Holiday season is gearing up but you don’t have to. Holiday stress busters.
HOLIDAY STRESS: WHAT IS STRESSING YOU OUT THIS HOLIDAY?
Holiday Stress is predictable. With overspending, lack of time, overcrowded shops and malls; trying to have fun can actually cause stress. Easing up on yourself is important because the connection between stress and illness is real.
Reduce the wear and tear that holiday stress can inflict. When your Holiday to do list stretches longer than Santa Claus’s beard, eliminate whatever is unnecessary.
TIPS AND STRESS BUSTERS:
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Make connections– good relationships with friends and family are important. Accept help and support.
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Take Care of Yourself– pay attention to your own needs and feelings.
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Plan Ahead: make specific times for shopping, visiting. and baking
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Learn to say NO
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Get enough sleep
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Laugh More, no kidding. Laughter is our natural antidote to stress
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Exercise
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Prioritize, schedule breaks
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Watch expectations
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Learn to Relax
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Get Support, Ask for help. The staff at the counseling center are available to listen, whether you have an on-going problem or are fed up with holiday stress.
Broome Community College Counseling Services
Located in Student Services SS210 607-778-5210
Used with permission by creator Marcia Winters of Fisher College
photo by alvimann
[I saw this article and thought I'd not reinvent the wheel in trying to describe a first counseling session]
Are you, or a loved one, about to go to a counselor for the first time? Whatever your reason for seeking help, you will be more at ease and get better results if you know what to expect.
In your first session, the therapist typically will ask certain questions about you and your life. This information helps him make an initial assessment of your situation. Questions he might ask include:
- Why you sought therapy—A particular issue probably led you to seek counseling. The therapist has to understand your surface problem(s) before he can get to the deeper issues.
- Your personal history and current situation—The therapist will ask you a series of questions about your life. For example, because family situations play an important role in who you are, he’ll ask about your family history and your current family situation.
- Your current symptoms—Other than knowing the reason you sought therapy, the therapist will attempt to find out if you’re suffering from other symptoms of your problem. For example, your problem might be causing difficulty at work.
The therapist will use this information to better understand your problem. And, while he may make a diagnosis at the end of your first visit, it’s more likely that a diagnosis will take a few more sessions.
Don’t just sit there
Therapy is a team effort. If you don’t take an active part in the session, you won’t find the counseling experience valuable. Here are some things you can do to make your first session as successful as possible.
- Be open. Therapists are trained to ask the right questions, but they’re not mind readers. The therapist can do his job more effectively if you answer the questions openly and honestly.
- Be prepared. Before you get to the session, know how to describe “what’s wrong,” and to describe your feelings about your problem. One way to prepare is to write down the reasons you’re seeking help. Make a list and then read it out loud. Hearing yourself say it a few times will help you describe things more clearly to the therapist.
- Ask questions. The more you understand the counseling experience or how counseling works, the more comfortable you’ll be. Ask questions about the therapy process, and ask the therapist to repeat anything you don’t understand.
- Be honest about your feelings. A lot will be going through your head in this first session. Listen to your own reactions and feelings, and share them with the therapist. You’ll both learn from these insights.
Be sure to go to your first session with realistic expectations. Therapy is not a quick fix for your problem, rather it is a process. With some effort on your part and a strong relationship with your therapist, it can be a successful tool toward resolving problems.
Sources:
“The Consumer’s Guide to Psychotherapy: The Authoritative Guide for Making Choices About All Types of Psychotherapy,” by J. Engler and D. Goleman, Simon and Schuster, 1992.
“Making Therapy Work: Your Guide to Choosing, Using, and Ending Therapy,” by F. Bruckner-Gordon, B. K. Gangi and G. U. Wallman, Harper and Row, 1988.
“The Process of Counseling and Therapy,” by Janet Moursund, Prentice Hall, 1985.
“The Therapy Answer Book: Getting the Most Out of Counseling,” by Kathleen J. Papatola, Fairview Press, 1997.
photo by Jeltovski
I happened on this site when I was looking for materials for a student on Test Anxiety and found much, much more. Tips on time management, taking tests, studying, how to maximize your particular learning style, reading strategie and lots more are included in this web site – the Study Guides and Strategies . This web site has been researched, authored, maintained and supported since 1996 by Joe Landsberger as an international, learner-centric, educational public service. Check it out!
Halloween and time to talk about scary things like… counseling. But first a word about e-Couch and Social Anxiety.
Photo by Patricia Green
Social Anxiety and how e-Couch can help
So, you don’t do a lot of things because you are uncomfortable around people you don’t know or authority figures, and situations where others might be judging you – like oral presentations for instance or parties where there are a lot of people. Well, for the same reasons you don’t go to parties, and you avoid places where you might feel judged, we might not ever see you in our counseling offices even though we could help. Even people who don’t have to deal with social anxiety coming and speaking to a counselor represents a scary proposition. So what to do?
1. You could try and push through the anxiety and call 778-5210 and make an appointment to talk to a personal counselor. This actually our preference since we are skilled at helping people with anxiety and other problems and that’s why we’re here!
2. You could do nothing and hope things get better (however, we’ve all heard the definition of insanity as doing the same thing over again and expecting a different outcome).
3. You could check out e-Couch, a self-paced, self help interactive program that includes modules for social anxiety and generalized anxiety as well as depression. It provides self-help interventions drawn from cognitive,
behavioral and interpersonal therapies as well as relaxation and physical activity.
E-Couch is created by the folks at e-Hub, the award-winning team at The Australian National University. E-hub has developed four innovative online self-help services that can be accessed anonymously and free of charge, 24 hours a day, from anywhere. e-hub’s programs have been developed by internationally recognized experts in the field of mental health and web service delivery research, some of whom have personally experienced depression.
Thus the programs incorporate both a rigorous research perspective and a consumer focus.
Interested? I went through the modules and used the toolkits and was very impressed! Check it out at: www.ecouch.anu.edu.au
Let us know if you use it and what you think.
Stay tuned for a scary visit to a personal counselor on Halloween.
Starting to notice you’ve got less energy, craving junk food, sad or irritable? 20 minutes a day could make all the difference.
There’s still time to come in and talk to a counselor about whether you might benefit from light therapy for Seasonal Affective Disorder. So far we have seven people signed up and room for many more. 20 minutes a day sitting under the table top light box pictured here, while you do your homework in a quiet room in the Counseling Services suite could make a big difference in how you feel this winter. If you are a Broome Community College Student call 778-5210 and make an appointment to talk to a counselor about whether this might help you get through the winter feeling better.
So, about four times a week a student will say they don’t have enough time to do everything. Some of you have a lot of responsibility and really are time crunched but most of us aren’t aware of just how much time we spend on things that aren’t productive. Not convinced? Fill out the sheet below, keeping track for one day of exactly how much time you spend on various activities.
photo by ppdigital
“WHERE DOES TIME GO?” Worksheet
Number of hours of sleep each night …………………. _____ x 7 = _____
Number of hours spent grooming each day ……………… _____ x 7 = _____
Number of hours for meals/snacks, including
preparation/clean-up time ………………………….. _____ x 7 = _____
Travel time to and from campus ……………………… _____ x 5 = _____
Number of hours per week for regular activities
(chapter meetings, leadership/service activities,
intramurals, church, etc.) ……………………………………. _____
Number of hours per day of errands, etc………………. _____ x 7 = _____
Number of hours of work per week ………………………………. _____
Number of hours in class per week ……………………………… _____
Number of hours per week with friends, social
parties, going out, watching tv, etc…………………………….._____
…………………………………………………….. Total = _____
168.0 hours in a week
- _______ hours of activities
= _______ hours to study
WHERE DOES TIME GO?
Example
Number of hours of sleep each night ……………………. 8 x 7 = 56
Number of hours spent grooming each day ………………… 1 x 7 = 7
Number of hours for meals/snacks, including
preparation/clean-up time …………………………….. 3 x 7 = 21
Travel time to and from campus …………………… 30 min. x 5 = 2.5
Number of hours per week for regular activities
(chapter meetings, leadership/service activities,
intramurals, church, etc.) …………………………………… 6
Number of hours per day of errands, etc…………………. 1 x 7 = 7
Number of hours of work per week ……………………………… 15
Number of hours in class per week …………………………….. 15
Number of hours per week with friends, social
parties, going out, watching tv, etc…………………………… 10
……………………………………………………. Total = 139.5
168.0 hours in a week
- 139.5 hours of activities
= 28.5 hours to study
OK, maybe not a movie like Inglorious Bastards or Resident Evil – more like those little short movies they used to show in middle school about dating and relationships or STDS – BUT BETTER! If you’re interested in helping write/act/direct some short little movies about how to deal with someone who is experiencing depression, stress or someone who is feeling suicidal please email hibbard_d@sunybroome.edu and mention what you might be interested in or call Counseling Services @ 778-5210 and ask to speak to a personal counselor about THE MOVIES.
photo by taylor schlades
Counseling Services through the generosity of college staff and faculty as well as BCC students, have a food pantry for students who may be struggling to make ends meet. We have a pantry of non-perishable food including pasta, soups, canned vegetables, boxed meals like mac and cheese and rice dishes, peanut butter and jelly, toiletries including toothpaste, toilet tissue and soap and more and last semester we were able to offer assistance to about 20 students. The people who work at Broome Community College care about students and they know that everyone gets in a tight spot occasionally and could use some help. If you are a student at BCC and need some food to get through until the next check, etc. come by on a friday between 3 and 4 pm and tell one of the secretaries you’d like to speak to one of the counselors and we’ll fix you up.
OK, here’s the skit referred to in the stress podcast. Please no comments about how it’s ridiculous to treat people in distress by telling them to stop it…this is occasionally really good advice but also simplistic. This is supposed to be funny! Enjoy.
Compos Mentis
Well… it is the opposite of Non Compos Mentis which means not mentally competent.
from Wikipedia:
“Although used in law, this term can be used metaphorically or figuratively. This entails when one is a confused state or state lacking rational thinking. If one is spaced out, one could claim that he or she is non compos mentis.”
Compos mentis, then. is feeling ok mentally – like we can handle things and bend with the wind so we don’t break. Compos Mentis is brought to you by the Counseling Services at Broome Community College located in Binghamton New York. It is our hope to bring you podcasts on a variety of topics that stressed out college students and faculty and staff will find useful and interesting. In future podcasts we will also offer interviews with interesting people who will share their stories and their paths to compos mentis. This first podcast is a little old – before the presidential election - but there might be some useful information for you.
If you are a registered student at Broome Community College we invite you to come see us. We are located in the Student Services Building on the second floor in suite SS210 and you can find other useful services all together – Academic Advising, Career and Transfer Counseling, Job Placement Services and Personal Counseling.
Stress podcast
Do fall and winter get you down?
- Depressed and don’t know why?
- Crave junk food and carbs?
- Don’t care about doing much?
- Just want to channel surf or hibernate?
- Gained weight?
- Tired?
You may have SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder
- Visit a counselor to identify if you have SAD
- SAD is treated by exposure to light
- Lightbox sessions are FREE for BCC students
- for SAD is easy and free for BCC students!
- If you have SAD 15-20 minutes a day could improve your mood
Call 778-5210 to make an appointment to see if lightbox sessions could help you.
Or email me at hibbard_d@sunybroome.edu or whittaker_m@sunybroome.edu to make an apppointment.
Connection number 2:
Sometimes bad things happen that could be stopped by others but no one does anything. In the movie some horrible crimes are perpetrated on the aliens and people just accept what they see and hear though they feel bad about it.
So, at BCC – A fight between 2 people in one of the parking lots- walk by? Ascertain if they are really going to hurt each other? Call Campus Safety? Take a picture with your cell phone and send to your boyfriend who says you’re stupid for being scared of violence on campus?
Consider Kitty Genovese, a woman murdered in New York City. Many people heard her screaming for help- 38 neighbors to be exact and for nearly 40 minutes - as she was attacked and killed but no one did anything. People were so shocked by this behavior ( a different time with different tolerances for bad things – 1964) that lots of people talked about how to make sure this sort of thing never happened again (a more optimistic time as well).
Back to the present – people talk about “bystander interventions” and why the impulse in a large group of people is to not intervene but to stay uninvolved when they see something happening. Lots of discussion about how to reverse this tendency and how to get people to not just watch when things are going awry or when it’s clear someone needs to do something. Bystander intervention proponents say it’s everyone’s responsibility to get involved, to help the little old lady who slipped and fell, to see if the young man that flipped his bike is ok, to call the police when you hear the couple next door fighting and then someone screams. Where you stand on this could make a big difference to someone. Where someone else stands on this could make an even bigger difference to you. Don’t assume that someone else is going to do the right thing because research shows that that is why people don’t intervene and help others – everyone thinks someone else is already doing something.
In District 9 a mild mannered bureaucrat is the hero of the movie. Selfish, aware of the inequities the aliens suffer but charged with maintaining the status quo, he ultimately gets involved, doesn’t stand by and you could say he pays for it. What’s it worth to get involved when you can be fairly certain that most people are not gong to?
What would you do?
Maybe nothing…but, if you think you’ve got problems consider how much worse things might be if you looked like a crustacean (derogatorily called prawns by some of the less tolerant homo sapiens in the movie), had the ability to fight oppression but lacked a leader to activate those skills and abilities, didn’t understand some key parts of the culture where you were to live and coexist and were reviled by nearly everyone and barely tolerated. Any of this sounding familiar? So some of us have been called names and we’ve survived. Some of us may not be what is generally accepted a s attractive but there are others we can hook up with – and…not everybody is as obsessive about looks as we might think. But, if you truly have the internal resources to make your life better but the potential lies dormant -like the aliens in District 9 living in horrible demeaning conditions but unable to act without a leader – well, you’re really not doing well.
So, number 1 connection between District 9 and counseling : Consider the resources you have and use them. If you’re not sure what they are or how to use them consider talking to a counselor. Counselors are in some respects a lot like a good coach.
Connection number 2: Any takers?
Movie Reviews, virtual campus tours, career information and more.
http://www.collegenews.com/
And from walking by the line on my way to the restroom it seems pretty clear just about everyone in line is stressed – by the oppressive heat, the disappointment of not going to their number one college pick perhaps, the uncertainty about how to pay for it all and the fact that the weather is just turning summery and it’s time to go back to school. Of course others of you couldn’t be more excited about coming to BCC – some of you have waited, sacrificed and planned for a while how to get back to school, or maybe you’re the first one to attend college in your family and while you are stressed to the max about everyone’s expectations, you also can’t wait to buy that first notebook. Whoever you are and whether you’re stressed or excited or a likely combination of both know that there are personal counselors at BCC whos job it is to help you navigate the choppy waters of this adventure. We are upstairs in SS210.
SUICIDE
Before you decide to move on and look for something less difficult to think about, think about this – there are nearly 6,000 students at BCC (part and full time combined). So, if national survey of college students report that 10% of all students will feel suicidal every year how many students do you see every day that may be so hopeless they are thinking of taking their own life?
600 students a year at Broome Community College are going to think about killing themselves and you may have them in your class, visiting your office or they may sit next to you in a classroom. Contact us at hibbard_d@sunybroome.edu if you are interested in learning more and how you can help.
Went to a train the trainer workshop on Campus Connect, a suicide prevention program for college campuses with the other personal counselor. Some pretty astounding statistics about suicide and those statistics – about 1500 students kill themselves a year and that number is believed to be well below the number of students who kill themselves every year - this number doesn’t take into account suicides that take place off campus, are the result of an intentional car “accident”, death by cop, or other less obvious ways to kill oneself.
What we sometimes forget as professional mental health providers is how hard it is for the average person to bring up their concerns about someone they know committing suicide. Asking if someone is planning on killing themselves is almost as taboo for some as the actual act of suicide. But asking can literally save someone’s life. Among some of the more memorable parts of the training was the powerpoint with two slides worth of school photos. The trainer, Cory Wallack PhD, asked us for some guesses about who among the 2 pages committed suicide. I include the pages here. Take a look and make your own guess.
If you think you might be interested in being trained to deal compassionately and effectively with someone who may be contemplating suicide, or if you just want to know if you have picked the right photos and correctly identified who might have committed suicide please email me at hibbard_d@sunybroome.edu. We can offer this training to students, faculty or staff in a variety of time slots from 60 minutes to two hours.
If you are yourself feeling like you no longer want to live please come by SS210 to talk to one of the personal counselors or if no one is available please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-talk and speak with someone who is there to help.
Actually Personal Counselors at BCC want you (if you’re a BCC student)!
We are disheartened by the AP-MTV-U poll done this year that indicates 85% of college students reported feeling stressed, while 42% of you said you were depressed to the point of hopelessness and 13% of you would probably meet the criteria for someone who is “clinically depressed”. Only 56% were “very sure” where they would turn if they had a serious problem and only 14% of students polled were “very familiar” with their college’s counseling services. Only 1 in 4 students polled would go to any counseling on or off campus - most would rather talk to a friend or family member. We want you to talk to your friends but we also want you to talk to us! We don’t bite and we might be able to help because of our vantage point outside of your life. This site is part of our reaching out, normalizing that feeling bad sometimes – really bad – is part of our lives at times and that people stigmatize themselves around getting help form a mental health provider. Answer this: If your best friend were really depressed would you consider suggesting talking to someone? Well, if you are at some point feeling really depressed you can take your own advice and come talk to one of us at SS210.
We want you to comment on this blog, ask questions, help us reduce the stigma of talking to a counselor. Tell us about subjects you want more information on…or less. Leave a comment or email a message to hibbard_d@sunybroome.edu.
