1. Stress & Anxiety After Brain Injury

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3. What Is Anxiety? For some anxiety begins long before a brain injury and continues on through the recovery period. Others may be feeling overly stressed or anxious for the first time in their lives. The survivor may not be the only person experiencing anxiety: family members, caregivers, significant others, etc.

4. Stress and tension are typically defined as an overwhelming feeling of pressure that a person feels unable to face. Anxiety is often considered a more severe form of stress causing apprehension, avoidance, and fear.

5. Checklist Difficulty making decisions, even small decisions such as what clothing to wear. A short fuse, especially over issues that may have previous seemed minor. Decreased energy and motivation, especially for people or activities that were previously enjoyable to you. Trouble relaxing, racing thoughts, getting to or staying asleep.

6. Awareness of your body temperature rising, heart beating fast (racing), or changes in appetite. Physical ailments such as indigestion, shakiness, jaw and shoulder tension, headaches, and fatigue. Feeling alone, hopeless, unproductive, impatient, and irritable.

7. Managing Stress 1.Identify it – become aware of stressful/anxiety provoking issues.  Make a list of your daily concerns.  Ask trusted family members or close friends for feedback or suggestions for your list.  Avoid judging your stress and yourself. Stress is a natural response to unexpected changes in your environment. Give yourself permission to accept your feelings and work on them.

8. 2.Reduce/Eliminate Stress – sometimes people continue anxiety provoking activities only because they have always done them and feel that they must.  Ask yourself, “Am I enjoying this?”  Ask yourself, “In 24 hours, will it be important that I completed this task?”  Remove activities that are unappealing or do not have long-term meaning on your to-do list. But certain activities in life are not elective sometimes anxiety makes it hard to simply live – i.e. get dressed, clean up, return a phone call…

9. 3.Managing Your Responsibilities  Do I have to do things they way I’ve always done them?  Can I give this responsibility to a friend, neighbor, or relative – be careful with this.  Can I change my personal standards for how a certain task must be done?  Is there a way a task could be more enjoyable? Remember to make time for yourself – take breaks. Create a gratitude journal where you can record any positive accomplishments from each day to reflect on.

10. 4.Exchange Stress and Anxiety for Thinking Positive  Stay healthy!  Find new activities and restart old ones!  Deep breathing – take 10 – 20 breaths from your belly and inhale/exhale through the nose.  Meditation – start small it can take practice.  Visualization – feeling stressed? Imagine yourself peacefully resolving the situation.  Thought Stopping – Force yourself to stop negative thoughts. Set a time limit and remind yourself that it’s not worth worrying about things that are out of your control.

11. 1.Identify the sources of stress in your life. 2.Recognize your physical signs of stress and anxiety. 3.Dispose of meaningless activities that make you feel stressed and anxious. 4.Learn to delegate responsibilities and ask for help. You cannot do everything alone. 5.Try to create more positive experiences in your life by finding time to do things you enjoy, even for just 5 – 10 minutes per day. 6.Create a plan for managing stress that includes tools and techniques from this presentation for managing your emotions in difficult situations.