Stress Management
BACKGROUND
The Challenge of Change stress
management training programme has a firm foundation in widely published
research, which began at the University of York in England in 1980 and
continues today (since 2003) at the University of Canterbury in New
Zealand. The University of York is one of the most prestigious
Universities in the UK, and the Stress Research Unit which Derek Roger
established there was an acknowledged centre of excellence in stress
research.
The findings from the research contradicted much
of the received wisdom about stress, and the
Challenge of Change
offers
a unique and innovative approach that really works. While the programme
has a solid research base, the training itself is entirely practical,
and has been shown to have a significant impact on a range of job
satisfaction indices, including sickness-absence.
The
training is marketed through the Work Skills Centre consultancy, which
is now centred in Christchurch, New Zealand but continues to operate
under license in the UK. The Work Skills Centre has been a Preferred
Provider of stress management training to the BBC across the UK for the
past 6 years, and forms part of core training for all newly-appointed
medical consultants in the NHS across the North of England.
The
training has been implemented in a wide range of other public and
private sector companies across the UK, including the Police, local
authorities, Axa Insurance and Smith & Nephew Pharmaceuticals.
In
New Zealand, clients have included Meridian Energy, Bridgestone, Caltex
and Ravensdown Fertilizers.
TARGET AUDIENCE
The
programme is applicable in all public and private sector organisations,
particularly in view of the high profile given to stress in recent
Government legislation.
PROGRAMME OUTLINE
Conventional
stress management focuses on things like symptoms of stress, "life
events" and relaxation, but simply listing symptoms provides no insight
into the causes. Life-event scales put stress in the events themselves,
and since so much of what we have to deal with on a day-to-day basis is
unavoidable, stress then becomes unavoidable as well. Relaxation is
useful, but is only a temporary solution. Conventional stress
management also confuses pressure and stress. Pressure is simply a
demand for performance, which varies from day to day, whereas stress
decreases performance and can seriously affect your health.
By contrast, the
Challenge
of Change
makes a clear distinction between pressure and stress, and shows how to
avoid turning pressure into stress. The course starts from the
assumption that people are asleep most of the time, and the key to
stress management is first to wake up. What this means is coming out of
what the programme call 'waking sleep', where attention is hijacked by
thoughts about the past or the future. An illustration is waiting for
the local weather on the car radio, and then finding 10 minutes later
that you missed it completely. Waking sleep is about attention being
snatched rather than choosing intentionally to plan or drawing on
experience, and the second step in the programme is learning to control
attention. Stress occurs when the repetitive thoughts about the past
and future are clouded by negative emotion, and begin to revolve around
'what-ifs' and 'if-onlys'. This makes you miserable, but as the course
clearly shows it can also make you ill and shorten your life. The third
step is called detachment, which is not about not caring but rather
about perspective-taking - being able to see molehills as molehills,
and not making them into mountains. The final step is letting go, which
is about releasing the negative emotion that comes with stress. In fact
there are just four steps to being free of stress - waking up,
controlling attention, becoming detached and letting go - and the
course uses a series of diagrams and illustrative analogies to show how
to put them in place.
Other issues covered in the
programme include emotional intelligence (some of the measures in the
profile have been included in the compendium of emotional intelligence
measures assembled by the University of Pennsylvania), adaptive coping
and effective communication. There is a specific exercise which extends
simple relaxation to the more important practice of relaxing the mind,
and a CD with these exercises is included in the delegate pack.
METHODOLOGY
The
training forms a logical sequence which is built up through the use of
various AV techniques. Questions are welcome throughout the session,
though there are timetabled opportunities for questions. There are also
two sessions dedicated to consolidating the system and for practising
the practical strategies. The research programme identified a series of
personal characteristics that contribute to making people resilient or
vulnerable to stress, and these are included in a pre-training
questionnaire completed by those attending. The results of the profile
are not disclosed to anyone else, but they provide delegates with a
clear and well-validated index of where they need to focus their
practice.
OUTCOMES
The course is
aimed at equipping participants with the practical tools and strategies
for reducing stress, both in their working lives and at home.
Particular attention is paid on the course to the way in which
realistic, practical skills for enhancing personal and professional
development can be implemented for the benefit of individual
participants as well as their teams and companies, and the benefits
include greater job satisfaction and performance, better health and
improved communication skills.
All participants
receive a detailed pack with an overview of the day, including details
for the interpretation of their profiles. They also complete an
anonymous evaluation of the day, which is summarised and returned to
the contracting authority. Finally, there is a follow-up scheme which
helps to consolidate, reinforce and refine the practical skills
acquired on the course.
Contact
us about Stress Management
