By Candice Warren
Staff Writer

As part of Wayne State University’s Recreation and Fitness Center’s Wellness Wednesday, Stress Therapist Betsy Leib-Feldman held a seminar in the conference room on stress management in the workplace.

Feldman is from the ValueOptions Employee Assistance Program for WSU, which she said is designed specifically to help WSU employees.
Feldman said that the goal of the seminar was to help people manage stress.

Feldman provided participants with a test and a ValueOptions participant’s guide to handle stress and depression.

Feldman began by asking if anybody was feeling stressed at that moment. She then instructed everybody to take a deep breath to get a little relaxed.

Feldman said the symptoms of stress can be physical, mental and/or
emotional.

According to the participant’s guide, some physical signs are excess weight for one’s age and height, high blood pressure, an inability to sleep, a desire to eat as soon as problems arrive and excessive nervous energy which prevents sitting still and relaxing.

Mental signs include a constant feeling of uneasiness, boredom with life, anxiety about money, and a sense of suppressed anger.

Everybody took a test entitled, “how much stress is in your life?” based on Holmes and Rahe, The Social Readjustment Rating Scale.

The test had a list of “life events.” The instructions were to circle only those events that one has experienced in the past year.

Each event had a different value number. The participants were to add up the numbers for their scores at the bottom of the sheet. They were to double the value of the event if it occurred more than once.

Death of spouse was at the highest value of 100. Other high-value events were divorce, valued at 73, marital separation at 65, jail term at 63, and death of a close family member, also valued at 63.

The events with the lowest value were minor violations of the law, with the lowest value of 11 and major holidays, such as Christmas, at 12.

According to the test, a score of 300 and above indicates a severe likelihood of developing a stress-related illness within the next two years. A score below 150 indicates a mild likelihood of developing a stress-related illness within the next two years.

Feldman pointed out that 70 percent of accidents that people get into are stress related.

Stress management depends on ones personality, Feldman said. Some people deal with stress in a pessimistic way, while others deal with it in an optimistic way, she explained. She said, however, that most people are in the middle.

“How you’ve dealt with things in the past has to do with how you deal with them in the future,” Feldman added. She said it is also good to have at least one trustworthy person to talk to.

Feldman had everybody do a Stress Protection Activities worksheet out of the participant’s guide.

The exercise had a list of 40 activities that one could check off as he or she does them such as listen to music that they enjoy, visiting a lonely person, or working on a project that had been put off.

The goal was to complete 20 activities.

Everybody checked off activities that they felt they needed to do, instead.

Sheila Jackson from the WSU Division of Community Education said that one thing on the list that she felt she needed to do was “get caught up on my sleep.” She said she had been working at WSU for five years.

She said she could also change her coffee break into an exercise break.

Another activity on the list was to say “no” when asked to do something that one does not want to do.

Feldman said one should practice saying “no” before the situation comes up.

She then had everybody participate in a breathing exercise.

“People don’t really breath deeply,” Feldman said. She said to always take a deep breath from the diaphragm to relieve stress.

She instructed the participants to inhale slowly, pushing the abdomen as far as possible, count to four then exhale slowly.

According to the participant’s guide, the exercise helps to reverse the stressful breathing pattern.

The ValueOptions Employee Assistance Program contact is (800)-852-0357.