Emotional symptoms

1. Irritability or short temperedness
2. Feeling agitated
3. Unable to relax
4. Having sense of loneliness and isolation
5. Depression and general unhappiness

Cognitive symptoms

1. Memory problems
2. Inability to concentrate and focus
3. Poor judgment
4. Usually seeing the negative of things and people
5. Anxious or racing thoughts
6. Constant worrying

Physical symptoms

1. Diarrhea or constipation
2. Aches and pains
3. Chest pain and rapid heart beats
4. Frequent colds
5. Nausea and dizziness

Behavioral symptoms

1. Sleeping too much or too little
2. Eating more or less than usual
3. Using excessive caffeine, alcohol, cigarettes or drugs to relax
4. Nervous habits (nail biting, pacing etc.)

• How stressed are you? Self-evaluation through a questionnaire
• Self assessment of type A/type B personality
• Definition of stress
• The difference between stress and anxiety
• The three types of stress zones: apathy (no stress), eustress (positive stress) and distress (negative stress)
• The physiological impact of distress
• The fight or flight syndrome
• The negative health effects of distress
• The negative effects of distress on our decision making, relationships and performance
• How do I know that I have stress: the symptoms of stress
• Threat as the key behind elements causing stress (stressors).
• The 4 As of fighting stress: Avoid the stressor, alter the stressor, adapt to the stressor and accept the stressor.
• Avoid: details and the Islamic perspective Learn to say no
• the Islamic perspectives of stressors (challenges and hardships)
• Changing the perception of the threat.
• The impact of our worldview on stress
• The stress fighting inventory (a comprehensive list of all the strategies discussed)
• Group exercise to identify one stressor and then through the inventory, chart out an intervention for the stressor.
• Feedback on the exercise
• Putting it all together to form an elegant framework of avoiding and fighting stress

Spread over 10 instructional hours in a day, the workshop has lecture sessions, individual and group exercises, presentations by the participants and quizzes. Different modules are developed and brought together at the end. Depending upon the participants, the workshop’s layout is customized.

• Open House trainings in which anyone can sign up
• On site group trainings

• Workshop Manual
• Certificate of participation

Results

• A life with little or no stress at both the professional and personal level
• An elegant framework to tackle new and different stressors which keep coming up with the passage of time
• The ability to assist people around us-family, friends and co-workers- to handle stress by sharing the knowledge and the framework