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What would you define as the most stressful situation you faced yesterday at work?
What would you define as the most stressful situation you faced last week at work?
What would you define as the most stressful situation you faced over the past month at work?
The more concrete you can be about focusing on these three situations you are defining as "the most stressful," the more beneficial the twelve Sections of this Manual will be to you. Think of that one most-stressful situation in your facility now. Reenact it in your mind. What were you thinking at the time your Administrator reprimanded you; the Surveyor discovered your Progress Notes were out of date; Ernie your exploding resident exploded at you; you scheduled the Birthday Group for the wrong day and they showed up last night, leaving the facility very disgruntled; or think about whatever is your "favorite" stressful situation at work. What were you thinking at this time?
Often times your thoughts are best understood as self-talk. In other words, your thoughts are your way of talking to yourself. Self-talk is what you silently say to yourself about the events you experience. What you say to yourself influences you in many profound ways, as you are probably aware. What you say to yourself changes what you see and hear, what you feel, and what you remember when you look back on your experiences. Agree? In this Section, we will concentrate on the ways in which the things you say to yourself can help you to prepare for and overcome stress in the facility whether it is related to Culture Change or not. First, let’s examine how you can create stress and anxiety by what you say to yourself about a situation. When talk to your DON about med and shower schedule changes, if you are saying to yourself, "I know she never liked me anyway. She's always on my case," how receptive will you be to providing empathic support? When we start to think this way, we are likely to feel inadequate and anxious. If upon returning to your office from such an encounter, you say to yourself that you will never get along with the Administrator, you are likely to remember only the negative parts of the meeting and not the positive ones from which you might learn, and change your behavior. When Ernie the exploding resident yells at you, are you saying to yourself, "Boy, did I mess up! What did I do to deserve this? I am so embarrassed! Other staff and residents are looking at me!" Negative thinking and negative self-talking is stress-provoking and interferes with any possibility for an objective evaluation of the situation. Agree? The Power of Positive Talking The goal is to cope with anxious feelings so that you can concentrate
on what you are doing and remain in a relaxed state of mind and body. To manage a stressful situation, we need to take steps during four major time periods. These phases can overlap, but usually they follow one another. You need to By breaking a potentially stressful experience into these four parts and learning ways of handling each, you can make the experience interesting and challenging, rather than overwhelming and unbearable. The following four tables take the above four phases of a stressful situation and give you examples of “Effective Positive Self-Talk Affirmations” on the left and “Less Effective Negative Self-Talk Affirmations” on the right. Either circle the affirmations that seem the most appealing to you, write them in a notebook, or type them into Excel, Word, etc in your computer. In short, choose your favorite Positive Self-Talk Affirmations for each phase of a situation you anticipate as being stressful.
Common Problems and Helpful Hints For example, as you walk down the hall towards the DON’s office you might say to yourself, “I have succeeded in situations like this one before. I am confident.” If your anxiety continues to build-up state to yourself, “I’m in control. Relax and take a deep breath.” If you are feeling overwhelmed with anxiety you might state to yourself, “It’s okay to feel some anxiety. It motivates me to do my best.” When the meeting with your DON is over you might state, “That wasn’t as hard as I thought. Next time it will be even easier. You may ask yourself, when do I have time to memorize these Positive Self-Talk Affirmations? Try to use your periods of downtime during the day. You feel you have no downtime? Sure you do. How about memorizing these when you are waiting at a traffic light, or checking out in a grocery store, or, if you are really motivated, during commercial breaks for your favorite TV show. Consider keeping your Stress Reduction Notebook in your car, purse, or on the couch in front of the TV. These are good times to relax and review your new self-talk. Or keep these phrases on a slip of paper in your wallet or daily planner for review during the time when you are on hold placing an online order. Also, a good time to learn these statements is just before you go to sleep, and for this reason, I suggest that you leave the list on your nightstand. When you practice, remember to avoid negative thinking. Negative thinking will only lead to avoidance or additional stress. Stay on guard against statements like “I always lose control” or "I just can’t cope.” Practice with a Mental Movie However, do not try to learn all the statements or visualize all the scenes at one time. It may be useful to review all of them in the beginning, but choose a few to memorize or work on each day. This is similar to taking a series of injections for inoculation against a disease. In fact, these techniques are sometimes called stress inoculation. Summary: To manage a stressful situation, you probably need to take steps during four major time periods. These phases can overlap, but usually they follow one another. We need to Be sure to include some phrases that will prepare you for the event, some to remind you to relax as the feelings begin to build, some to help you cope when the feelings become stronger, and some to keep perspective after the event and encourage yourself in the future. Complete the following table with Effective and Less Effective Self-Talk for each of the four phases of stress.
NCCAP/NCTRC CE Booklet |
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