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Management News Blog Archives
Management News Blog posts insightful comments on the latest international news that render us taken-aback in the domain of the management facet of life. Management News Blog: Stress-Management News 1 Stress management workshop ends: Wednesday, July 18, 2007
“You have four days’ worth of emergency supplies; your important documents are safe in a watertight container; and you just bought a generator. But are you mentally prepared for the season?” said a recent press release from the Government Information Services (GIS). How to get through a disaster without an emotional breakdown, and then restoring one’s peace of mind afterwards, was explained to participants attending a recent Stress Management in Disasters workshop. Hosted by the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and Hazard Management Cayman Islands, the three-day certificate course brought together delegates from a range of government agencies involved in, and responsible for, crisis response. Management News Blog: Stress-Management News 1 The workshop revolved around identifying those in need of mental support, and techniques for counselling survivors, to make sure they stay mentally intact. “Disasters tax us much more than we appreciate. While we put a lot of emphasis on being prepared physically, we don’t pay much attention to emotional robustness and mental health,” said National Hurricane Committee Chairman Donovan Ebanks at the opening of the workshop. He added that the workshop posed an opportunity to highlight this area of need: “Physical ailments can be related to a lack of emotional wellbeing, and untreated stress can affect entire families negatively.” Management News Blog: Stress Management News 1 The workshop, facilitated by PAHO consultant and stress management expert Dr Davendra Sharma, focused on understanding the causes and effects of disaster-related stress. Participants also received hands-on training in developing stress management techniques, as well as crisis-counselling techniques such as anger management, defusing, and grief counselling. “Emotional preparedness before a disaster, and mental recovery after a disaster, is just as important as physical restructuring, “said Dr Sharma, who is also a professor of neuro-behaviour science at Ross University in Dominica. “It is therefore important to train emergency and social workers, and counsellors, to understand the relationship between disasters and emotional stress, in order to attain mental wellness and resilience,” he added. Management News Blog: Stress-Management News 1 According to Dr Sharma, a surprising number of people suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder after a disaster, which can manifest itself in many ways. However, “because the focus is on taking care of physical needs, the emotional healing often goes unattended.” He identified children, adolescents and the elderly as being especially vulnerable, and urged those present to encourage government departments and agencies to develop a strategic plan for stress management, during and after disasters. “Looking after one’s mental health and accessing counselling services should be destigmatised. People, including emergency personnel, need help with stress reduction during and after a disaster, and it is important to build this capacity into any disaster management plan,” he said. Management News Blog: Stress Management News 2 Stress Management Helps in Fight Against Lupus And Other Chronic Diseases: Tuesday, August 7, 2007 Lupus is an autoimmune disease which produces antibodies causing injuries to the body's cells and tissue. It makes the immune system go out of control and the organism attack healthy cells instead of the germs on them. This pathology, which affects more than 5 million people around the world, is more developed in women of fertile age between 15 and 44 years old. A study conducted in the Department of Medicine at the University of Granada determined that daily stress (which occurs in circumstances of little importance but of high frequency) could exacerbate the symptoms of patients suffering from lupus. In other words, controlling the stress level of those suffering from this disease allows the determination of its negative effects, such as inexplicable loss of weight, feeling of fatigue, continuous fever or pain and inflammation in joints. This study, carried out by Dr. Nuria Navarrete Navarrete and led by researchers Juan Jiminez Alonso and Maria Isabel Peralta Ramirez, aimed to check the effects of stress treatment in patients suffering from lupus and with high levels of stress. A team of psychologists from the University of Granada applied a therapy to fight stress in a group of 45 patients suffering from lupus to teach them how to manage their stress to reduce the negative effects of this disease. Results showed that patients who received psychological therapy signifcantly reduced their levels of stress, anxiety and depression, achieving levels even lower than those of the general population. Furthermore, they significantly improved their quality of life both at a physical and psychological level and presented fewer skin and musclar skeletal symptoms, which usually appear in patients suffering from lupus. Management News Blog: Stress Management News 2 Managing daily stress Nuria Navarrete explains that lupus is a chronic disease whose course is unpredictable. Patients alternate periods of clinical stability with others in which there are symptoms and signs showing that the disease is active. In addition, there are certain factors such as stress which may cause crisis and, therefore, worsen the prognosis of the disease. Daily stress is very common in patients suffering from lupus. Apart from the usual circumstances which produce anxiety in a healthy population, other effects include knowing that your body suffers from a chronic disease which is controllable but incurable and of uncertain prognosis that requires chronic treatment (in some cases for the rest of their life) and which have important secondary effects. The results of this study highlighted the importance of dealing appropriately with patients suffering from lupus and, by extension, from other chronic diseases. "According to our results, attention on other psychological aspects is essential to achieve an effective global treatment of the patient", says Navarrete. In other words, the treatment of daily stress, together with the usual pharmacological treatment, is a useful weapon when treating patients suffering from lupus. "We think that this treatment could be useful from the moment in which the disease is diagnosed, as patients may require help to manage their stress and minimise its negative effects," says researcher Navarrete. Society News Blog: Human Society News 3 Stress Management Society - Relaxing is key: Wednesday, 18 Jul 2007 Relaxation and changing focus is key to helping men overcome impotency, the Stress Management Society (SMS) has said. Although drugs can play a role in erectile dysfunction (ED), SMS director Neil Shah said that sleep, exercise and diet also contribute to helping the body function correctly. A review of studies into ED published in the Cochrane Library found that men taking part in group therapy were able to tackle the problem, and in some cases a combination of therapy and drugs such as Viagra was more successful than taking drugs alone. Management News Blog: Stress Management News 3 Mr Shah commented that men looking to find ways to tackle ED should find ways of relaxing and focusing on something else. "If you focus on the fact that it is not working, you're visualising that and ultimately your body will give you whatever it is you visualise subconsciously," he said. "So people that start panicking about things not working correctly are actually causing that to happen, whereas if you took the time to relax and not worry about that so much [and] don't put so much pressure on that and just enjoy being with your partner, and just be relaxed, nature has a very effective way of being able to create what it needs to procreate," Mr Shah added Management News Blog Comment: There is no single level of stress that is optimal for all people. We are all individual creatures with unique requirements. As such, what is distressing to one may be a joy to another. And even when we agree that a particular event is distressing, we are likely to differ in our physiological and psychological responses to it. The person who loves to arbitrate disputes and moves from job site to job site would be stressed in a job which was stable and routine, whereas the person who thrives under stable conditions would very likely be stressed on a job where duties were highly varied. Also, our personal stress requirements and the amount which we can tolerate before we become distressed changes with our ages. It has been found that most illness is related to unrelieved stress. If you are experiencing stress symptoms, you have gone beyond your optimal stress level; you need to reduce the stress in your life and/or improve your ability to manage it through stress management. I invite you to subscribe to my E-zine titled Life Coach, free of charge. This E-zine publishes insightful comments on the latest international news that render us taken-aback in the domains of various facets of life. A not-to-be-missed opportunity! Subscribe to it here: I also invite you to subscribe to my Life Blog - no need to provide your e-mail address here. This RSS feed keeps you informed about new developments taking place on this site. It also harbors 25 journal bloglets posting insightful comments on the latest international news that render us taken-aback in the domains of various facets of life. In order to subscribe to the blog, right-click on the orange RSS button (see buttons up to the left) and then paste the URL into your RSS reader. Or click on add to My Yahoo! button or My MSN or Add To Google button if you keep a personalized home page there. If you are not sure what RSS or blogging is all about, click on What's an RSS Feed? here:
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