WORKSHOP ON STRESS MANAGEMENT

Aim: To understand the nature of stress, eustress as well as management of stress in today’s world.

Introduction: Basic concept would be added more

Hans Selye1, a medical researcher first used term “Stress” to describe the body’s biological
response mechanism. He defined stress as “the nonspecific response of the body to any demand”.
John M. Ivancevich and Michael T. Matterson further defined stress as “adoptive response,
mediated by individual characteristics and/ or psychological processes that is a consequence
of any external action, situation or event that places special physical and/or psychological
demands upon a person”. Hence, Stress can be said as anything that brings mental and emotional
pressure that leads to fear, anxiety, worry, apprehensions, anger and even excitement and the body
responds in a prompt, speedy and inefficient way.
Casual factor of stress
People today are more active in many fields than in the past and therefore they also suffer from
stress which is a biological term, that refers to the consequences of the failure of the human body
to respond appropriately to mental or physical threats, whether actual or imagined. There are
various causes, which create stressful situations in the life of an individual. These causes are also
known as stressors and create a high level of stress. Stress depends on person capability and it
varies from person to person. These causes are given below:

 Environment al causes
Environmental factors not only affect the functional growth and development of the
organization but also responsible for causing stress among individuals who work in various
organizations.
 Organizat ional causes
People work in organizations, perform the various types of job, and play a variety of roles
for achieving the organization goals. There are various causes such as: Characteristics of
the job, Work-overload, Role in organization- Role conflict occurs when an individual is
expected to play two contradictory roles. Role ambiguity arises if the role is not well
defined and it involves uncertainty regarding job expectations and job description.
 Relationship at Work; Organizational structure; Reimbursements and benefits; Work and
home interface.
 Personal causes:
Many events related to the individual that are taking place outside the organization may
also become the source of stress at work for employees. Some past incidences like traumas
and unhappy events may contribute stress in life.

Eustress

The Canadian physician Hans Selye was first to define stress as the response to stressors in the
environment. Selye separated stress into two categories: distress and eustress. Distress occurs
when there is too much or too little demand on an individual and disrupts homeostasis. Too much
stress can cause performance to decline, whereas no stress at all may cause an individual to lack
the motivation and energy to perform.
When stress is at a moderate level, it supplies the individual with enough energy to accomplish
high levels of performance. During this optimal level of arousal, eustress is believed to occur,
which is why eustress is commonly referred to as positive stress. Unlike negative stress (distress),
eustress is believed to have benefits to the body and mind. These include increased mental alertness
and awareness and improved emotional and physical well-being.
In addition, Bret Simmons and Debra Nelson found that when employees experience eustress, they
will be more likely to have a positive perception of their own health.
Selye believed there are ways for people to experience more eustress and less distress by changing
how they perceive and react to their stressors. He suggested that having more positive or optimistic
views of stressors will increase eustress, performance, and overall health (i.e., lowered blood
pressure, less depression, and less susceptibility to diseases). Research indicates that eustress is
positively correlated with employees’ level of job satisfaction and causes less turnover.
Supervisors can promote eustress among employees by setting realistic goals and deadlines for
projects, by giving appraisals and encouragement to employees, and by displaying positive, calm
reactions of their own during times of difficulty.
THEORITICAL MODEL
 The Job Demands–Control–Support Model of Work Design
A theory of work design proposed initially by Karasek (1979) and later expanded by Karasek and
Theorell ( 1990 ) . It should be noted that Theorell has provided a more detailed description of this
work in another chapter of the present Handbook. He proposed that, although excessive job
demands or pressures (both physical and psychosocial) can have an impact on stress levels
(especially psychological strain), by themselves these demands are not the most important
contributors to strain experiences. Rather, the amount of strain people experience in their work
will be determined by whether or not they have any control over the demands they have to deal
with. That is to say, according to Karasek ( 1979 ) , there will be interactive effects of Demands ×
Control (or discretion) on stress levels. Put another way, control will buffer (moderate) the impact
of demands (pressures) on strain. This relationship is depicted in Fig. below

 Person–Environment Fit
Another theoretical model which has been in existence for a considerable amount of time, and
which to a large extent has underpinned other approaches to stress and well-being, is the Person–
Environment Fit (P–E fi t) perspective. This account of the stress process stems from the early
work and theorizing of Lewin (1935) and Murray ( 1938 ) . For example, reacting to prevailing
mechanistic views of human behaviour which attributed the causes of behaviour solely to the
environment, and psychodynamic approaches which tended to conceive behaviour as emerging
from personality characteristics (traits),Lewin conceptualized the interaction between the person
and environment (P × E) as the key to understanding people’s cognitive, affective and behavioural
reactions.
P–E fi t theory postulates that high strain will occur when there is a mismatch between the person’s
needs and what they receive or confront at work. The condition which (theoretically) should create
highest levels of strain will be one where the person strongly desires a particular feature (such as
interpersonal contact), but does not receive it. Under these circumstances, strain will be at its
highest level. On the other hand, when people do not have a strong preference for an attribute (in
this case, interpersonal contact), but they do receive it, there is some ambiguity over whether this
situation will be stressful for them.
In summary, the basic notion underlying P–E fi t theory is that there needs to be a match between
what people want and what they receive, as well as a match between their abilities (knowledge,
skills) and the demands placed upon them. Lack of match (misfit) creates strain and (ultimately)
reduces their sense of psychosocial well-being. However, demands–ability and needs–supply
match are considerably more relevant to people when the stimuli are important to them.

Ways of managing stress

Minimum level of stress is required to stimulate individuals to higher productivity. Excessive

stress is harmful to both individual and organization. It is a common practice to evolve various
stress reduction strategies in the organizations. Individuals must take steps to reduce stress to an
acceptable level. Some of the individual stress reduction strategies are as under:
1. Define objective for self: Setting up of objective for self is a continuous process.Every person
must set for himself the object vis – vis the ability and skill one possesses. It is generally observed
that individuals set high objective for themselves to be achieved in short span of time. They inhibit
inbuilt fear of failing. Setting up of high standard without analysing resources available leads to
stressful situation. People must modify their goals based upon various resources available, ‘time’
being the most important resource.
2. Plan your life: Work stress has an impact on personal life at home and vice – versa. It is
therefore important to plan various aspects of life as is possible.
3. Social Support: It is important to keep close rapport with relatives. Social support can be easily
built by adhering to social functions, norms and following religious activities. This will enable
individuals to regain sulking self-confidence and build self-esteem.
4. Physical Fitness: Regular physical exercises like walking, jogging, light gymnastics exercises
keep person fit and develop an ability to sustain greater level of stress.
5. Biofeedback: Biofeedback is the human ability to bring some of the bodily functions under
voluntary control. It is the methodology designed to remove undesirable body responses through
psychological transformation. Use of sophisticated electronics devices are designed to measure the
level of stress in an individual. With subsequent relaxation or yogic exercises the individual is
brought back to normal standard situation by removing stress.
6. Time Management: Time management is one of the methods of reducing stress. Everybody
has to play various roles in life. All the roles have to be performed in a given span of time. It is
therefore necessary to plan time adequately. Time management can be for various events in life
like education, marriage etc. Day to day level, it is related to planning daily routine events.
It is important to keep up to the schedule of events as planned and ensure the same from the
subordinates. This eases pressure on the work schedule and facilitates managing private/ personal
work. It instils in an individual a habit of punctuality and a greater sense of responsibility and
commitment to the organization.
7. Live a simple Life: It is advisable that every person should live a simple life free from
cumbrances. Too much of issues being handled at any one time saps individual’s energy. One
should not complicate issues rather provide simple, straight forward solutions. In personal life too
simplicity of behaviour help individual resolve issues in time. This reduces tension and facilitates
time management.

Method
The workshop was conducted in the psychological lab, in the presence of one speaker and two
facilitators. The whole workshop was concluded in 2 hours.

The workshop had four exercises in total and they began by dividing the classroom into groups.
The workshop started with the speaker directei ng the course of action by instructing us to close
our eyes and imagine being in a calm and secure place. The students were asked to hold that
thought for about a minute after which they could open our eyes. The facilitator then divided the
class into groups by naming demarking them on the basis of alphabet A B C and D. After the
division one representative from each group came to obtain a piece of chits which will have the
name of that particular group. Hence groups were named as Dumbo, Minions, Smurf and Nemo.

After the naming exercise was done, the facilitator explained the first exercise to each of the group.
The exercise was named Icebreaker (Pehchan kon?) and took about 40 minutes to complete. After
announcing the results. The facilitator read an abstract that began our second exercise. The
objective of the second exercise was to understand the nature of stress in everyday life and took
about 20 minutes to complete. After that the facilitator moved on to the third exercise which
focused on the eustress part and how it affected our life. The exercise took 20 minutes. Lastly, the
respective groups had to present a brief sketch in the last exercise which focused on the Stress
Management aspect. The objective of the exercise was to help understand the different ways of
management of everyday stress in an effective manner. The exercise took 30 minutes to complete.

Exercise 1: Icebreaker (Pehchan kon?)

Objective: To facilitate the beginning of the workshop by helping to loosen up the room and begin
the workshop on a positive note.

Method

The students were divided into 4 groups, on the basis of random selection. The instructor asked
each representative from the groups to come forward and pick a chit. The chit contained the names
that would be assigned to each divided group. After randomly selecting one chit our group was
named as SMURF.The other group were named as “DUMBO, NEMO and MINIONS”.

The instructor then began with the instructions of the exercise. In this exercise the team would
work as a combined unit and had to draw their logo defining group names character on a piece of
chart paper. Afterwards they were asked to write the names of the team members on the same
chart. On another chart each member of the team had to write a unique one word that best defines
them (without writing their names). The work division was done and each student picked up a task
to perform in the activity. One of the team members on an A3 colored sheet began drawing the
logo and motto of the group. The same member also had to write the names of all the team
members. At the same time other member of the team took an A3 sheet and began writing the
unique words that members have collectively come up with.
To make the task more fun and creative, among the team members it was decided the unique words
will be similar to that already given to different characters in the movie smuruf. For example one
of the team members was given the title of Artistic sumurf and other Dabbler Smuruf.

While this process was going on another team member, took the charge to write the unique words
with team members name on a piece of paper and hand it over to the facilitator. This exercise had
to be completed in 20 minutes. After 20 minutes a song was played to announce that the time was
up. One of the team member then took up both the chart papers and stuck them on the board so
that they are visible to everyone. After that the facilitator picked one group and asked the other
groups to guess the member of that particular group based on their written unique words.

Another facilitator was overseeing that if groups are able to identify correctly or not. The task
ended with the announcement of results in which winner was team “SMURF”. The whole exercise
took 40 minutes to complete.

Learning outcomes

The exercise acted as an icebreaker as it aimed to do. The exercise was helpful in understanding
how work division must be done in order to enhance the work output. The importance of working
as unit and identifying everyone set of skills in the team became the outcome of this exercise. The
exercise helped in introspecting the way that we would describe ourselves to our peer group and
at the same time give us an insight on how others perceived us. The exercise also helped in creating
a mutual understanding as well as the uniqueness that each team member brought to the team.

The exercise helped to break the inhibitions that one might face when working with the people
they are not used to work with. This exercise was full of brainstorming and it catered to the need
of belongingness in a group setting by allowing equal representation of members in the team. The
exercise also made me to think of my team and as a unit rather than a separate individuals.

From the exercise I learned that when you are working in a team, the decision can’t be enforced
on people. Instead one needs to follow a decision making process where each individuals thoughts
and perspectives are taken into considerations.
The exercise also taught me that when working in an activity or being in a social setting, the
simpler your approach is, easier it is for people to understand and explore you. The more
complicated you make the words about yourself, the more inhibitions and confusions it will create.

At the end of the exercise I felt that the, activity performed had led to a sense of compatibility in
the team and made the team members more empathetic and social able to each other.

Exercise 2: What is Stress?

Objective: To understand the nature of stress in everyday life

Method

The second exercise began with the instructor giving the students instruction about the activity.
The groups had to again work in the same groups as formed in the first exercise. Students had to
explain the definition of stress, keeping their everyday life in mind. The students could write from
an event that causes stress to the physiological and psychological responses of stress. The
definitions or the perspectives about stress had to be penned down on an A3 chart paper in a
presentable manner and displayed on the board.

We were also provided a specific set of time i.e. 10 minutes put up chart on the board. The
instructor cited an example that helped us to better understand the activity to be performed.

The team members again divided the task within themselves to increase the work output. Team for
2 minutes brainstormed and decided that they will write the situation that causes stress in their life
and what the physiological consequences of stress in that situation. For example one of the team
members explained that due to overload of information she gets stressed and that leads to her
suffering from headache. Another said that because she loses in her games, she becomes stressed
which leads her to being frustrated and agitated. After brainstorming one of the members took up
a chart paper and cut it into the shapes of cloud and wrote the all the situations and physiological
responses on it.

After the time was up (a song was again played in this activity after the time limit was up), each
team was asked to display their charts on the board. The facilitator then picked out a team member
who had to explain in 2-3 minutes the terms on the charts and what they learned from that exercise.
The whole exercise took 20 minutes and team NEMO was the winner
Learning outcomes

The second exercise was helpful in understanding how each individual had different perception of
stress. This exercise helped to understand that what could be stressful for one may not be same for
the other. For example, I would never care about losing in a game rather than be stressed from it.
But my team member not only gets stressed from it but also suffers from frustration for the same.

The exercise helped the team members to discuss what they felt stressful about and how we can
help them overcome it. In one instance even though the team member explained that she generally
gets stressed out in speaking at a platform or a public place, but when we supported her to go speak
in front of the classroom she did not hesitate to do so. Hence it made me understand that even
though personal causes of stress are prevalent the environment plays a pivotal role in mitigating
that stress. Even though the aim of the exercise was to write the definition of stress, due to everyone
having their own personal perceptions about stress no one definition could be reached. The
exercise did upheld a basic theme where it highlighted how each individual generally sees stress
as a negative aspect of one’s life.

The exercise taught me that stress is a part of one’s life and everyone has its own way to mitigate
through stress and stressful situation. This exercise also shed light on the fact that even though my
teammates were aware of the situations that were causing them stress there was little they did to
mitigate it. For example, even though workload was a common denominator among the casual
factors of stress, the team mates still disclosed that they tend to procrastinate their work. In their
mind procrastination helps them to avoid stress for the time being.

Many teammates also confided that role conflict was also an important causal factor for stress in
their life. They confided that except studies their family roles also lead to stress in their life. They
felt that they could not understand their roles in family setting and ability to not to speak up also
caused stresses.

The team members were opening up more and engaging in self disclosure. The students that we
don’t generally personally interact with wee more accommodating and forthcoming with their
thoughts feelings and ideas.
 Exercise 3: What is Eustress?
Objective: To understand the nature of Eustress in everyday life

Method

In the exercise 3 the facilitator began with reading and explaining about the eustress. After which
the facilitator gave a set of instructions for the exercise. The instructions were to define eustress
and write about any real-life experience of eustress. The groups had to again work as a unit and in
a specific set of time i.e. 10 minutes put up another chart on the board that gave out their
perspective about eustress. The students could write from an event that causes eustress to the
physiological and psychological responses of eustress.

The team members here instead of again divided the task within themselves worked together. Team
for 2 minutes brainstormed and decided that they will write the situation that causes stress in their
life but actually ends up helping them to perform that task better. The situations that were decided
were, talking to a romantic partner; shopping, attending functions etc.

After 10 minutes each team displayed their charts on the board. The facilitator then picked out a
team member who had to explain in 2-3 minutes the terms on the charts and what they learned
from that exercise. The whole exercise took 20 minutes and team Minions was the winner.

Learning outcomes

The exercise began with the discussion about meaning of the term eustress. They were facing
difficulty in segregating eustress and distress in their everyday life. After discussing it for 2-3
minutes, team members began self-reflecting and realized that in many situations when feel
stressed, it actually helps them to perform that part effectively and accurately. Personally I learned
that eustress, helps me to act more quickly effectively and smartly.

Theoretically this exercise helped to understand when and how stress sometimes works as a
positive inhibitor in one’s life. The moderate level of stress acts as a driving force for one to act
on a desire. And in situation when we are unintentionally stressed out, best results pour out. The
team members explained different scenarios such as meeting a longtime friend, shopping,
attending functions to provide as an evidence of eustress. The exercise took us little longer to
complete because our team could not easily understand the concept / objective of the exercise in
the beginning.

During the exercise, I also realized that completing these exercises in a specific time also was
causing us eustress. It was driving me to work more smartly and actively. My body was more alert
and actively responding to the stimuli in the environment. It also taught me that there is a thin line
between eustress and distress. In the environment is hostile or someone was fighting one can easily
transcend into distress. For example even tough eustress can result from going to family functions
all glammed, but if your clothes are spoiled at last moment one can easily shift into distress.

Exercise 4: Stress Management

Objective: To help understand the different ways of management of everyday stress in an effective
manner

Method

In the exercise 4 the facilitator instructed that each group had to present a funny act regarding the
stress and stress management techniques. Each group was given 5-10 minutes to come up with a
skit and perform it in front of the class. The instructor gave the instruction to the students that they
could perform any scenarios that caused stress and at the same time reflect on the techniques that
can help to alleviate that stress. Our team brainstormed and decided to enact a simple, funny and
illogical skit. In the skit teacher would see participants happy and smiling and get angry. She would
give them a surprise test which would stress out the participants and they will start fighting. In the
same moment another teacher would appear who would tell them to perform some stress
management teachniques.The skit ended with one of our teammates telling the other groups that
in 24 hours of a day we can be stressed for 28 hours but in those hours there are always moment
hidden where we can relax. So even though tests are hard, cheating is fun.

After 10 minutes for discussion was up, each team displayed their skits in front of the facilitator.
The whole exercise took 20 minutes and team DUMBO was the winner.
Learning outcome

As the objective of the skit was supposed to be funny the whole environment of the workshop
became free, expressive and filled with laughter. Even though the skit did not hit any major
stressors in life, it was still able to connect with the participants.

The exercise was helpful in imagining a scenarios and then brainstorming about how many
different stress management techniques can be used to overcome those stressors. The activity also
helped to understand that majority of the time when we are stressed due to some reason, the
techniques are just present there to relieve us of the stress. But we become too engrossed in our
situation that we underestimate the simplicity of those exercises.

The activity also helped me to see that how even though participants had a common stressor their
ability and thought process to deal with those stressors was different. If on attest day someone
would like to talk to their friends on phone, others would simply prefer to sleep or perform some
breathing exercises.

The activity hinted at the personality type and the stress relation also. It highlighted how different
personalities deal with stress differently. If one type of personality would prefer to work at the
deadline only, other would take stress during the whole course of action.

The exercise can be said to have helped in a two –fold manner. On one hand it gave a common
outline that as a student majority of the participants perceive tests assignments or in simpler terms
college life as a stressful situation. On the other hand this exercise also gave students an outline
and time to introspect about how they can manage their stress in different way.
Reflections
The aim of the workshop was to understand the nature of stress, eustress as well as management
of stress in today’s world. The workshop was well able to attain its aim. The exercises provided a
detailed and step –wise experience on the aspects of what stress was and how it affected one’s life.

Different exercises were used to help participants understand the objective of the workshop.
Exercise one was an icebreaker activity. In this activity everyone was divided into random groups
and groups were named as NEMO, DUMBO, SMURUF and MINIONS. The exercise was helpful
in group to realize that they had to work and make decisions as a team. The exercise played a
pivotal role in achieving the need of belongingness in the team. It ensured that each team member
described itself to the other team members and give out one unique title that best describes her.
The exercise helped everyone to understand the skills that they bring to the team and at the same
time ensured that no role conflict takes place within the team. IT could be said that this exercise
created a common link among the team members.

After the first exercise was over, instructor had guided participants to perform the exercise 2. Here,
the different causal factors of stress such as personal causes, organizational causes and
environmental causes were explored and understood. The physiological and psychological
responses were analyzed and it helped me to understand how my body provide me signals about
the amount of stress it is experiencing. This exercise was also helpful in understanding how
important environment and exposure to the situation was in creating and mitigating the stress.
Here, one stressor was a trivial matter to another. The exercise also highlighted how stress in life
is generally viewed as distress and we assume it to hamper our life events. Stress in this whole
exercise not only be my group but others was also seen as devils horn. Even though the exercise
did not comply the exercise was very helpful in understanding that even though many people feel
stressed for different reason, they always tend to either procrastinate their stressor or nevr deal
with it firsthand. For example, one of our team members gets easily stressed when she has to speak
in public, so she altogether avoid doing the same.

After seeing the common theme of distress in activity two, the instructor began to tell us how
sometimes stress acts in a positive manner. This part of exercise was slightly difficult for my team
as they did not understand how can stress act in a positive manner. Our team finally had decided
rather than writing the definitions of eustress, we can simple write different examples in which a
person feels stress but actually that stress actually helps him better perform that job. The exercise
3 in short could be said was very helpful in understanding and reflecting on the positive dimension
of stress. Here eustress helped quite easily for me connect to the GAS model to the different
situations and understand the practical application of the model in everyday life

Exercise four helped in a two –fold manner. On one hand it gave a common outline that as a student
majority of the participants perceive tests assignments or in simpler terms college life as a stressful
situation. On the other hand this exercise also gave students an outline and time to introspect about
how they can manage their stress in different way.

These exercises also helped me reflect that how well I perceive stress and how it actually acts as a
driving force that enhances the creativity, and smartness in my work. The exercises also acted as
reinforcer where unintentionally I realized that we used different stress management techniques to
mitigate the stress that was caused due to time limit in every exercise.

From time management to team work and work division, all these strategies were applied to
enhance the work output. The workshop itself acted as a stress relieving workshop as for some
time being as it was something unexpected, creative and new that was being conducted in the
classroom.

The exercises also reflected on the part of procrastinating the work, and understanding the motto
the work is only stressful when you want it to be. The exercise also helped me understand that
stress for different individuals would be different and not to see stress always as a negative aspect
in my everyday life.

Conclusion
The aim of the workshop was to understand the nature of stress, eustress as well as management
of stress in today’s world. There were four exercises that were conducted in the workshop to
understand the same. The exercises were named as icebreakers; Stress; Eustress and stress
management. The exercises relieve that stress in an integral part of one’s life in today’s modern
world and one can’t escape from it.
References
Kondalkar, V. G. (2007). Organizational Behaviour. New Delhi: New Age International.

Muchinsky, P. M. (2006). Psychology Applied to Work (8th ed.). United States of America: Thomson
Wadsworth.

Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2014). Essentials of Organizational Behavior (12th ed.). United States of
America: Pearson Education.