Thammasat University students interested in allied health sciences, psychology, physiology, and related subjects may find it useful to participate in a free 29 April Zoom webinar on Techniques to improve stress optimisation for better mental health and wellbeing.
The event, on Monday, 29 April 2024 at 7pm Bangkok time, is presented by the University of Birmingham, the United Kingdom.
The TU Library collection includes several books about different aspects of stress management.
Students are invited to register at this link:
https://bham-ac-uk.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_PwPxicq6SXG4MWmCOE9Duw#/registration
For further information or with any questions, please write to
t.hill.1@bham.ac.uk
According to the event webpage:
Experiencing high levels of stress contributes to and exacerbates poor mental health and worse wellbeing. High levels of stress have been associated with increased prevalence of anxiety disorders, mood disorders, posttraumatic stress disorders, substance abuse, disordered eating, and even suicidal thoughts and behaviours. Despite the negative implications of stressful events, not everyone experiencing stress will have a poor outcome. How we view or appraise stress can influence the effect stress has on our mental health and wellbeing. Therefore, establishing interventions that help individuals to appraise and view stress more adaptively may lead to improved coping with stress which should in turn have a positive effect on mental health and wellbeing. This presentation will provide an overview of the different strategies and techniques we have developed and tested over the past few years to help individuals view and appraise stress more adaptively. The presentation will present our latest research and describe our future work. […]
About the Speaker
Dr. Sarah Williams, University of Birmingham
Dr. Sarah Williams is an Assistant Professor in Sport and Performance Psychology in the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Birmingham. Her research focusses on investigating and establishing how techniques can effectively alter appraisals and responses to stress to promote better mental health and wellbeing and improve performance. Sarah has identified dispositions associated with resilience and more adaptive coping with stress, and has used this work to develop interventions to help individuals reframe stressful situations and view stress more adaptively enabling them to cope and even thrive in these situations. She has published in various journals in the fields of sport psychology, health psychology, psychophysiology, and stress and coping.
In a 1975 article, the Hungarian-Canadian endocrinologist Hans Selye wrote about Stress and distress, pointing out that there were good and bad forms of stress. His abstract follows:
I must ask the reader’s indulgence for this article’s concern with applications of the stress concept, which are distinct from, although related to clinical medicine. It has not been my object to deal with the way physicians have been aided by stress research in the practice of medicine–that information is already widely available. Rather, I have attempted to sketch briefly the history of the stress theory and to demonstrate how this information can help anyone, physician or layman, lead a more complete and satisfying life. The applications of the stress theory have been dealt with at length elsewhere. I believe that we can find within scientifically verified observations the basis of a code of behavior suited to our century. The great laws of nature that regulate the defenses of living beings against stress of any kind are essentially the same at all levels of life, from individual cells to entire complex human organisms and societies. It helps a great deal to understand the fundamental advantages and disadvantages of catatoxic and syntoxic attitudes by studying the biologic basis of self-preservation as reflected in syntoxic and catatoxic chemical mechanisms. When applied to everyday problems, this understanding should lead to choices most likely to provide us the pleasant eustress (from the Greek eu meaning good, as in euphoria) involved in achieving fulfillment and victory, thereby avoiding the self-destructive distress of frustration and failure. So the translation of the laws governing resistance of cells and organs to a code of behavior comes down to three basic precepts: 1. Find your own natural stress level. People differ with regard to the amount and kind of work they consider worth doing to meet the exigencies of daily life and to assure their future security and happiness. In this respect, all of us are influenced by hereditary predispositions and the expectations of our society. Only through planned self-analysis can we establish what we really want; too many people suffer all their lives because they are too conservative to risk a radical change by breaking with hiabits or traditions. 2. Altruistic egoism. The selfish (i.e., self-interested) hoarding of the goodwill, respect, esteem, support, and love of our neighbors is the most efficient way to give vent to our pent-up energy and to create a more enjoyable, beautiful, or useful environment.3. Earn thy neighbor’s love. This motto–which is merely a rewording of the command to “love thy neighbor as thyself”–is compatible with man’s natural structure, and although it is based on altruistic egoism, it could hardly be attacked as unethical. Who would blame the man who wants to assure his own homeostasis and happiness only by accumulating the treasure of other people’s benevolence and love? Yet this makes him virtually unassailable, for nobody wants to attack and destroy those upon whom he depends.
In another article, Stress without Distress, Dr. Selye wrote:
Stress is “the nonspecific response of the body to any demand made upon it,” that is, the rate at which we live at anyone moment. All living beings are constantly under stress and anything, pleasant or unpleasant, that speeds up the intensity of life, causes a temporary increase in stress, the wear and tear exerted upon the body. A painful blow and a passionate kiss can be equally stressful. The financier worrying about the stock exchange, the laborer or the baseball player straining his every muscle to the limit, the journalist trying to meet a deadline, the patient fighting a fever, all are under stress. But so is the baseball fan who merely watches an interesting game, and the gambler who suddenly realizes that he has lost his last cent or that he has won a million dollars. Contrary to widespread belief, stress is not simply nervous tension nor the result of damage. Above all, stress is not something to be necessarily avoided. It is associated with the expression of all our innate drives. Stress ensues as long as a demand is made on any part of the body. Indeed, complete freedom from stress is death!
More recently, the American physician Dr. Andrew Weil suggested some natural remedies for reducing stress.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)