LUNCH & LEARN
The Stress Management and High Performance Clinic offers interactive and interesting Lunch & Learn sessions (not necessarily at lunch time!) for businesses and community groups at their location or virtually.
The most popular Lunch & Learn topics are :
- Tips for Better Sleep
- Smart Stress Management
- Increasing Personal Resiliency
- Anxiety: Dial It Down
It is also possible to have a Lunch & Learn session on any topic that is provided in the Clinic’s group programs.
Lunch & Learn sessions :
Smart Stress Management - shift from defense to performance
Learn brief brain/body calming techniques for focus, performance, and energy.
This session includes:
* shifting gears from defense (fight/flight) to effective coping and smart action
* the BMW approach to self-calming
* how to think like an effective "stress coper"
* identifying and defusing the most common stress escalators
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Relaxation Techniques
Learn how to unwind from stress (without using alcohol or drugs to do it!).
This session includes:
* why leisure is not always relaxation (the myths and facts of relaxation)
* Benson’s criteria for generating the Relaxation Response
* how you can use your own body to measure your relaxation response
* practicing samples of relaxation techniques such as meditation, muscle relaxation, breathing, imagery and Autogenic Training to begin relaxing & restoring within this session
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Tips for Better Sleep
Does it take a long time to fall asleep? Mid-night awakenings? Sleep is not refreshing?
Learn the most effective drug-free strategies to promote better, restful sleep. (Yes, it's true that long term use of sleeping pills changes your sleep structure and generates insomnia!)
This session includes:
* the 3 keys to decreasing insomnia
* what robs us of energizing sleep, and the most common culprits triggering night time awakenings
* how to fall asleep (or back to sleep) more easily
* settling down the busy brain and making it easier to sleep.
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Energy Boosters
Having a quick coffee to re-energize?
Unfortunately, caffeine and sugary snacks are false friends - we're more fatigued and have less energy 2 hours after consuming them, than if we hadn't touched them at all!
Learn about this and 5 other surprising things that make us tired during the day... things that we can change!
This session also includes:
* the special technique that business executives in the HeartMath study found increased their effectiveness at work… and their energy at the end of the workday
* the secret we can learn from children to become a more energized adult
* brief, practical, drug-free and fun strategies that decrease fatigue, rebuild oxygen supply, recharge brain neurotransmitters, and replenish energy reserves.
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Coping with Increased Hours On-line
Experiencing tech neck? Screen fatigue?
If you're spending more time in front of screens, do you have a healthy relationship with your computer / devices?
Learn strategies for coping with increased hours on-line and helpful ways to :
* decrease Zoom fatigue (and increase engagement & energy!)
* improve body awareness and on-line work style
* protect your eyes from strain
* release tension in neck/shoulders and relax the eyes
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Heart Smart Stress Management
A truly heart healthy lifestyle is more than exercise and diet.
The third and most important key (according to cardiologists Eliot, Bhat, Ornish and others) is stress management. Yet this component is the most neglected!
This session outlines the practical strategies that really relax the cardiovascular system, plus how biofeedback is used to literally see your ability to generate a healthy heart rhythm and relax your blood vessels - the things that decrease your risk of cardiovascular disease.
This session is especially helpful for those with high blood pressure, diabetes, anxiety, depression, tendency to hold onto anger, or who have a family history of heart attack or stroke (as these are all risk factors for cardiovascular disease and are positively influenced by the techniques covered in this session).
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Anxiety : Dial it Down
Learn the daily behaviours, body and thought processes that influence our anxiety levels – and how to influence them to your benefit! This session is the first place to start to begin decreasing anxiety and thinking & performing more effectively.
This session includes:
* the most common reason for uncomfortable, anxious sensations felt in the chest, head, and body (and ways to begin addressing it)
* the 3 dimensions of breathing for calming the nervous system
* watching for the what if’s… and curbing unproductive worry
* practical tips from the realms of self-calming, self-talk, and self-care to decrease anxiety
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Stop Worrying !
Are you a worry wart? Do you worry that you worry too much?
Worry is a component of anxiety, and you can do something about it.
This session includes:
* the 2 approaches proven to decrease worrying
* how to shift away from destructive / unproductive worry
* the 5 pitfalls that escalate and perpetuate worry spirals
* brain training exercises to curb worrying
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Break the Anxiety-Procrastination Cycle
If you often procrastinate when you’re anxious (or the task increases anxiety),
and if in turn procrastination makes you feel more pressured and anxious,
you may be caught in the anxiety-procrastination cycle.
This session includes:
* why procrastination may have nothing to do with time management
* the most common risk factors for triggering procrastination
* a variety of self-regulation strategies that help break the anxiety-procrastination cycle
* the trio of actions that, when combined, have the strongest impact in lowering procrastination
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Increasing Personal Resiliency
Resilience is coping well and thriving under pressure, even when life deals you a bad hand.
This session includes:
* what we can learn from those who have coped most successfully through events like hurricanes, the 9-11 attack, and the Boston Marathon bombing
* post-traumatic growth and the growth mindset
* the self-calm, self-talk, and self-care behaviours that actively shift our mind/body toward meeting challenges and thriving
* practicing strategies from the 5 pillars of resilience
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Resilient Thinking Strategies
What makes an effective "stress coper" different from someone who is not very stress hardy?
The way they think!
This skills session outlines one of the core components of resiliency: resilient thinking strategies.
Find out how closely your current thought patterns align with the patterns most strongly associated with resilience.
Then learn how to think and work in ways that increase your hardiness to stress, help you get through tough times, and recover more quickly from adversity.
A variety of thinking strategies will be outlined and practiced in this session.
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Coping with the Holidays
Too much to do in too little time? Feeling stressed or overwhelmed by a holiday that's supposed to be fun and happy? How can you keep from losing your cool?
This session outlines the top 3 holiday stressors (and the 10 things that amplify them).
Then we practice the stress management strategies most suited to coping with these special demands and factors.
Give yourself a break... a break away from the tyranny of the "should's"... by learning the ways that effective “stress copers” think and act so you can be one too.
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Decreasing Headaches
More than 1 or 2 headaches a month are too many!
This session includes:
* the key drug-free strategies that prevent or reduce tension, migraine, and stress headaches
* hidden headache triggers (and the headache trigger combinations to really watch for)
* the triggers that account for two-thirds of all migraines
* the "3 mini-days" approach to headaches
* developing a personal pain management action plan
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You and your computer - a healthy relationship ?
Do you spend more than 3 or 4 hours per WEEK at a keyboard?
If yes, how do you score on the 7 factors shown to put keyboard users at risk of strain?
And most importantly, what are the proven things that we can do to prevent computer-related strain in the first place?
* Identify your personal risk profile and strategies for preventing strain, based upon research at the Healthy Computing Laboratory (San Francisco State University).
* Learn about the techniques that can relax the neck, shoulders, back, and eyes - areas that may be especially tight and strained in those working at computers.
* When provided in person, this session also includes a demonstration of the muscle tension biofeedback (monitoring muscle tension levels) used to decrease the tension and strain during computer related tasks.
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Biofeedback
What if you could see exactly how tight your muscles are right now?
Or what happens to your heart rhythm when you’re stressed or frustrated or angry?
Or how much your breathing or blood flow or skin responds to anxious thoughts or stressful self-talk?
Biofeedback is like pulling back a curtain see into these “windows” of the body and then watching as you experiment with different mind/body activities. Instantly and accurately seeing these body changes ("biofeedback") can help you identify stress triggers and determine which strategies work best in getting you to calm, relaxed, healthy levels. Biofeedback can be used to teach your mind and body to the best levels for decreased stress, good health and optimal performance.
This session will introduce biofeedback, show how it is used, and include demonstrations.
At your workplace, or for your community interest group, the Stress Management & High Performance Clinic can also provide :
- half day workshops
- full day workshops
- wellness fair displays
- stress profile assessments
- skills training programs on such topics as
Better Sleep Program
Decreasing Headaches
You & Your Computer - a Healthy Relationship?
Relaxation and Stress Management Skills Training
FURTHER INFORMATION :
The fee for a 30 - 60 minute Lunch & Learn presentation is $250 (plus travel expenses if meeting in-person at a location outside the Guelph region).
If you wish more information or have any further questions, do not hesitate to e-mail ksomers@uoguelph.ca or call Kathy Somers at 519 824-4120, ext. 52662.
Please leave a message so I can return your call.