See right-side panel for details of one-on-one stress management sessions at our Hong Kong office, or by telephone anywhere in Asia.

Introduction
In our modern world, Stress has become a part of everyday life. Whilst we all need an element of stress in order to live fulfilling lives, too much stress can eventually take its toll on us. The end result is performance deficits: absenteeism, stress-related illness, dependencies, interpersonal problems and general inability to perform effectively at work. In an effort to address this issue, PsyAsia International offers an eight-session course in Stress Management Training delivered by organizational psychologists.

Stress at Work Focus
Within the program below, our major focus is the workplace. We discuss ways to reduce and manage stress at work. For in-house courses, we encourage participants to discuss issues relevant to their organization and team and this is facilitated by the use of break-out groups and subsequent group presentations and discussions that incorporate what has been taught during the course.

Format & Delivery of the Stress Management Course
To a group of up to 15 individuals as an in-house course over one or two days or two consecutive half-days; or a public course over 2 days.

Each session consists of two parts. Firstly, an interactive knowledge base wherein attendees learn about stress and how it can be managed. Secondly, attendees take part in a relaxation exercise. A new relaxation exercise is added to the attendee’s repertoire in each session. Research supports that both the newly gained knowledge and the relaxation exercises serve as effective mechanisms for managing stress at work.

Session One
Participants will learn about the nature of stress, its causes and associated problems. Participant's risk of stress-related illness will be assessed. We will discuss ways in which it may be necessary to change diet and lifestyle – this will be discussed further in Session Eight.

Session Two
This session concentrates on Muscle Tension. We discuss how muscle tension, which may have built up over a number of years, contributes to chronic stress. Then, we will teach participants how to replace muscle tension with relaxation, introducing a second relaxation technique to practice. We shall also explore individual strengths and weaknesses in coping with stress and subjective approaches to the problem.

Session Three
In this session, we further assess participant's personality and risk of illness. We discuss work-related stress and hypertension. Since tension is often reflected in our breathing patterns, participants will learn how to breathe in a more relaxed manner and with greater control.

Session Four
Stress is often caused by negative thinking habits. By distorting a situation in our minds, our emotional response is in line with that distortion, rather than with the facts. Thus, delegates will learn how to uncover negative thinking patterns.

Session Five
This session is related to session three and continues the issue of breathing. We shall cover hyperventilation, the use of "triggers" in treating stress, and we will talk about stress-related issues which affect ethnic minorities.

Session Six
We now go back to the theme of cognitive therapy introduced in Session Four. We introduce a method to challenge negative thinking. Participants will learn about the prevalence of stress in society, who is most vulnerable and the costs of stress.

Session Seven
In Session Seven participants will learn about positive thinking and the techniques for its development, as well as the development of positive behaviour based on higher self-esteem. Further, anchoring techniques are introduced.

Session Eight
This final session explores diet and exercise, issues which were introduced briefly in the first session. We will evaluate how well the course met participants' expectations and how far it succeeded in starting to reduce stress.

Delivered by Organizational Psychologists
PsyAsia’s Stress Management course is delivered by organizational psychologists with an understanding of human emotions and issues that contribute to stress at work. Most often, the course is facilitated by our principle organizational psychologist who not only carried out PhD research investigating people and performance at work in Asia, has a Masters degree in organizational psychology and incredible cross-cultural experience, but also has a certificate and diploma in Stress Management Training. The same individual is able to offer one-on-one individual stress counselling where necessary.

Syllabus Change Note:
Prior to every course that we run, it is our policy to consult the worldwide literature and practice databases to ensure that we teach the most up-to-date content. For this reason, our syllabus is subject to change. However, you can of course rest assured that we do not bring you a static course, rather a course that evolves with the Asian and international business and human resource management environments.