Handling Stress OR Let's Combat Stress!

Prepared by Dr. Valerie Sky, English and Modern Languages

Introduction

This module will introduce students to various strategies for reducing everyday and school-related stress. Students will learn how to identify the signals their body gives them when it is stressed and practice engaging in the stress-relief activities of their choice. This module is designed for 75 minutes of class time and broken down into a 30-minute introduction and 25-50-minute class group presentations (this time can fluctuate depending on the number of students). This module requires students to prepare outside of class for approximately six hours.

NOTE: Please remember that these suggestions are based on general wellness practices and are not a substitute for medical or psychological advice. Before doing any physical exercises, check with your health care professional to see if these - or any other exercises - are safe and right for you.

Learning Objectives

After completing this module, students will be able to:

List basic stressors commonly encountered in college life.
Utilize self-assessment techniques to identify personal signs and symptoms of stress (i.e., physical, emotional, behavioral, and cognitive/mental indicators).
List basic stress management techniques.
Explain the concept of stress awareness and its importance in managing overall well-being.
Apply a variety of stress management strategies to specific stressors commonly encountered in college life.
Assess the effectiveness and suitability of various stress management techniques through self-reflection.
Design an interactive stress management presentation for fellow students to demonstrate the use of at least two stress reduction techniques in real-life scenarios. (Alternatively, students can develop a personalized stress management plan tailored to individual needs and circumstances)

The above objectives will satisfy the FYE Student Learning Objectives SLO 1: Students will use information resources appropriately for professional and/or personal success.

Teaching Strategies

The teaching of this module can vary depending on how each instructor decides to incorporate it into their classroom. The suggested synchronous activities can be turned into asynchronous ones.

Readings

Before class readings

Before class videos

These videos can be useful for starting a list of various stress-management techniques for your future presentation. This list is not full or comprehensive, so please use it as a starting point only. You do not have to watch these videos from the beginning to the end if you are already familiar with a specific technique, but make sure you learn about the new techniques that you had been unaware of. In other words, watch them all or pick and choose.

Stress Relief Tips - 7 Ways on How to Lower Stress | Anthem [2 min]

What is Yoga Nidra?; [7 min]

Yoga Nidra | Guided Meditation to Relax, Rejuvenate & Reform; [34 min]

Laughter Yoga | Liliana DeLeo; [5 min]

Diaphragmatic Breathing | UCLA Integrative Digestive Health and Wellness Program; [7 min]

Belly vs Chest Breathing; [5 min]

Four Count Breath / Tactical Breathing / Stress Management / Mental Fitness; [4 min]

Sleep, Anxiety, and Insomnia: How to Sleep Better When You're Anxious; [14 min]

After class readings

Please visit this website to learn how to cite a TED talk from the TED website and this one to learn how to cite a YouTube Video.
Handout about APA style citations.
Nagoski, E. & Nagoski, A. (2021, April) How to Deal With Difficult Feelings: The Cure for Burnout, TED Conference [18 min]
Moffatt, T., & Cartmell, L. (2021). A Conversation with Amelia Nagoski: Part 1: Do I Smell Smoke? Legacy (National Association for Interpretation), 32(5), 37-39.
Moffatt, T., & Cartmell, L. (2021). Burnout: How Do We Put Out the Fire? A Conversation with Amelia Nagoski: Part 2. Legacy (National Association for Interpretation), 32(6), 34-36.
Greenman, D. (2022). Amelia Nagoski Talks Burnout, Stress. In University Wire. Uloop, Inc.

Lecture, Content, and Activities

During class activities (Day 1; 30 minutes)

The following in-class activities could be transformed into an online discussion group for asynchronous classes.

The topic of the class, purpose, and learning objectives need to be briefly introduced to students. The professor can elicit definitions of stress and stressor based on the before-class readings (2 min)
In an in-class setting, the professor can utilize various grouping techniques (e.g., handing out sets of numbers, counting, randomly assigned groups, and student-selected groups) to form groups of two, three, or four students. (2 min)
The students are given a discussion topic: "What makes you stressed? What are the main stressors in your life (i.e., people, situations that cause you to stress out)." The professor sets a timer for approximately four minutes (this is the maximum time) but can start eliciting whole-class sharing earlier. (3 min)
The professor asks students to shout out the answers or utilizes a written response typing application (e.g., Zoom chat, Socrative short answer, Mentimeter short answer). (2 min)
Next, the students are given another discussion topic: "How do you know that people around you are stressed? How do you know that you are stressed? What are the typical symptoms of stress?" The professor prompts the students to peek into their reading notes or the article itself if they need more ideas. The groups can be asked to draft a list of symptoms on paper. (4 min)
After that, the students are prompted to create a chart of stress symptoms on the board by grouping them into four categories: physical, behavioral, emotional, and cognitive/mental. (5 min)
The students then engage in a brainstorming session: "What are the effective and useful stress-management techniques to alleviate stress?" Each group adds their ideas to the document shared online, which will be later used again as a sign-up sheet. (5 min)
Lastly, the professor explains what the students are going to do at home to prepare for their next class (i.e., The interactive stress management presentation). (7 min)

During class activities (Day 2; 25-50 minutes)

Student groups take turns to deliver their interactive stress management presentations (25-50 minutes; class size dependent). Each group presentation will be approximately 5-7 minutes long.

Resources

You can learn more about stress and mindfulness from these optional additional resources.

Optional book and video

Daugherty, A. K., & Sadeghi, Habib. (2019). Unstressed : How Somatic Awareness Can Transform Your Body’s Stress Response and Build Emotional Resilience. New Harbinger Publications. [165 pages]

Mindfulness. (2014). Columbia Broadcasting System. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473928305 [60 minutes]

On-Campus Resources:

Are you stressed? Is your life too busy? Do you need an attentive listener?

It is important to take care of our physical health (e.g., see a doctor), but it is also very important to take care of our mental health (e.g., see a therapist).

You can talk to a mental health professional by utilizing the following services available at CPP:

Care Center (Building 97, first floor, 909-869-5071 or carecenter@cpp.edu)   
Counseling and Psychological Services (Building 66, Room 116, 909-869-3220 or caps@cpp.edu)

Assignments and Assessments

Students will use PowerPoint (available for free through CPP) to create interactive presentation slides and deliver them in class to engage peers. The professor provides the following assignment directions.

Assignment Purpose

Creating and delivering this presentation will allow you to learn to apply basic stress management techniques in everyday college life to reduce your everyday stress.

Assignment Format

Group presentations with audience engagement

Assignment Description

For this presentation, you will research and talk about stress awareness and stress management techniques. You will create a PowerPoint and then engage your peers to practice two different stress management strategies. Your presentation needs to follow the presentation outline and actively engage your peers in stress-relieving activities. The timing of your presentation should not be shorter than 5 minutes or longer than 7 minutes (for full credit).

Sign-up sheet

To make sure that the stress-management strategies demonstrations do not repeat, each group needs to list what they will be presenting on this sign-up sheet. This is the same document that we used to list the strategies/techniques. Please make sure to refer to the second page.

Rubric

Your learning will be assessed using this rubric which includes the following criteria:

Delivery, audience awareness, & speaking, not reading;
Partner work;
Content and organization;
Audience engagement;
PPT;
Timing.

How to Complete This Module

The instructions for students were added throughout.