Session 4 Our physical reaction to stress: physical tension Goal: The goal of this session is to identify our physical tension in relation to your time urgent and perfectionistic behaviour SESSION 4 SUMMARY The purpose of this session is to assess what physical symptoms you have in relation to time urgency and perfectionism stress. Firstly, you need to have entered the website or TUPS app and entered your typical self talk the first three to five words you say to yourself after a hook and then have identified in the column whether this was personalizing thinking or scarcity thinking. Remember, at this stage in the course, you do not have to have changed anything in relation to your stress. All you need to understand at this stage is what stresses you (your hooks), and how you react to these hooks: your behaviour, whether they are predictable or unpredictable, whether they are time urgent, perfectionistic or real, your self-talk and whether you personalize or use scarcity thinking. We have not taught you anything else except given you an understanding of your stress. You may feel increased stress du to this knowledge. The last 5 sessions will give you the tools to deal with this stress. The task for this session is to recognize the physical tension you experience in relation to a hook. Click on the down arrow next to physical reactions in session 4 where you can glance through the various physical symptoms found to be related to hooks. You 1
enter a physical symptom related to each hook in the workbook. Sometimes this is difficult to recognize, but think of your physical symptoms when you are stressed. Maybe you feel the physical tension before the hook happens, such as waiting to give a presentation or to confront a person, and you feel a knot in your stomach; perhaps you feel stressed during the hook such as during an exam or during heavy traffic where you feel your heart rate go up; or finally, you may only feel physically stressed after a hook, when you suddenly feel very tired or have a headache. Physical tension relates very specifically to the way we experience stress as tension is the physical experience associated with the experience of stress. We all experience stress as physical tension in different ways. There is no one way that relates to us all. Look at the physical reaction drop down list to see all the different ways we can experience tension as stress differently. Enter on the worksheet your specific form of physical tension. Remember that together with hooktime this is probably the most important way you will find your stress expressed - this is especially in relation to determining if your stress is decreasing. Summary for Session 4: On the website or mobile app you must have filled in your self-talk for each hook as well as whether it was scarcity or personalizing thinking At the top of the session, keep recording your total hooktime each day. Enter your homework in the session 4 workbook on the website or mobile app, by choosing a physical symptom related to each hook You can add any number of new hooks at the end of the page on the website, and complete the empty spaces as you have done in session 1, session 2 and session 3 Keep measuring your hooktime using your pocket therapist 2
Session 4 Detailed Reading The last session addressed the thinking patterns that underlie your time urgency and perfectionism. We divided these into scarcity and personalizing thinking, and looked at the self-talk leading to that thinking. The homework on would have made you aware of the kinds of self talk statements that you use. These, in turn, would have lead to either scarcity or personalizing thinking, or both. To refresh your memory, refer to the stress template and look at your time urgent and/ or perfectionistic hooks. Look at the template, and you will see that, in addition to identifying the hooks, you are now aware of the self talk and thinking that lead to your time urgent and perfectionistic behaviour. And you are able to identify that self- talk as being either scarcity and/ personalising thinking. At this stage of the course, you may notice your mood take a dip. When we talk about a bit of a dip, we mean that you might feel angry for no reason you can identify, you may be feeling down or depressed again with no clear cause for this. It will probably last for three to four days. You also might be feeling more irritable than usual. Please do not be concerned about this change in mood. You probably have been feeling relatively well with your awareness in stress having become acute. You might now feel despondent as your mood seems lower than usual. However, this is a natural, normal part of the course. Most people undergo this change in their mood during this time. Look at the diagram below to ascertain the process of the course as pertains to your mood. 3
Progress across the course Session 1-4: Improvement in terms of awareness of hooks. Almost become an objective observer of your own behaviour and your responses to behaviour. You are acutely aware of what is making you feel stressed but you have no skills to manage this stress. You should not be putting any pressure on yourself to manage your stress or to avoid it. Session 5: It is during this week occasionally earlier that you might feel a slight dip in your mood. You will experience either feelings of frustration, down mood or anger with no discernible hook. This is an absolutely normal reaction. The reason for the change in mood is due to the fact that for the first four sessions, your awareness of stress (see Johari Window*** below) has become acute, yet you will feel frustrated as you do not yet have the skills to apply to your stress. This happens during any attempt to change behaviour. In 4
order for an individual to change their behaviour, one first has to make them uncomfortable with that particular behaviour (cognitive dissonance**), and then provide them with mechanisms to create a permanent behavioural/ attitude change in order to acquire cognitive cognisance*. *In all individuals, a homeostasis must be present in order for individuals to function comfortably. This is called COGNITIVE COGNISANCE. THINKING BEHAVIOUR Herein, the more likely one is to have the thinking style that perfectionism is ideal, time is of the utmost importance, one should perform at 110%, and so on, the more likely one is to behave in a way that supports this attitude, in the context of this course, time urgently and perfectionistically. So, in other words, you behave in accordance to the way you think. If you have Christian believes and attitudes, you will probably try to behave in a way that supports this belief system, so you would try to follow the Ten Commandments, and when you fail to do so, you would feel very uncomfortable (dissonance). During the first four weeks, this attitude of believing that time urgency and perfectionism are of utmost importance, is challenged and questioned, until one reaches a point where one realizes that this behaviour is often self-defeating and inaccurate. ** Once this has occurred, an imbalance occurs between thinking and behaviour COGNTIVE DISSONANCE. 5
THINKING BEHAVIOUR Instinctually, this dissonance causes discomfort, yet also the conditions for change which occur during the next five sessions where you acquire the skills to maintain this attitude- change. Basically, we are saying that the more uncomfortable you feel with a certain behaviour, the more likely you are to want to change this behaviour. *** Johari Window The individual consists of four areas (windows), which are open to a more or lesser degree. During any type of self- growth or insight, such as this course, you learn more about yourself. This focuses on the pink window or blind area, namely, the things you do not know about yourself, but others know. This acquisition of insight can be upsetting at times, and this probably accounts for part of the discomfort at this stage. You have become aware of the self- defeating manners in which you may have managed stress in the past. You have learned more about yourself, and this is often painful for some people. PUBLIC AREA What they see BLIND AREA What I don t know PRIVATE AREA What only I see NON- CONSCIOUS & NON- PUBLIC AREA What nobody knows 6
As we mentioned in session 2, the responses to a hook can be divided into four different reactions. They are a tension reaction, a thinking reaction, a self-talk reaction and a behavioural reaction. You are now well aware of the thinking reaction, the self-talk reaction and the behavioural reaction to your hooks. You now need to include physical or tension reaction, and how it coincides with the other reactions. Physical tension plays an important role in our experience of stress. Physical tension may precede a hook and cause us to react more intensely to it. It may also occur during and following a hook, causing our thinking and self-talk reactions to be more intense. Physical tension may be experienced as muscle tension in the shoulders and neck, the lower back, headaches, racing heart beat, sweaty palms, shortness of breath or dizziness. Note down on your stress template in your workbook, the type of physiological tension/ physical symptom you experience with each hook (see addendum 3 for potential physiological reactions to a hook). You can then enter these physical symptoms on the app. 7
Addendum Potential physiological reactions (*) *Also available in the form of a drop-down list on the website where you can click on your own hooks done on your worksheet Fatigue Difficulty falling asleep Restless sleep Early morning awakening Tension in neck/ shoulders/ back Headaches Joint pain Sensitivity to noise Lack of energy Sweaty palms Cold/ clammy hands Difficulty swallowing Pale face Blushing/ flushed face Skin rashes Sore throat Butterflies in stomach Stomach pain Hyperactive heightened physiological arousal Increase in appetite Decrease in appetite Sleeping too much Indigestion Gastritis/ diarrhea Vomiting Dry mouth Shortness of breath Dizziness Pacing Muscle agitation eg. Foot tapping Clenching of jaw Gnashing/ grinding teeth Hyperventilation Sores in the mouth Break- out of skin Nervous twitches 8
Shaking/ trembling Dark circles under the eyes Increased sweating Panic attack Nightmares Nausea Low grade infection eg. Cold/ flu Sexual dysfunction Impaired memory/ concentration/ distraction Rapid heartbeat Chest pain 9