Health Handouts : Stress Management

The educational program should include approaches to stress awareness/reduction at the environmental level and at the individual level.

Social, physical, and employer stressors must be explained and methods to ease or elevate stressors must be presented. At the individual level how changes in attitudes and behaviors help one to cope with stressors; learning techniques to minimize stress response, such as meditation, relaxation response, and exercise.

Content of the program ought to provide the following:
• Identifying sources of stress
• Relationship of stress to health
• How the individual experiences stress, personal, family, work
• Solutions for coping and managing stress
• Techniques for decreasing stress
• Value of stress, both harmful and positive
• Practical steps of incorporating stress reduction into lifestyle

Personnel delivering stress management programs must have training in psychology, behavioral sciences, or related disciplines such as mental health professionals, counselors, health educators, psychologists, and psychiatrists. Training in a reputable program on how to instruct the stress management course including group process skills is a must.