Help for Secondhand Stress
* Do you have someone in your life who is going through major drama?
* Is there someone in your office who is a perfectionist to the degree they are even borderline hysterical?
* Do you have a client who seems to live chaos to chaos?
* Do you find yourself getting impatient, agitated or frustrated after spending time around these people?
... If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be a victim of secondhand stress.
There is research from St. Louis University that has found negative stress effects can be triggered merely by observing another person who is stressed. The study found that witnesses of stress have increased levels of cortisol, the stress hormone.
Professor and neuroscientist at UCLA's Brain Research Institute, Marco Iacoboni, MD, PhD, explains how this works. He says that brain cells called mirror neurons can be electrically excitable. He says that these neurons are believed to be the basis of our ability to understand the actions of others, for example the intent of a predator. When someone experiences stress, these neurons are believed to fire, stimulating regions of the brain that imprints and remembers this reaction. In this way when another person exhibits the same emotion, the brain remembers the reaction and is activated again.
You may be aware that chronic stress is bad for our health because it weakens our immune system. It also puts us at risk for other health problems including high blood pressure, heart disease and worse. 70-90% of all visits to a primary care physician are believed to be stress-related.
There was a small study that took place in 2014 that was noted in the periodical Psychological Science, and discovered that infants had a markedly increased heart rate when their mothers felt agitated after they receive negative feedback. The intensity of the stress was matched between the mother and the baby. They discovered that the more stressed the mother, the more stressed the infant.
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Here are some tips to reduce stress from WebMD.
- Accept that there are events that you cannot control.
- Keep a positive attitude; rather than defaulting to negatives (''Nothing goes right for me,'' or ''Bad things always happen to me''), give yourself positive messages (''I'm doing my best,'' or ''I'll ask for help'').
- Halt stress in its tracks; if you feel overwhelmed, take a walk or drive in the slow lane to avoid getting angry at other drivers.
- Manage your time. Give yourself time to get things done; set your watch so you have more time to prepare for an event.
- Do things that are pleasurable, like reading or gardening.
- Take 15-20 minutes every day to sit quietly and reflect. Learn and practice relaxation techniques. (prayer, meditation, mindfulness)
It should be a priority for each of us to remain calm and avoid stress whenever possible. Secondhand stress is a topic of study in our Stress Relief Coach training and certification course and I give you lots of great information to relieve stress symptoms.
This course was rated five stars across-the-board by professional educators and beta participants. Rave reviews call this "a life-saving program". Graduates learned to customize solutions for themselves and each person they coach. They found a tremendous opportunity to create a powerful, additional revenue stream in their practice.
The course teaches 1 to 1 coaching, group coaching and even how to create a stress management program for corporations. Students are able to resolve their own stress issues. In the course I will also teach you how to create and market your own stress coaching practice.
The foundation of the course is scriptural and I also include empirically-proven scientific findings that demonstrate ancient prophesies from the Bible.
If you want to learn more, you can watch the video and listen to the audios and testimonials on the course description page to discover whether this course is helpful to you.
This week, (July 20-24, 2015) the first 25 students who enroll in this course, receive 20% off their tuition by using coupon code: STRESS20
Learn more at https://pccca.org/stress/
