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This came from a bookmark distributed by De Anza College.
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How To Stay Stressed
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Although the De Anza Health Office long been an advocate of stress
management, stress, tension, and burnout are still common complaints of
students, faculty, and staff alike. On account of this, we have come to
the following conclusion: YOU ALL WANT TO STAY STRESSED! The following
provides you with a few reasons why.
STRESS HELPS YOU SEEM IMPORTANT. Anyone as stressed as you must be
working very hard and, therefore,
is probably doing something very
crucial.
IT HELPS YOU TO MAINTAIN PERSONAL Anyone as busy as you are certainly
DISTANCE AND AVOID INTIMACY. can't be expected to form emotional
attachments to anyone. And let's
face it, you're not much fun to be
around anyway.
IT HELPS YOU AVOID RESPONSIBILITIES. Obviously you're too stressed to be
given any more work. This gets you
off the hook for all the mundane
chores; let someone else take care
of them.
IT GIVES YOU A CHEMICAL RUSH. Stress might be considered a cheap
thrill, and you can give yourself a
"hit" anytime you choose. But be
careful, you might get addicted to
your own adrenaline.
IT HELPS YOU AVOID SUCCESS. Why risk being "successful" when by
simply staying stressed you can
avoid all of that? Stress can keep
your performance level low enough
that success won't ever be a threat.
STRESS ALSO LETS YOU KEEP YOUR The authoritarian style of "Just do
AUTHORITARIAN MANAGEMENT STYLE. what I say!" is generally permissi-
ble under crisis conditions. If
you maintain a permanently stressed
crisis atmosphere, you can justify
an authoritarian style all the time.
Are you worried now about how to stay stressed? You'll have no trouble
if you practice the following clinically proven methods:
NEVER EXERCISE. Exercise wastes a lot of time that
could be spent worrying.
EAT ANYTHING YOU WANT. Hey, if cigarette smoke can't
cleanse your system, a balanced
diet isn't likely to.
GAIN WEIGHT. Work hard at staying at least 25
pounds over your recommended
weight.
TAKE PLENTY OF STIMULANTS. The old standards of caffeine,
nicotine, sugar, and cola will
continue to do the job just fine.
AVOID "WOO-WOO" PRACTICES. Ignore the evidence suggesting
that meditation, yoga, deep
breathing, and/or mental imaging
help to reduce stress. The
Protestant work ethic is good for
everyone, Protestant or not.
GET RID OF YOUR SOCIAL Let the few friends who are
SUPPORT SYSTEM. willing to tolerate you know that
concern yourself with friendships
only if you have time, and you
never have time. If a few people
persist in trying to be your
friend, avoid them.
PERSONALIZE ALL CRITICISM. Anyone who criticizes any aspect
of your work, family, dog, house,
or car is mounting a personal
attack. Don't take time to
listen, be offended, then return
the attack!
THROW OUT YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR. Staying stressed is no laughing
matter, and it shouldn't be
treated as one.
MALES AND FEMALES ALIKE - BE MACHO. Never ever ask for help, and if
you want it done right, do it
yourself!
BECOME A WORKAHOLIC. Put work before everything else,
and be sure to take work home
evenings and weekends. Keep
reminding yourself that vacations
are for sissies.
DISCARD GOOD TIME MANAGEMENT SKILLS. Schedule in more activities every
day than you can possibly get done
and then worry about it all
whenever you get a chance.
PROCRASTINATE. Putting things off to the last
second always produces a marvelous
amount of stress.
WORRY ABOUT THINGS YOU CAN'T Worry about the stock market,
CONTROL. earthquakes, the approching Ice
Age, you know, all the big issues.
BECOME NOT ONLY A PERFECTIONIST BUT ...and either beat yourself up, or
SET IMPOSSIBLY HIGH STANDARDS... feel guilty, depressed, discour-
aged, and/or inadequate when you
don't meet them."
[B
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I sent this mail message to Jim and Phil, interestingly enough,
the answer I received from Personnel was, "Here is the MMM Health
First Scheme, and if you want a medical see your Doctor!"
From: KERNEL::MCGAUGHRIN "UK SDD DESK 833-3815" 26-MAR-1990 12:53:36.91
To: PJOHNSON,LYNCH
CC: MCGAUGHRIN
Subj: Medical for personnel
With the recent sad news of Bernie Flanigan's death, it has
occurred to me that maybe it is about time we took some
action as a company to protect the health and safety of the
personnel of Digital.
I have worked in this building and for Digital for nearly four
years, and in that time there have been three fatalities and
two lucky escapes from what I believe to be coronary related
illness. This I feel cannot just be a coincidence, as all were
people in high-profile and pressure jobs.
I realise that this is time for remembering our colleagues tragic
death, but I also hope we can actively look at similar cases
over the few years and take some positive action to help alleviate
these case's.
My suggestion is that every employee has a full medical with
there G.P. and a fitness test, every six months or at least annually.
Regards
Ian (P.S. IBM do!!)
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| To enlarge on Richard's reference to the Stress Clinic in DEC
Park, I attended this back in October of last year.
In response to a request for feedback, I compiled the following
comments.
If anybody would like to discuss this informally, come an' find
me, and tear the phone from my ear!
Dave
Subj: FEEDBACK ON STRESS COURSE
Dear Carolyn/Shareen
Further to my attendance at the Stress Management Sessions recently, I
have the following comments to make:-
(1)I felt that the broad spectrum of backgrounds helped to put my own
pressures into perspective.
(2)I personally feel that a lot of the stress I am experiencing is
unnessecary, and could be relieved by better standards of people management.
To this end, I feel that it might be worth including a "fly on the wall" to get
some realtime but essentially anonymous feedback to the places that really
matter. In general, I have found that my attempts to highlight what I consider
to be causes of excessive stress in my own working environment have been
largely ignored. I feel that nothing short of throwing a tantrum will achieve
anything!
(3) The particular course I attended in conference rooms 1,2,3. was in
my opinion badly located.
Some common causes of stress often quoted are:-High background noise
level. (The fluorescent lights in two of the three rooms buzzed continually.
The conference rooms were sited adjacent to the main A33, with its continual
heavy traffic, and the fountains outside the windows amounted to a form of
water torture.)
'Garish' lighting causes facial muscular stress. (All rooms were lit
with fluorescent light tubes with very little diffusion of the light, giving
rise to glare, and tiring bright spots.
The rooms themselves were anything but restful. There were
occasions when I felt quite claustrophobic.
Despite specific requests to the contrary, yellow sticky pages with
'Urgent' messages still appeared on the doors!
In general, I felt that the 'In-House' environment nullified a lot of
what the course consultants were attempting to achieve. I personally did not
feel able to escape from the DEC pressures.
I think the term "learning exercise" is too much of a stereotype of the
training environment. Stress, in my view in no way relates to training, and any
attempt to reduce it to that level for whatever reasons fails to recognise the
significance and scale of the problem.
I would certainly change the venue to one which as far as possible was
isolated from the DEC environment.
I would certainly include a "fly on the wall" for the purposes of
understanding the scale and nature of stress problems within DEC
I found that the course consultants/facilitators were very soothing in
their approach. There were occasions when the purpose of some of the exercises
was unclear, and left me wondering if I was the only one who had missed the
point. The practical exercises were very enlightening, and effective, although
very few of them could be considered as workplace techniques. In fact, until
the equation of manpower to workload is adequately balanced, it is difficult to
see where the time to relieve stress is going to come from!
I felt that at the end of the ten hours allotted to the session, I was
just beginning to understand the topic. I feel that a longer course would
provide a less "rushed" programme.
Dave Clark
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