In this lesson, I invite you to follow along with the workbook to assess how stress is impacting your life. Take a moment to reflect on the following questions, and pay attention to the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that arise. Utilize the attached chart to help you identify and record your responses regarding your thoughts, feelings, and sensations.
As you have journeyed through life, you have likely discovered various ways to cope with stress, pain, or illness. For example, you may talk with friends, exercise, meditate, eat healthy foods, or watch a funny movie.
However, there may have been times when you resorted to unhealthy methods of dealing with challenges. These might include overeating, excessive work, excessive TV watching, spending hours on the internet, or consuming alcohol or drugs. Let’s take a few minutes to identify all the different ways (both good and bad) that you have employed to cope with each stress mentioned in the previous questions.
The purpose of this lesson is to increase awareness of our stressors, enabling us to recognize them and find healthy ways to manage them.
Moving forward, we will explore what methods work best for you and what doesn’t. In the upcoming lessons, we will delve deeper into common strategies for stress release.