“Stress acts as an accelerator: it will push you either forward or backward, but you choose which direction.”―Chelsea Erieau
The fifth monthly seminar under the banner of Conscientia was conducted on the topic: ‘Stress Management’. Titled the same, the session was conducted with the intention of providing our audience with a thorough understanding on stress and how to control its impact in our life. The main reason for conducting this session was because we realised that Stress Management is a general issue – it troubles and harms the mental health of many youngsters nowadays and unfortunately not all of them are able to handle it appropriately.
Our speaker for the day was, Dr. Dean Jones who holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Dental Surgery. He is currently working as a Medical Affairs Manager at the Infant Nutrition department, Nestle and has chosen to speak from his knowledge of Stress and the ways to manage it.
The session began with the speaker briefly explaining what stress is and naming a couple of generic stressors to help the audience understand if what they were experiencing was really stress and what the possible causes of it could be. The speaker then spoke about the different symptoms of stress: Physical, Emotional, Cognitive and Behavioral; to help them recognise stress’ manifestations. The session included many important sub-topics throughout – such as self-awareness and time management as weapons against stress; the list of ways social media causes stress; physical exercise and nutrition as de-stressors, and examples of real-life people who did and did not handle their stress well.
The session was well-received by the 24 participants that attended it and received compliments as follows:
Participants shared that the session was insightful and practical. Many appreciated learning about different types of stress, such as physical and behavioral stress, and the importance of identifying what is “important but not urgent.” One attendee shared, “By checking ourselves, we can know whether we are in stress or not and learn how to handle it.” Overall, participants found the session helpful, useful, and relevant to their daily lives. They expressed gratitude, saying, “It was a nice session. Thank you so much!”
Overall, we’re glad to have conducted this session and provided our audience with tools to control their stress, and we hope to do the same in the further monthly seminars.