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NC HealthSmart Worksite Wellness Toolkit: Manage Stress

Manage Stress Workbook

The Manage Stress Workbook provides information on how to set up activities and also offers guidelines for creating supportive policies and environments around stress management. Additionally, several Toolkit documents are available for download below in MS Word. These documents have been updated with input from wellness committees to better suit your needs.

Download the entire Manage Stress Workbook (PDF ~3.75mb)

Manage Stress Posters

Thumbnails link to the full-size PDF. Right-click on thumbnail and choose "Save Link As..." to download.

Get up 15 minutes early. Apologize for a mistake. Clasp your arms behind your back and stretch your shoulders. Find someone you are grateful for and thank them. learn to say no. Go for a brisk walk. Practice laughing out loud. (ha ha) Take a deep breath and let it all out. Spend an evening without TV Laugh at something you did. Keep a journal of thoughts and feelings. Go to work a different way. Make time to play. Do one thing at a time. Cut back on caffeine. Count your blessings - make a list. Read a good book. Pass it on to a friend. Make a list. Then follow it. All work and no play is not the healthy way. Ride your bike to work. Read something funny every day. Count to ten - or 1000 - before exploding. Change your coffee break to a physical activity break. Stand up and stretch.

Manage Stress Quote Posters

Thumbnails link to the full-size PDF. Right-click on thumbnail and choose "Save Link As..." to download.

We are here on this planet only once, andmight as well get a feel for the place. How beautiful it is to do nothing, and to rest afterward. Rest is not idleness, and to lie on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. For fast acting relief, try slowing down. We live longer than our forefathers, but we suffer more from a thousand artificial anxieties and cares. They fatigued only the muscles, we exhause the finer strength of the nerves. Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop. Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live. A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety. Sometimes it's important to work for the pot of gold, but other times it's essential to take time off and to make sure that your most important decision in the day simply consists of choosing which color to slide down on the rainbow. I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once. There is more to life than increasing its speed. One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.

Additional Manage Stress Resources (PDFs)

Suggested citation: North Carolina Division of Public Health, NC HealthSmart Worksite Wellness Toolkit. North Carolina State Health Plan, Raleigh, NC; 2005.