Activity 3: Stress Busters

Purpose: This activity offers "stress busters" to help with everyday hassles. This activity is designed to give participants skills in managing stress and improve their skills in supporting other staff in stress management.

For this activity each participant will need the following handouts:

• E-1: Kingpin County Head Start
• E-2: Headache Visualization
• E-3 Keeping Well-Hydrated
• E-4 Simple Massage

Step 1: One element of mental health promotion in the workplace is developing skills to cope with stress. Stress can range from daily hassles to fundamental threats to safety and well-being. A mental health consultant can offer resources to help staff assess causes of stress in their lives and consider how to cope. Give participants one copy of the handouts E- 1 through E-4.

Step 2: Ask participants to read the story of Handout E- 1: Kingpin County Head Start.

Step 3: Ask participants to decide if the headache-reducing activities described in Handout E-2: Headache Visualization, might be helpful in their program. If so, ask them to choose a buddy person on staff who can support them in their efforts to try out these remedies. If these activities don't seem useful, ask participants to suggest some other small, tension-reducing activity which they could do on a regular basis. Use Handout E-3: Keeping Well-Hydrated, and Handout E-4: Simple Massage, as resources for this and for stress reduction "homework:" Suggest that their buddy be someone they see on a regular basis throughout the day who can cover for a moment for them if they need to be out of the room to practice this technique.

Step 4: Over the course of the next week, ask the participants to share with their partners the variety of headache-reducing techniques and other stress busters. Suggest that participants check in with each other at least once a day to see that their buddy is taking a few moments to try out this technique.

Step 5: After the week is over, ask participants if they noticed any change in the way they felt at the end of the day. If so, encourage them to continue these simple strategies. If not, ask them to talk with you about what other tension-reducing activities they could do on a regular basis.

Points to Consider:

• Headaches very often represent tension in some part of the body. Simple relaxation can relieve some of that tension and reduce the headache. Some headaches, however, are signs of illness. Any headache that involves severe pain, lasts for several days, or does not respond to the usual remedies should be discussed with a health care provider.
• It is very difficult for any of us to take time for ourselves to relax, to stretch, to get that extra glass of water. A buddy can help in giving us the time and reminding us to take that moment for self-care.
• Within any workplace, there are stressors which are out of the individual's control. If the worker cannot change the situation, he needs to change his own response to it in order to reduce tension.
  
  

Activity 3-4 | Activity 3-2 | Module 3 | Index

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