Stress: The New

Normal?
Perry Bell, Psy. D.
 Goals
 Reframe how we talk to adolescents about stress

 Finding points of intervention in clinical and

school settings
 The Current Climate
 College Competition
 Parent Expectations
 Social Media (push notifications)
 Social Pressures
 Impact
 Anxiety and sadness
 Emphasis on outcomes
 Less sleep
 Sleep Debt
 Memory impairments
 Emotional Dysregulation
 Performance vs. Process
 The Science of the Greater Good (Berkeley)
 “Meaning- Making”

 Resilience

 Carol Dweck and Growth Mindset

Stress as a Bridge
Stress as a Radar
 Our Role as Mental Health
Professionals
 We are supposed to be the “magic wand”

 We prefer prevention and skill- building

 The “professional’s reframe”
 Hard for Adolescents to “buy into”

 Students and clients seek help past the point of

prevention work
 Where and how can we intervene?
 School setting

 Clinical setting

 Integration
of cognitive, behavioral, time
management, mindfulness, boundary setting
 Approaches for Exploration
 Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction
 Jon Kabit- Zinn
 Emotional Agility
 Susan David, Ph.D.
 Cognitive Downloading
 Sian Beilock, Ph.D.
 Mindset
 Carol Dweck, Ph. D.
 Emotional Intelligence
 Marc Brackett, Ph. D.
 Stress Thermometer
 Label triggers
 Label SUD
 Label Experiences (how I know I’m stressed)
 Label Coping Strategies
Stress Thermometers
Continuum of Intervention in the
Schools
 Pingry Stress Seminar
 7 classes (3 weeks)
 All Freshman students

 Psycho-education (2 classes)
 Yerkes- Dodson Curve
 Fight of Flight (H-P-A Axis)
 Cognitive Strategies (2 classes)
 Distortion Identification and relabeling
 Mindfulness Strategies (2 classes)
 Dessert Activity, Time Management
Is Stress Bad?
Yerkes- Dodson
Making Stress your Friend
 Professor Kelly McGonical, Stanford
 https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_
to_make_stress_your_friend?language=en
 Tedx
 Reframe of stress as “helpful system” vs. feeling
to be avoided
 No negative effects of stress
 Higher Performance
 Emotional Hijacking
 Relationship between thoughts, feelings and the
Fight or Flight Response

 Perceived and real stress acts to trigger system

 Roles of amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus

and pre-frontal cortex
 Our Thoughts Dictate our levels of
Stress
 Differentiatebetween circumstances of triggers
and experience of situations

 Productive vs. Unproductive Worry

 Finding Nemo
http://putlocker.ac/watch-finding-nemo-online-free-
2003-putlocker-v6.html
 Identifying “Stressful Thinking
Traps”
 Perfectionistic
 “If I get a B, I have failed”
 Fortune Telling
 “I am going to fail this test”
 Mindreading
 “He/she didn’t say hi- he/she must not like me”
 All or Nothing
 “If I miss this shot I’m a failure
 Catastrophizing
 “If I get a B, I won’t get into a good college”
 Relabeling “Stressful Thinking
Traps”
 Evaluating Accuracy
 Estimating Risk
 Evaluating Utility
 Assessing the consequences
Advocating for Mindfulness
 Reframing the perception of mindfulness
meditation

 Body scans prior to bedtime as “entre”