Facts About Stress and Stress Management
Stress Institute | Department of Psychology

What is Stress?

Stress can be defined as “wear and tear brought on by perceived threats and coping deficiencies.” Put simply, if you are in a situation you think threatens your health, well-being, needs, or wants – and you think there’s little you can do about it – you have the basic ingredients for stress. Stressful wear and tear can be medical and psychological.

Medical wear and tear. Some thirty hormones are released as part of the body’s automatic and innate “fight or flight” stress response. These hormones generally provide quick energy for emergency activity (such as needed when running from a wild animal in the woods, or chasing a football in a football game). However, everyday hassles, annoyances, and worries can also trigger the fight or flight response. Stress hormones often build and, without release, contribute to wear and tear. Medically speaking, excessive stress can inhibit the body’s immune system functioning and directly impair the functioning of key body systems. This is the reason that stress can increase our vulnerability to, aggravate, and prolong recovery from just about every illness.

Psychological wear and tear. The psychological costs of stress include reduced well-being and increased negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, and depression; reduced performance at work, school, and sports; and impaired interpersonal relationships.

What is Stress Management?

There are hundreds of approaches to stress management. Dr. Jonathan C. Smith has organized the most basic strategies as the “four pillars of stress management” (see Smith, 2002). These include:

Pillar 1: Professional Deep Relaxation and ABC Relaxation Training
Pillar 2: Systematic Problem-Solving
Pillar 3: Thinking Realistically and Productively (or “changing stressful cognitions”)
Pillar 4: Putting stress skills into action through desensitization strategies.

Put simply, the key to stress management can be summarized:

RELAX – SOLVE IT – RETHINK IT – DO IT

It is important to know that there are dozens of strategies for each Pillar. Learning one approach is usually not enough. All are taught at the Roosevelt University Stress Institute.

What is Relaxation and "ABC Relaxation Training?"

The Roosevelt University Stress Institute teaches a revolutionary and powerful new approach to relaxation – ABC (for “Attentional Behavioral Cognitive”) Relaxation Training. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most health professionals believed that relaxation training was good for “cooling off” the fight or flight response, and that all approaches were equally good. This is why most stress clinics and hospitals still teach only one type of relaxation technique. (Why teach more if they all are equally good?). A clinical psychologist might teach you “progressive muscle relaxation,” a yoga program might teach stretching and breathing, a psychiatrist might teach imagery, and so on.

Over 10 years of research at the Roosevelt University Stress Institute, on over 10,000 individuals practicing over 40 types of relaxation, has shown that the old world view of relaxation is clearly wrong. Relaxation does much more than defuse the stress response. And different approaches to relaxation have quite different effects for different people. Put simply, one sized shoe doesn’t fit all.

The six basic approaches to professional relaxation

Most health professionals practice one or more of the following techniques. These techniques are generally recognized as safe and have substantial scientific support:

1. Progressive Muscle Relaxation (“Tense up your shoulders, and then go completely limp”)
2. Autogenic Training (thinking suggestions that “your body feels warm and heavy”)
3. Breathing Exercises
4. Yoga Stretching
5. Imagery and Visualization
6. Meditation

New research shows that these techniques have quite different effects and work for different people and different types of problems.

There are many variations of each of these six basic approaches

Each approach is actually a family of techniques. For example, there are actually eight generic types of “meditation,” each involve sustaining passive focus on a very simple stimulus:

The Eight Types of Meditation

1. Meditation on a relaxing body sensation (example “attend to the feeling of warmth inside”)
2. Meditation on movement or posture (tai chi, prayer beads, labyrinth walks, zen walks)
3. Breath meditation
4. Mantra meditation
5. Meditation on an internal visual image (with eyes closed)
6. Meditation on an external visual stimulus (a candle, religious symbol, etc.)
7. Meditation on a simple sound
8. Mindfulness meditation

ABC Relaxation Theory

ABC Relaxation Theory states that all approaches to relaxation work when they evoke a special set of healing and renewing psychological states called “Relaxation States,” or “R-States.” Research currently has identified 15 R-States:

1. Sleepiness
2. Feeling disengaged (feeling distant and far away)
3. Feeling physically relaxed (limp, warm, heavy)
4. Feeling rested and refreshed
5. Feeling energized
6. Feeling at ease / peaceful
7. Feeling joyful and happy
8. Feeling mentally quiet
9. Feeling innocent and childlike
10. Feeling thankful and loving
11. Feeling the great mystery of things beyond one’s understanding
12. Feeling awe and wonder
13. Feeling prayerful
14. Feeling timeless / boundless / infinite
15. Feeling aware

You don’t have to experience all 15 in order for relaxation to work. In fact, research shows each type of relaxation seems to produce its own set of one or two R-States from this list. The reason why different approaches to relaxation work for different people and problems is that different approaches evoke different R-States. If you suffer from insomnia, the R-States you need are “Sleepiness” and “Disengagement.” Certain physical relaxation techniques are good for this. Yoga is not. If you need a pick-me-up in the middle of the day, you need R-States “Energized” and “Aware.” Yoga stretching and breathing exercises are best. Research is revealing many powerful and interesting connections like these.

People frequently ask stress practitioners, “What type of relaxation should I learn.” It is better to ask: “What R-States do I need?” and “What techniques are best for evoking these R-States?”

ABC Relaxation Training

The philosophy underlying ABC Relaxation Training is that complete relaxation training is like a complete meal. It should include all the basic ingredients. Just as it would be a mistake to make a meal of, say, potato chips, the Stress Institute believes it is a mistake to learn only one relaxation technique. Instead, we teach all six approaches, treating each type of relaxation as a “relaxation food group.” Then one can create a “balanced diet” of relaxation that includes something from each of the six basic approaches. So, instead of learning only yoga, a student might make a relaxation tape that includes a good shoulder shrug from progressive muscle relaxation, some self-suggestions from autogenic training, a breathing exercise, a few stretches, and finally imagery and meditation.

From the Book:

Smith, Jonathan C. (2002). Stress Management: A Comprehensive Handbook of Strategies and Techniques. New York: Springer Publishing Company. www.springerpub.com 

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