations are the assertion of support or agreement, a positive statement or

declaration of the truth or existence of something, a positive statement or
declaration of the truth or existence of something; psychology a positive
thought or statement affirming that a desired goal has been reached or are
within reach.

The mindfulness-based stress reduction is the technique employed by the

University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care,
and Society, Stress Reduction Program providing intensive training to
participants in engaging their own individual resources to reduce stress.

Your mindset is the state of mind and beliefs that affects your attitude.

Resources: Exercises:

N/A

Tools: Journal Writing:

EXERCISE 8.1 Reframing: Seeing a Bigger, Clearer Perspective, Seaward

(2008)

This exercise allows you to deal with three stressors and find your reframed
perspective to that situation.

EXERCISE 15.1 The Time-Crunch Questionnaire, Seaward (2008)

6
Unit

This exercise tests you on how well your time management is and whether
or not you need to reevaluate your life skills.

Unit 6: Ageless Wisdom of

Meditation
Information to Remember:

Concentration is necessary to discipline the "monkey mind''. We must learn to

hold the mind steady on a physical object an idea, or a revered figure, and
bring it back when it slips away. The mind tries to take control, but by carefully
watching the process of our thinking we can learn to ensure that we and not
the mind, determines the content and activity of our consciousness.

Meditation is the emptying of concentration of the mind.

Centering is the point that is the focus of your attention.

Resources: Exercises:

EXERCISE 18.3 Bridging the Hemispheres of Thought, Seaward (2008)

This exercise allows you to discover what your dominant side of thinking is
in your brain. Left-brain thinking skills are associated with judgment,
analysis, mathematical and verbal acuity, linear thought progression, and
time consciousness; right-brain functioning is associated with global

thinking, holistic thinking, imagination, humor, emotionality, spatial

orientation, receptivity, and intuition.

7
Unit

Tools: Journal Writing:

EXERCISE 18.1 Too Much Information, Seaward (2008)

This exercise allows you to filter out the information that is crowding your
brain. Ask yourself if it important or pertains to yourself before
remembering it later on. Also it asks you how do you filter out all the
unnecessary information.

Unit 7: Sight, Sound and Body Work

Information to Remember:

Reflexology is a form of massage in which pressure is applied to parts of the

feet and hands in order to promote relaxation and healing elsewhere in the
body.

A service mark for a therapy using vigorous massage to alleviate physical or

psychological tension is called Rolfing.

Visualization is used to create a vivid positive mental picture of something

such as a desired outcome to a problem, in order to promote a sense of wellbeing.

Resources: Exercises:

N/A

Tools: Journal Writing:

8
Unit

EXERCISE 27.1 Stress-Related Eating Behaviors, Seaward (2008)

This exercise asks you about your eating habits, sugar intake or anything
you do when you are feeling stressed. A score of more than 30 suggests
eating habits may seriously compromise the integrity of your immune
system.

EXERCISE 27.3 The Rainbow Diet, Seaward (2008)

This exercise asks you to list the seven chakras of food that fill your body
regions.

Unit 8: The Wellness Mandala

Information to Remember:

Your target heart rate is used to increase the strength and efficiency of the
circulatory system, a person performing aerobic exercise should reach 65 to
75 percent of their maximum heart rate, known as the target heart zone. This
target heart zone is determined by subtracting age from 220 to find the
maximum heart rate. Multiply this number by 0 .60 and 0.75 to determine the
target heart zone. As the circulatory system becomes more efficient with
regular exercise, higher levels of activity will be required to reach the target
heart zone.

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Cortisol is the steroid hormone secreted by the adrenal cortex, involved in

carbohydrate metabolism and the stress reaction.

The circadian rhythm describes a pattern repeated approximately every 24

hours.

Resources: Exercises:

N/A

Tools: Journal Writing:

EXERCISE 28.1 Physical Exercise, Seaward (2008)

This exercise allows you to describe your favorite activities, exercise habits
and what you do to keep yourself motivated to pursue these activities.

EXERCISE 28.2 My Body, My Physique, Seaward (2008)

This exercise allows you to really look at your body and whether or not you
compare yourself to someone elses imagine. It also allows you to look and see
if there is any way to boost your self-esteem.

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Unit 9: Applying Stress: Critical

9
Unit

Management to your Professional

Life
Information to Remember:

Biofeedback is the physiological control technique; the use of monitoring

devices that display information about the operation of a bodily function that is
not normally consciously controlled.

Progressive Muscular Relaxation is a technique known as (PMR) created by an

American physician Edmund Jacobsen to deal with muscle tension among his
medical patients.

Tai Chi is a Chinese form of physical exercise characterized by a series of very

slow and deliberate balletic body movements.

Resources: Exercises:

N/A

Tools: Journal Writing:

EXERCISE 28.3 Your Circadian Rhythms (Seaward, 2008)

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This exercise is good because it gives you a detailed chart of what you do
throughout the day along with at what times. This way it help you fit time in
for exercising or doing some kind of activity.

EXERCISE 27.2 Self-Assessment: Nutritional Eating Habits (Seaward, 2008)

This exercise is excellent because it asks you about your nutritional eating
habits like caffeine, favorite stress foods, what your comfort foods are and if
you consume alcohol to relax.

Additional Information
Nutrition for Everyone. (October 29, 2012). CDC. Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/everyone/index.html?s_cid=cs_281

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I chose this website because it gives you a basic overview of what proper nutrition is and
what it consists of. This source would be considered a secondary source.
A Workout Routine. (2014). A Workout Routine. Retrieved from
http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/
I chose this website because it gives you the best workout routines, programs, plans,
workouts and exercises to explain exactly what will work best for you, your body, your schedule,
your preferences, and your specific fitness goal. This source is considered a primary source.

References
A Workout Routine. (2014). A Workout Routine. Retrieved from
http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/
Nutrition for Everyone. (October 29, 2012). CDC. Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/everyone/index.html?s_cid=cs_281

Sapolsky, R. (2004). Why zebras dont get ulcers: The acclaimed guide to stress, stress-related
diseases (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Holt, Henry & Company, Inc

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Seaward, B. (2009). Managing stress: Principles and strategies for health and well-being (6th ed.).
Boston, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
Seaward, B. (2008). The art of peace and relaxation workbook. Boston, MA: Jones and Bartlett
Publishers.

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