Stress Management and Wellness

• The text appears to be an outline of topics related to stress management, wellness, and healthy living, likely for a college course.

Stress and Sleep

• Daily hassles and major stressors both contribute to stress and illness; understanding their relative impact is key.
• Fight-or-flight is a physiological response to perceived threats, preparing the body to either confront or escape the danger presented.
• General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) describes the body's long-term reaction to stress in three stages: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.
• General stress management techniques include exercise, relaxation techniques, journaling, and communication.
• The four components of the wellness paradigm should be understood.
• Relaxation methods help manage stress by inducing a state of calm, reducing physiological arousal.
• Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR), visualization and guided imagery, meditation, and diaphragmatic breathing should be understood for their application and mechanics.
• Anxiety management strategies should be examined for practical recommendations for support.
• Sleep problems are widespread, necessitating improvements to sleep habits, understanding sleep needs, and practicing good sleep hygiene.
• Sleep hygiene includes behaviors such as regulating caffeine intake and maintaining consistent bedtimes.
• Hormone linked to depression, sleep, and reward/addiction pathways should be identified.

Technology, Communication, and Nature

• Technostress is stress caused by technology.
• Technology impacts boundaries between work and personal life.
• Ways technology contributes to stress should be identified
• Presenteeism should be understood; attending work while sick or underperforming.
• The relationship between communication and stress should be addressed
• Civility is respect and politeness in interaction; its changing nature in society impacts stress levels.
• Nature Deficit Disorder is the lack of exposure to nature, impacting well-being and increasing stress.
• How the disconnect from nature impacts well-being/stress should be examined

Physiology of Stress

• Three main systems affected by the physiological response to stress should be recognized.
• Three levels of the brain and their functions should be identified.
• The roles of epinephrine, norepinephrine, vasopressin (ADH), cortisol, oxytocin, thyroxine, dopamine, aldosterone, and acetylcholine should be understood.
• Glands that produce the hormones listed above should be identified.
• ACTH, ADH/Vasopressin, and Thyroxine axes should be outlined.
• Exercise helps decrease stress response through physiological mechanisms.
• Sympathetic (fight or flight) and parasympathetic (rest and digest) responses should be discussed
• The process in your body when exposed to a pathogen should be explained.

Behavior Change

• Stages of change in behavior modification needs to be identified.
• Goal setting and using SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) enhance success.
• Processes/strategies of change in action should be understood in scenario-based examples.
• Baseline and relapse need to be accurately defined for context.

Time Management

• Effective planning techniques for time management should be identified and understood.
• Time robbers are distractions and interruptions that waste time.
• Personality and its influence on time management should be discussed.
• Prioritization techniques help manage tasks effectively.
• Time management strategies and techniques should be applied in order to improve proficiency.
• Procrastination happens from ineffective time management.
• Three factors associated with procrastination need identification.
• Reasons why people procrastinate should be investigated.
• Personality types associated with poor time management should be examined.
• How perfectionism relates to time management issues should be explained.
• Eustress (positive stress) vs. distress (negative stress) and their relationship to stress, time, and productivity should be clarified.

Nutrition

• Strategies to manage stress eating should be implemented.
• Eating disorder symptoms, prevalence, and identification must be understood.
• Basic things that could improve general population's eating habits should be reviewed.
• Basics of food/nutritional label reading will help with healthy eating.
• Simple vs. complex carbohydrates, their relation to glucose, potential glucose "crash," and long-term energy provided should be explained.
• Various types of fats, their sources, recommendations, and health impacts should be clarified.
• Fiber types, benefits, recommended intake, and sources need to be identified.
• Sodium recommendations and sources need to be identified.
• Protein recommendations, sources should be determined.
• Sugar and caffeine intake, recommendations, limits, sources, and impacts need to be clarified.
• Recommended caloric breakdown of a healthy diet (% carbs/pro/fats, types of fats) should be followed.

Yoga

• Yoga postures practiced in class such as Warrior poses, Tree pose, Child’s pose, Plank, Bridge, Boat, Downward Facing Dog, Dead Bug, Cat Cow, etc should be understood.
• The purpose of Sun Salutations should be explained.
• Breathing techniques used in yoga and relaxation such as ujjayi breath, alternate nostril breathing, etc.
• How to end a yoga practice in terms of pose/asanas and closing words should be understood.