Student Wellness Services to host free stress and anxiety management workshops

Published:

Student Wellness Services will host two new workshops to help students learn ways to ease anxiety and tips for coping with stress. (A brief description of each session is below.) These workshops will help students identify intense emotions, ease tension, and explore multiple ways of alleviating the stress. There will be two sessions of each workshop per week. Each session is independent of the others and held on a drop-in basis at Willard Hall, Room 101. Students also will receive additional information to continue the workshop outside of the attended time. Remember: Our goal is to teach students to identify emotional states and to use techniques that improve the emotional/psychological state.

ANXIETY WORKSHOPS

Continuum of anxiety: Students will learn the continuum of anxiety to be able to determine where the emotions experienced fall on the continuum.

Fight, Flight, or Freeze response: Students will learn about the fight, flight, or freeze responses; its origins; and the changes in our ability to process information.

Layering relaxation techniques: Students will learn relaxation techniques and how to use more than one technique when necessary.

Personal relaxation plan: Students will be encouraged to create a plan for when nervousness gets to a point of interfering with life’s activities.

STRESS MANAGEMENT WORKSHOPS

Exercise and movement: Students will learn how exercise and movement decrease stress and can modulate anxiety.

Breathing techniques: Students will learn how breathing techniques can change one’s physical state and emotions. They will also learn how coupling the deep breathing with muscle relaxation and guided imagery can enhance the relaxed state.

Mindfulness: Students who are nervous generally live in the future and the past. Mindfulness techniques can ground us and bring us back to the moment.

Coping toolbox: Students will learn to cope using a variety of tools that can help us with our behavior, our thoughts, and the ways we connect with others in our world.

REMAINING WORKSHOPS

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 3 p.m. - Personal relaxation plan

Thursday, Feb. 23, 9 a.m. - Layering relaxation techniques

Friday, Feb. 24, 9 a.m. - Mindfulness, maintaining focus

Monday, Feb. 27, 9 a.m. - Fight, Flight, or Freeze response

Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2 p.m. - Continuum of anxiety

Wednesday, March 1, 3 p.m. - Breathing techniques

Thursday, March 2, 9 a.m. - Exercise and movement