Understanding Stress and the Importance of Self-Care

Erica Kaurudar and Chanda Telleen from PaTTAN Harrisburg introduce the first video in a three-part series on self-care. They emphasize the importance of understanding stress and self-care, providing mental health support resources like the Mental Health Support Line, National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, and Crisis Text Line. They highlight that self-care is not only acceptable but necessary for adults to effectively care for themselves and others.

Erica explains that stress was defined in the 1930s and individual reactions vary. Not all stressors are negative, citing examples like marriage or buying a house. She clarifies that we cannot decide what is stressful for others, emphasizing three types of stress: positive, tolerable, and toxic. Positive stress involves brief increases in heart rate and hormones, tolerable stress is more severe and prolonged, and toxic stress is strong, frequent, long-lasting, and can impair brain and immune function.

Erica and Chanda share personal examples of the three types of stress. Erica identifies preparing for a presentation as positive stress, experiencing a pandemic as tolerable stress, and a serious long-term illness as toxic stress. Chanda describes project deadlines as positive stress, losing a friend as tolerable stress, and long-term financial stress with children going to college as toxic stress. They reiterate that the perception of stress is personal and depends on an individual's response to an event.

Chanda discusses compassion fatigue, which can occur when individuals care for others and take on their stress. This can impact emotions, cognitive ability, beliefs, and physical well-being. She explains that isolating oneself, losing interest in enjoyable activities, and a lack of creativity or patience can be indicators of compassion fatigue, especially when not due to intentional isolation like during a pandemic. The good news is that building resilience through self-care for the mind, spirit, strength, and heart can help.

Erica introduces the concept of self-care as providing adequate attention to one's physical and psychological wellness. She highlights gratitude as a powerful self-care practice, drawing from positive psychology research. Studies show that grateful individuals experience more positive emotions, fewer negative emotions, increased connectedness, improved relationships, greater academic satisfaction, and better physical health.

The speakers issue a self-care challenge: express gratitude to someone. This can be done via a thank you note, text, email, phone call, or video conference, focusing on how they have positively impacted you. They suggest that both the giver and receiver will benefit from this act. Erica plans to text her cousin, a nurse, to show appreciation, while Chanda intends to email her children's teachers to thank them for their hard work.