AAABC's of Stress

A Ready-To-Run Stress Management Workshop

Many of our customers have asked us for help with workshops on specific topics. We have assembled a group of ten ready-to-run topics from the materials in our seminal Structured Exercises in Stress Management and Structured Exercises in Wellness Promotion. Each has everything you need to present a successful, topic-focused, three-hour workshop, including mini-lectures, handouts, and group activities. Don’t have three hours? We have included suggestions on how to cut the workshop back to an hour.

The AAABC’s of Stress will help you prepare quickly and efficiently for presentations on stress. The multi-part session is flexible so that you can select the activities most appropriate for your group. They include:

• Traveling Trios is a fast-paced icebreaker where participants move from group to group, meeting each other and describing their coping styles. (10-15 minutes)
• Stress Symptom Inventory is a whole person assessment of stress exhaustion symptoms where participants look at their distress patterns and identify issues they want to work on during the session. (30-40 minutes)
• The AAABC’s of Stress is a coping practicum that teaches a simple paradigm for dealing with stress. Participants practice applying these strategies in role-play situations and then apply the model to one of their stressors. (45-60 minutes)
• One Step at a Time is a nine-part guide to lead participants step-by-step through a creative planning process for coping with a stress-related problem. (20-30 minutes)
• The Garden is a poignant parable that focuses on the difference between “play” and “scoring.” (5 minutes)
• Month of Fundays allows participants to explore the power of play as a stress management strategy and to make a plan for incorporating play into their lifestyle every day of the coming month. (20-30 minutes)

All these activities are complete with variations to adapt to your specific group or time frame. Each includes a full list of materials needed and suggestions to make your workshop run smoothly and professionally.