Stress Management (edX)

Stress management starts with identifying the sources of stress in life. This is not as straightforward as it sounds. While it is easy to identify major stressors such as change of job, relocation or stringent timelines but identifying the sources of chronic stress may be more complicated. It is also very important to understand how one’s own thoughts, feelings, and behaviours contribute to one’s everyday stress levels apart from the external events or situations.

For an individual, it is difficult to avoid, for a prolonged period, threatening external event or situation which engenders a feeling of anxiety, tension and worry i.e., stress.

This gives rise to some obvious questions like ‘How does one get into stressful condition?’, ‘Why do I feel drained out?’, ‘Is it good to take extra load for growth?’, ‘Does time-management help managing stress?’, ‘Is managing stress in my hands?’ ‘How as an individual should I approach and manage my stress and lead a controlled life?’.

This course addresses the above questions encompassing understanding of stress, stressors and ways to deal with stress.

This course will be useful for every individual, irrespective of one’s profession, even for the homemaker and the freelancer, to understand and manage stress and acquire this important life-skill and thereby keep one’s mind and body healthy.

What you'll learn

• What is stress?
• Types of stress
• Symptoms of stress
• How to identify the stressors
• Consequences of stress
• Techniques for managing stress
• Time management for managing stress
• Spirituality and stress management

Syllabus

Week 1: Stress and Symptoms:
i. What is stress?
ii. Types of stress
iii. Can stress be helpful?
iv. Symptoms of the stress: Physical, Emotional, Behavioral and Mental

Week 2: Stressors and consequences of stress:
i. Work level stressors and individual level stressors
ii. Short-term and long-term stress
iii. Consequences of stress
iv. Burnout
v. Personality type A and type B: How they respond to stressors

Week 3: Stress Management as a life-skill:
i. Physical well-being: Exercise, Breathing, Nutrition, etc.
ii. Psychological well-being: Self-control, understanding personality type and moderating response, cognitive restructuring, social connect, positive self-talk, etc.
iii. Spiritual well-being: Meditation, Yoga and other relaxation techniques
iv. Stress associated anger and fear and dealing with them
v. Work-life balance

Week 4: Time Management a stress management technique:
i. Relationship between time management and stress management
ii. Procrastination and stress
iii. Tools for time management: prioritising, scheduling tasks, SMART goals, delegation, learning to say ‘No’