Self-Care for Self-Preservation PDF

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Self-Care for Self-Preservation Self care is not about self-indulgence, it’s about self-preservation. ~Audrey Lorde

Measures of Stress

Measures of Stress Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory • This is a listing of a number of common stressful life events. • Each event is given a point score from 100 on down. • The inventory ask you to add up the number of points for each of the life stressors you’ve experienced over the last year.

Measures of Stress Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory • 150pts or less means a relatively low amount of life change and a low susceptibility to stress-induced health problems. It is an excellent score, which means that generally you are in control of your life, even though at times your life might seem stressful. • 150 to 300 pts implies about a 50% chance of a major health breakdown in the next 2 years. This means you need to be very watchful about how you feel overall, what you eat and how you look after yourself.

Measures of Stress Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory • 300pts or more raises the odds to about 80%, according to the Holmes-Rahe statistical prediction model. • These are the odds that you can get seriously ill! Of course there are certain events that happen to us unexpectedly and they are out of your control. • Sometimes we cannot do much about them, and we cannot even change how we think about them (as in for example, with a death in the family). In cases like this, remember - time heals. • I would also strongly suggest to make an appointment to see a professional (e.g. a psychologist) if you can. The more you will take care of your own health and learn how to cope with stress, the less chances that your health might suffer.

Measures of Stress Non-Clinical Assessments

Measures of Stress Non-clinical Assessments • Often there are tests available to look at the level of stress that you are experiencing, but these are not meant to replace a clinical assessment. • They might, however, provide a jumping off point of insight to being in a state of mindfulness about your stress warning signs and symptoms. • Let’s look at a sample of one of these types of non-clinical measures of stress.

Measures of Stress Non-clinical Assessments • Answer these twenty questions: Yes or No. 1. Do you frequently neglect your diet? 2. Do you frequently try to do everything yourself? 3. Do you frequently blow up easily? 4. Do you frequently seek unrealistic goals? 5. Do you frequently fail to see the humor in situations? 6. Do you frequently get easily irritated? 7. Do you frequently make a "big deal" of everything? 8. Do you frequently complain that you are disorganized? 9. Do you frequently keep everything inside? 10. Do you frequently neglect exercise?

Measures of Stress Non-clinical Assessments • Answer these twenty questions: Yes or No. 11. Do you frequently have few supportive relationships? 12. Do you frequently get too little rest? 13. Do you frequently get angry when you are kept waiting? 14. Do you frequently ignore stress symptoms? 15. Do you frequently put things off until later? 16. Do you frequently think there is only one right way to do something? 17. Do you frequently fail to build relaxation into every day? 18. Do you frequently spend a lot of time complaining about the past? 19. Do you frequently race through the day? 20. Do you frequently feel unable to cope with all you have to do?

Measures of Stress Non-clinical Assessments • Scoring: ▫ ▫ ▫ ▫

Scores of 1-6 Few Hassles Scores of 7-12 Pretty Good Control Scores of 13-17 Danger Zone. Watch out! Scores of 18+ Stressed Out. You may need help.

▫ http://www.lessons4living.com/stress_test.htm

Stress Warning Signs and Symptoms

Stress Warning Signs and Symptoms • The following slides will list some of the common warning signs and symptoms of stress. • If you know your red flags, you can take early steps to deal with the stressful situations that arise before they—or your emotions—spiral out of control. • Keep in mind that these can also be caused by other psychological and/or medical problems. • A full differential diagnostic examination might be able to determine what might be the ultimate cause of these symptoms.

Stress Warning Signs and Symptoms • Stress Warning Signs and Symptoms can fall into four general areas of symptoms. ▫ Cognitive symptoms ▫ Emotional symptoms ▫ Physical symptoms ▫ Behavioral symptoms

Stress Warning Signs and Symptoms COGNITIVE SYMPTOMS

EMOTIONAL SYMPTOMS

• Memory problems • Indecisiveness • Inability to concentrate • Trouble thinking clearly • Poor judgment • Seeing only the negative • Anxious or racing thoughts • Constant worrying • Loss of objectivity • Fearful anticipation

• Moodiness • Agitation • Restlessness • Short temper • Irritability, impatience • Inability to relax • Feeling tense and “on edge” • Feeling overwhelmed • Sense of loneliness and isolation • Depression or general unhappiness

Stress Warning Signs and Symptoms PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS

BEHAVIORAL SYMPTOMS

• Headaches or backaches • Muscle tension and stiff ness • Diarrhea or constipation • Nausea, dizziness • Insomnia • Chest pain, rapid heartbeat • Weight gain or loss • Skin breakouts (hives, eczema) • Loss of sex drive • Frequent colds

• Eating more or less • Sleeping too much or too little • Isolating yourself from others • Procrastination, neglecting responsibilities • Using alcohol, cigarettes, or drugs to relax • Nervous habits (e.g., nail biting, pacing) • Teeth grinding or jaw clenching • Overdoing activities (e.g., exercising, shopping) • Overreacting to unexpected problems • Picking fights with others

So you know how stressed you are, now what?

Mindfulness

Mindfulness • Mindfulness is “awareness without judgment of what is, via direct and immediate experience.” ~Marsha Linehan, Ph.D. • When you are mindful, you are awake to life on its own terms. You are fully alive to each moment as it arrives, as it is, and as it ends. • Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn developed the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. Since its inception, MBSR has evolved into a common form of complementary medicine addressing a variety of health problems. • Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is a form of MBSR that includes information about depression as well as cognitive therapybased exercises linking thinking and its resulting impact on feeling. MBCT demonstrates how participants can best work with these thoughts and feelings when depression threatens to overwhelm them and how to recognize depressive moods that can bring on negative thought patterns.

Mindful Thoughts vs. Automatic Thoughts • If you stop to think about it, you’ll realize that very few of us devote ourselves to living mindfully, meeting each moment of life as it presents itself, with full awareness, letting our judgments fall away. • Instead, we do things automatically, without noticing what we’re doing. We churn out judgments about ourselves and others. • We regularly get so caught up in our thoughts and feelings about the past or future that we’re lost in them, disconnecting from what is happening right now in front of us.

Mindful vs. Automatic

Determine whether you seeing what’s in front of you or the clutter in your mind.

Reasons One Might Not Be Mindful • Might need to get things done quickly. • Today a high value is placed on doing a lot at once. • Sometimes living with full awareness is painful. • We avoid painful thoughts, feelings, and situations when we are afraid or angry or ashamed or sad because we’re convinced that we couldn’t do anything to change them AND because we’re convinced we can’t stand to live with these things.

Mad-skillzzz in Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a Skill • Mindfulness is a skill that can be learned like any other. • However, it is a skill that needs to be practiced constantly so that it will be accessible when needed in times of greater stress. • The practice of mindfulness is “the repetitive act of directing attention to only one thing in this one moment.” ~ Marsha Linehan, Ph.D. • This means training your mind to pay attention to what you choose to pay attention to instead of letting your mind hijack you.

Mindfulness is a Skill • Whatever your attention is on, that’s what life is for you at any given moment. • Why practice mindfulness? Not only does it slow you down and let you see what is before you, but studies have shown that it is effective in reducing stress, anxiety, and depression and helping one to gain a sense of control over one’s life. • Example: Perhaps you’ve decided to take a break from working so you can make yourself some tea; as you stand at the stove, your mind wanders off and ruminates about a difficult conversation you had yesterday. You don’t get a break because your mind isn’t on the making of the tea; your mind is worrying and carrying you away. A mindfulness moment would have you focused specifically on making the tea, recognizing that the thought came into your head about the conversation and then, without judgment, returning your thoughts back to the making of the tea in the present moment.

Mini Mindfulness Exercise

Mini Mindfulness Exercise • This is a brief exercise of mindfulness of five or six breaths to be practiced five times per day. It can be practiced anywhere at any time. ▫

Step out of automatic pilot and become aware of what you are doing right now, where you are and what you are thinking

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Become aware of our breathing for about a minute or half a dozen breaths.

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Expand your awareness to your whole body and then to your environment, if you wish.

• The first thing we do with this practice, because it's brief and we want to come into the moment quickly, is to take a very definite posture ... relaxed, dignified, back erect, but not stiff, letting our bodies express a sense of being present and awake. • Now, closing your eyes, if that feels comfortable for you, the first step is being aware, really aware, of what is going on with you right now. Becoming aware of what is going through your mind; what thoughts are around? Here, again, as best you can, just noting the thoughts as mental events.... So we note them, and then we note the feelings that are around at the moment ... in particular, turning toward any sense of discomfort or unpleasant feelings. • So rather than try to push them away or shut them out, just acknowledge them, perhaps saying, “Ah, there you are, that's how it is right now." And similarly with sensations in the body... Are there sensations of tension, of holding, or whatever? And again, awareness of them, simply noting them. OK, that's how it is right now.

• So, we've got a sense of what is going on right now. We've stepped out of automatic pilot. The second step is to collect our awareness by focusing on a single object— the movements of the breath. • At first, this will be a different type of breathing than you are probably used to. You will breath in for 5 beats, hold for 7 beats, and breath out for 9 beats. ▫ Breath in – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ▫ Hold – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ▫ Breath out – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ,8, 9

• Do this for several breaths. You don’t want to hyperventilate. You are simply slowing down your breathing to start off with. • Then begin to breathe normally.

• So now we really gather ourselves, focusing attention down there in the movements of the abdomen or other breath focus point such as the nostrils or roof of the mouth, the rise and fall of the breath ... spending a minute or so to focus on the movement of the abdominal wall ... moment by moment, breath by breath, as best we can. • So that you know when the breath is moving in, and you know when the breath is moving out. Just binding your awareness to the pattern of movement down there ... gathering yourself, using the anchor of the breath to really be present. • And now as a third step, having gathered ourselves to some extent, we allow our awareness to expand. As well as being aware of the breath, we also include a sense of the body as a whole. So that we get this more spacious awareness.... A sense of the body as a whole, including any tightness or sensations related to holding in the shoulders, neck, back, or face ... following the breath as if your whole body is breathing. Holding it all in this slightly softer ... more spacious awareness. • You can do this exercise for five minutes and stop here or you can continue onward to a stream.

• Now take your mind outwards. See your thoughts, feelings, moods, and sensations as objects floating down a stream, coming into view and vanishing from sight. Simply watch without judgment or analysis. Just watch them pass. • Now pluck an object from the stream and focus on it. Let the other sensations and thoughts go by in the background. Note any new thoughts or feelings that arise from observing this object. Sit with these thoughts and feelings for a moment. • Whenever you’re ready to leave this object behind, simply deposit it on a leaf and let it float downstream. • Now slowly come back to an awareness of the room around you and your place in it. Notice your level of stress and see if it has changed from the start of the exercise until now.

Other Mindful Exercises • Practice focusing every day. It’ll help you learn to stay in the moment in your everyday life. 1. The breath. See “Awareness exercise” above. 2. Body scan: Lie down with your eyes closed. Slowly scan up and down your body for tightness and soreness. If you find a tight spot, stop and breathe into it until it relaxes. You might also imagine healing, white light radiating into the spot. 3. Object meditation: Choose a favourite or interesting object, such as a stone or flower. Spend several minutes observing every aspect of it: shape, hues, textures, smells, tastes. Use all your senses. Go for details. 4. Mindful eating: eating slowly, mindfully. Be aware of all the sensations of the food: taste, texture, sounds, weight. See “Mindful Eating: A Raisin” below. 5. Walking Meditation: While you walk, focus on sensations of the body moving. Soften the eyes and look at the ground a few paces ahead of you. Pay attention to how you walk. Aim to walk with no tension: relax into it, letting your hips and shoulders swing easily. Breathe with your footsteps. It can help to scan your body as you walk, allowing the movement to free up tensions. You may also consider saying a mantra or affirmation in time with the steps. See “Mindful Walking.” 6. Mindful stretching: Slow, gentle Hatha yoga.

Theory: Psychodynamic • Part of the nature of psychodynamic theory is the attempt to make the unconscious conscious. • The repressed always returns. Bringing the repressed up through psychodynamic therapy is another method of mindfulness. • To do that what we need to do is to become participant-observers of our lives and pay attention to the projections and manifestations of the unconscious that play out in our lives.

Theory: Psychodynamic • The blue arrow on top is the participant-observer of what happens in the interaction between us and the world. The arrow comes from the Ego-Consciousness structure and looks at the mirror of life to reflect back the observed projections (represented by the orange arrow below) which assimilates them into the Ego-Css structure. When that happens, the Ego-CSS structure as it assimilates expands aspects unconscious those that belonged to the shadow.

Theory: (CBT) The Albert Ellis Alphabet

The Albert Ellis Alphabet • Ellis used an "ABCDE" mnemonic or memory system to teach the basics of rational-emotive behavior therapy. Here are the elements: • • • • •

A = Activating event B = Belief system C = Emotional Consequences of A and B D = Disputing irrational thoughts and beliefs. E = Cognitive and Emotional effects of revised beliefs

The Albert Ellis Alphabet Plus a Letter • Jay Uhdinger’s Worksheet Describes it this way: ▫ Activating event: What happened? ▫ Beliefs and thoughts (unhelpful): What did I think? Why did I think this? ▫ Consequences: What did I feel? What did I do? ▫ Dispute!: Dispute your thoughts. Challenge your beliefs. ▫ Effective new beliefs and thoughts: Find effective & helpful new beliefs and thoughts ▫ Feelings (new): How do you feel about this now?

The Albert Ellis Alphabet • Kurt’s Life and a Simple ABC Model http://youtu.be/wMyViifZtak

• ABCDEF Worksheet Example http://youtu.be/uIWbiYY3I-o

• Copy of ABCDEF Worksheet http://jayuhdinger.com/pdfs/ABCDEFworksheet.pdf

Self-Care Resources • Developing Self-Care Plans http://www.socialwork.buffalo.edu/students/self-care/exercises.asp • Tips for Vitality and Serenity http://www.socialwork.buffalo.edu/students/selfcare/documents/exercises/Tips_for_Vitality_and_Serenity_-_Roswell.pdf

And don’t Forget…Humor does wonders!...