Journaling: Healthy Living Through Self-Discovery
1.5 Contact Hours
Writing has been an important part of the human experience for centuries but has only recently been recognized as a therapeutic tool for healing. Used to document personal and historical events, describe emotions and feelings, reduce stress, and explore creativity, journaling allows individuals to develop a deeply personal relationship with themselves.
Physiology of Stress
2.0 Contact Hours
Stress is at epidemic levels in the world today. Currently, as many as 90% of all visits to healthcare providers in the United States are considered to be stress related. Stress affects every aspect of the body, mind, and spirit, resulting in a wide range of symptoms from headaches or stomach ailments to heart disease or death. Stress is difficult to define because it varies from individual to individual. What one person finds stressful might not bother another person at all. There are many types of stress, and each can result in many different physiological effects on the body.
Psychology of Stress
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Events, people, and circumstances fill our normal daily lives along with a certain amount of stress. Some of us experience psychological effects from this stress, while others seem to be unaffected or even thrive when challenged. Why do we react differently to stressors? Despite much research on the topic, the answer is not clearly understood, but key elements include personality, emotional intelligence, and gender.
Social Context of Stress
2.0 Contact Hours
A strong social support network is important during difficult times. A social support network consists of friends, family, and peers. Developing and maintaining supportive relationships provide feelings of belonging, self-worth, and security. Without a strong social support network, individuals can experience a sense of isolation, disconnection, and stress. Despite their initial impression of fostering connectedness, technology and social networking often increase a person’s feelings of isolation because relationships established online may not be deep and real. In addition, incivility and a lack of regular contact with nature also increase stress.
Stress and Nutrition
1.0 Contact Hours
Most individuals enjoy sitting down and eating a delicious meal. Food provides an opportunity to socialize and, if the food is nutritious, it also supports a healthy body and mind. However, when individuals are stressed, they are not able to utilize the nutrients they eat as effectively as when they are relaxed. If stress causes an individual to eat food that is not nutritious, health issues can result. Nutrition, stress, and the immune system are closely related.
Stress and Physical Activity
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Physical activity is essential in a program for stress management and overall health. This can include activities such as walking, running, swimming, cycling, skiing, dancing, gardening, yoga, Qigong, Tai Chi Chuan, weight lifting, and stretching, as well as many other practices. These activities provide an integrative, holistic, healthy way to connect mind, body, and spirit, which improve physical, mental, and emotional health.
Stress Reduction Techniques and Therapies
2.0 Contact Hours
You may think you don’t have a lot of control over the stress in your life, but you have more control than you might think. There are many ways to manage and reduce stress by using stress-relieving techniques and therapies. Exploring and experimenting with these techniques can provide you with many powerful tools to help you re-examine the way you respond to stress and empower you to more effectively manage the stress you have.
The Effects of Stress on Health
1.5 Contact Hours
Stress can dramatically affect the body and the mind to the detriment of physical and psychological health. Both acute and chronic stress, the timing and duration of stress, gender, and genetics play a role in the complex relationship between stress and health.
Workplace Stress
1.0 Contact Hours
For most individuals, the workplace is ever changing and a major source of daily stress. As a result, the economic and personal health effects of workplace stress are at epidemic levels, making it one of the most important health challenges of the 21st century.