Stress Management

Stress Management
in Recreation Settings

by Mary A. Mathieu, CTRS

Life involves change and change can be stressful. In general, any event or situation which disrupts a person's normal routine is usually defined as stressful. The longer it takes to adjust to a disruptive event, the more stressful it may become. Therefore, encouraging people to find better ways to manage stressful events may help limit their severity of impact. Witness the following practical ideas concerning stress management for individuals in recreation settings.

In the seventies and eighties, researchers began to explore whether physical, emotional and behavioral responses to a stressful situation made a difference in how successful a person was in adjusting to the stress. They found that if a person responded to a stressful event by using coping skills that depleted their ability to adjust, they added to their stress. For instance, using angry outbursts to encourage others to do what you want may raise your blood pressure and cause others to avoid you. People who use rage in such a way often get their way and avoid the stress of having to compromise their immediate desires. However, in the long run they hurt themselves and the people closest to them. Often these individuals don't realize that there is a better way to handle the situation.

Researchers have also found that if individuals are unable to manage their stress while at work, they are likely to have the same difficulty while at their leisure. Encouraging people to be aware of how they manage their stress during leisure and recreation can be less threatening because of the more relaxed social atmosphere. While stress management is not necessarily fun, by better managing your stress you make it easier to have fun.

All of us face minor as well as major life stressors which can eat away at our energy and health, leaving us feeling exhausted and too weak to cope. As a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist (CTRS) working in an acute care psychiatric facility, I often saw clients who had reached the point of "stress exhaustion." Life had depleted their physical, mental, and emotional resources. They were "running on empty" while faced with what seemed an ever-increasing amount of stress. Often they were so exhausted that any change in their routine seemed overwhelming. It became increasingly apparent that they were their own worst enemies. They often utilized coping skills which spent more of their energy than was necessary, leaving them feeling more exhausted. Two of my major roles as a CTRS were: to encourage clients to identify the responses to stress which cost them their health, and to help them find new, more "cost efficient" ways of handling the stress in their lives.

Recently, I led a stress management workshop in the Springfield area that was attended by a group of older adults from the surrounding community. I began by having the participants share their reasons for wanting to learn more about stress management. Their responses were varied: One woman's husband had recently died after a long bout with cancer; another woman was responsible for taking care of both other parents who were frail and not always realistic concerning their abilities; a third woman, who had recently retired, stated that she was adjusting well yet she still felt stressed by the changes in her lifestyle.
Everyone was able to give at least a couple of disruptive events or situations which caused them varying degrees of stress. For some, it was a chronic physical condition, others identified a conflict with another person, and still others viewed the unstable economy as a source of stress. For the most part, all felt they were coping with their stress but felt the stress was taking its toll.

TABLE ONE
Common Sources of Personal Stress
Being bored
A demanding job without the resources to accomplish it
A thankless job
Not having a sense of personal purpose
Not having personal goals
Not knowing what is important to you
Questioning your values without finding any resolution
Personal loss or tragedy

Illinois Parks and Recreation

March/April 1993

Once everyone identified the stress-producing circumstances, we started exploring what the stress was doing to them. I warned that once they stopped to think about stress symptoms they could easily increase it by overwhelming themselves. I reminded them to be gentle with themselves as they tried to identity their physical, emotional and behavioral responses to stress.

It is important to remind people that their physical and emotional responses to stress are, for the most part, out of their direct control. A common physical response to stress is an increased frequency of headaches. While a person could take an aspirin to relieve a headache, if the headaches are frequent and unexplainable, one's response is most likely to be frustration and helplessness. Another common emotional response to excessive stress is frequent crying. For most people, a frequent, uncontrollable urge to cry can be an annoying, embarrassing, and even scary experience. However, for individuals under extreme stress or with few coping skills, it may be the easiest way to relieve the tension. On the other hand, it may be a little easier for people to feel some control over behavioral responses. A common behavioral response to stress is procrastination, and it may be easier to make a concrete plan to overcome procrastination than to stop physical and emotional responses to stress.

Physical

appetite change
sore muscles
fatigue
problems with sleep
susceptibility to illness

TABLE TWO
Common Responses to Stress

Emotional

unexplained anxiety
increased worry
being easily frustrated
irritability
self-consciousness

Behavioral

over-reacting
smoking
over-eating
not talking
overly competitive

While behavioral responses are "a little easier to feel some control over," the key words are "a little." All of these responses (physical, emotional and behavioral) are an individual's way of coping with a stressful event or situation. Even if a response is causing an individual more stress, he or she may not be able to stop using it without some discomfort. Someone who procrastinates may decide to use time management skills to set realistic goals for the completion of various tasks. In order to learn to set realistic goals, that individual may first need to lower unrealistic expectations concerning his or her abilities. Such individuals may need to reexamine why they have such high expectations and face their limitations. None of these introspective tasks are easy, and they all may cause varying degrees of emotional pain. Furthermore, if an individual doesn't replace the negative behavior with a healthier coping skill, he or she will probably resume that negative behavior because it may have felt comfortable and, at least temporarily, relieved stress.

The next step of the workshop involved having the participants identify their strengths. By focusing on positive aspects of themselves, they found that the initial task of changing behavior was less overwhelming. Identifying their strengths reminded them that they had positive qualities, not just problems. I asked the group to try to list past events or situations which showed their own personal strengths and helped them grow as individuals. I also asked them to think of any accomplishments which they were proud of and list them. One woman stated that she had lived through the Great Depression and that the current hard economic times paled in comparison. Another woman talked about how the loss of a number of family members made life seem more precious to her. Still another member discussed raising children and seeing them raise their own families; taking pride in that accomplishment.

A note of caution: If an individual is unable to come up with any positive responses to these questions, it is best not to probe. The point of the exercise is to stimulate discussion and to get people thinking about their strengths. However, if someone is dealing with stress exhaustion, it may be very difficult for them to see their strengths. It is usually best to acknowledge the difficulty the individual has had in participating in the exercise and then back off. It is best not to pressure people who are already under too much stress. Instead, wait for them to make any further contributions to the discussion. If they do contribute later on, be sure to acknowledge their effort in a supportive, non-patronizing way.

Once the group shared their experiences and accomplishments, I had them talk about other sources of personal strength which helped them manage stress. I had them list the people who listen to them and in doing so, nurture and accept them the way they are. Meanwhile I reminded them that no human being can listen, nurture, and accept you 100 percent of the time and still be considered a human being.

The next step was to think about values that allowed them to be more flexible with their daily routine. Flexibility allows more leeway for the disruptions that "just happen." Table three gives some of these values.

TABLE THREE

Values Which Help One Be More Flexible

• I believe in allowing others to support me and, in turn, supporting them when needed.

• I believe in talking about problems as they arise or shortly afterwards.

• I believe that the things I do are important and meaningful.

• I believe in laughing and trying not to take myself too seriously.

• I believe in making commitments to the things I find important and meaningful.

• I believe in telling others my beliefs without expecting them to have the same beliefs I have.

• I believe in finding time to play every day.

Bringing up values always seems to stimulate discussion. The short list with which I start the discussion grows as members of the group contributes their ideas. A problem with this exercise is that people sometimes take these values to always be right no matter what the situation. I often hear the word "should" tossed

about as if the answer to all our troubles was simply a matter of doing what we "should.'

In using the word "should" we invoke guilt, and guilt kills the best attempts at positive stress management. The best way to overwhelm yourself and to add to your stress is to approach stress management as a matter of living your life the "right" way. The problem with a "should" or "right way" mentality is that it gives the impression that there is only "one" way to live life, and negates the idea that we need to be more flexible and open when attempting to adjust to changes.

Values provide us with a sense of what is important to us, giving us guidelines for making decisions. They help us to behave in accordance with our beliefs, and they become fine- tuned as we live and learn. In fact, sometimes our values may need to change so that we can grow.

To end the workshop, I had the participants develop a plan to help themselves either change, stay away from, or better live with, one of their stressors. For instance, the woman who was responsible for her frail parents decided that it was more practical to find a better way to live with her responsibility than it was to change or stay away from her parents. She felt it inappropriate to assume that she could change her parents and that it would be negligent of her to stay away from them. She decided to take better care of herself so that she could be there when they really need her. I suggested that she might want to try to be more open with her parents, confronting them with why she felt their plans were unrealistic while acknowledging that she could not control her parents' actions. She agreed with the importance of open communication but decided to begin by taking better care of herself physically. She decided to build up her resistance to the toll this was taking on her by exercising, using relaxation techniques, eating better and having fun on a regular basis. I agreed with her plan because she felt it was the best way for her to begin to open her "self' to change, while maintaining an objective perspective on her situation.

All of the participants were able to generate a plan, and we talked about how they would need to adjust their plans as they experimented with different ways of coping. As a group we took note of how different each person's plan was, and that the differences indicated how many ways there were to fortify yourself against stress. The key is to be open, flexible and realistic.

Benson. H. (1976). The Relaxation Response. New York: Avon.
Hansen, P.G. (1987). The Joy of Stress. New York: Andrews & McMeel.
Tubesing.D.A. &Tubesing, N.L. (1984). Structured Exercises in Stress Management, Vol. II. Duluth, MN: Whole Person Press.

About the Author
Mary Mathieu, CTRS, is a doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.