Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Monday, December 17, 2012
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Wellness - Spiritual Well-Being- The Field - Part 2
This class continues the discussion on the concept of "The Field" and how it can be accessed by a thought to assist in the process of creation. The movie, "The Secret", is introduced and will continue into part 3 of this subject.
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Wellness - Conscious/Subconscious - Part 3 and Self-Talk
This class is part of a series relating to the functions of the conscious and the subconscious. The fundamental choices of conscious thought and words influence the power of the subconscious. The subconscious is compared to a computer that has millions of programs running and the conscious is the aspect that analyzes, judges and chooses what programs to run. When the conscious is not actively engaged in focusing on a particular program, the subconscious programming takes over.
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Wellness Power Tools - EFT - Part 1
This class introduces how EFT was discovered by the instructor. Personal experiences and those of various people who have used the technique of EFT were discussed. The practice of EFT has been a growing technique for many years and the results have proven to be beneficial in the area of mind-body wellness.
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Wellness Power Tools - Exercise
This class focuses on the idea of sharpening our "Wellness Saw" in order to maintain high levels of well-being, considering ourselves holistically. We also discussed aerobic conditioning as the most important and valuable thing we can do for our general well-being.
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Wellness Power Tools - Yoga - Part 2
This class demonstrates some basic poses and stretches performed during yoga. As a participant begins to practice the mindful breathing during the different positions and listens to the body, a balance between the mind and body is attained. Yoga continues to be a leading force in the attainment of health and wellness. A daily inclusion of its practice is encouraged.
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Wellness Power Tools - Yoga - Part 1
Yoga has been proven to be an excellent practice to help reduce stress and limit the stress response. An introduction to yoga and its various positions and stretches are presented and performed.
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Monday, May 14, 2012
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Friday, May 11, 2012
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
Stress Management
On this page are the classes that teach you everything you need to know about how to manage your stress and feel a lot better! Enjoy
- Introduction and Self-Assessment
- The Stress Response
- The effects of Chronic Stress
- Relaxation - how it works, how it's done; The Power Nap
- Relaxation - Restful Relaxing Breathing
- Perception and Interpretation
- Levels of Responding
- Mindfulness- Part 1
- Mindfulness- Part 2
- Anger and Fear
- Visualization
- Values
- Values -Part 2
- Time Management
- What Else Can I Do?
- Music
- Meditation
- Yoga
- Yoga Part 2
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Stress Management - Introduction and Self-Assessment
Day 1 - Introduction and Self-Assessment
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Stress Management - Mindfulness
In this class, we introduce to our minds the powerful stress management tool called mindfulness. We begin by clarifying the difference between the reality of the present moment awareness and the perceived reality of past and future events and how the body responds in relation to those perceptions. When consciousness is in the present moment, stress does not exist. We get there by being mindful.
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Instruction
Use these two links to gain access to classroom instruction on Stress Management and Mind/Body Wellness [list style="Check1black"]
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Stress Relief Happens Here
On your way to restoring your well-being, reducing your stress, and feeling a lot better, you're going to need some tools, just as the carpenter needs tools to help build a home. Among the many tools on this website, there are a few that are good to help you, at the beginning ...
The World is NOT a Stressful Place - the Book
After I finished writing the textbook, Stress Management for Life, I decided to write a book that would be good for everyone (and not just college students). I wanted to write a book that would help you learn the real reason why you are stressed (what nobody is telling you), what you can do to reduce your stress, and even what you can do to prevent stress from happening in the first place. And once you prevent and reduce your stress, you also get the happy outcome of reducing or even eliminating all the symptoms that go along with being chronically stressed. Imagine how great it would be to feel better, to not have headaches, to be able to fall asleep quickly, to not feel anxious, depressed, angry, or afraid. 
The book that I wrote is titled, The World is NOT a Stressful Place. You may purchase the book by clicking this button [buybutton style="50.png" linkingurl="http://www.strategicpublishinggroup.com/title/TheWorldIsNotAStressfulPlace.html" windowtype="_self"] The book is also available at other online stores including Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
The book that I wrote is titled, The World is NOT a Stressful Place. You may purchase the book by clicking this button [buybutton style="50.png" linkingurl="http://www.strategicpublishinggroup.com/title/TheWorldIsNotAStressfulPlace.html" windowtype="_self"] The book is also available at other online stores including Amazon and Barnes & Noble. via Posterize
What We Do
Our Mission is simple:
STRESS RELIEF
We strive to provide for you the tools that can help you manage stress more effectively and thereby, live more satisfying and rewarding lives. We believe that personal health and wellness means being able to do whatever you want to do at the level you want to do it. Health is not an end ...
About Us
Dr. Michael Olpin
I have been studying stress management, mind/body wellness, and relaxation for nearly 30 years. I have presented a wide variety of lectures, workshops, and seminars on stress management and other health topics at the community, state, and national level. I have taught complete stress management courses and other wellness courses at four institutions of higher education (Southern Illinois University, Concord College, West Virginia University and currently I'm at Weber State University). As a professor of Health Promotion at Weber State University, in northern Utah, my courses focus on mind/body wellness, health promotion, stress management, and wellness coaching. I also consult and coach privately for individuals, community groups, and corporations in stress management, along with other areas of health and high-level wellness.
I have also produced several products related to stress management and wellness. Most recently, I finished co-authoring the third edition of a widely used university textbook on stress management titled Stress Management for Life available through Amazon.com. Recently, I wrote a trade book on stress management titled The World is NOT a Stressful Place, which is also available through Amazon.com. I have also created relaxation exercises available in CD, DVD, and Video format. The MP3 version of this production is available on this website. Dr. Olpin's Weber State University Site
Dr. Olpin's Professional Vita
Shanyn Olpin
I am an Adjunct Professor in the Health Promotion and Human Performance Department at Weber State University. I received my Bachelors of Science degree from Brigham Young University and my Masters in Community Medicine from West Virginia University School of Medicine. I have been a community health project coordinator, grant writer, served on public grant selection committees, and a textbook reviewer. I have also been an editor for PE Central, a website for teachers. My favorite professional focus is teaching. Some of the classes that I have taught include; Fitness for Life, Community Health, Educational Testing and Evaluation, Personal Health, Adolescent Health, Elementary Health Education, and Healthy Lifestyles. I am happily married to my best friend Mike who is also a Health Professor and Stress Management Guru at Weber State University. We have four great kids and we love being back in Utah. I have lived in Oregon, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, West Virginia and Utah. I love to read, write, exercise, go to all of my kid’s events, create things, and work on any of a dozen projects that I always seem to have going. via Posterize
Managing the Waves and Leaks in Time
When I was fourteen years old, I went to California with a group of kids my age. We went to Santa Monica Beach to see the ocean. None of us had been there before so this was a real treat for us. When we got there, we decided to try bodysurfing. We saw others doing it and it looked fun and much less difficult than regular surfing. Soon we learned how it was done and found ourselves out in the water preparing for the waves to come our way. When a large wave approached, I started swimming as hard as I could, hoping to time it perfectly. I found myself riding the wave in toward the shore. Suddenly, the wave pulled me down, headfirst into the sand under the water. I hit with a strong force, but I was okay. I gathered myself and came up for air only to have another wave pound me again. Down I went to the ocean floor. I lost all control. The only thought that came to my mind was that I needed to get above the water to get some air. I struggled and finally made it to the surface. Gasping for air, another wave knocked me off my feet and sent me quickly back down to the sandy sea floor. This struggle with the sea lasted two more waves. At that point, my energy was spent. Fortunately, the waves had pulled me close enough to the shore where my friends, who saw what was happening, quickly dragged me to safety. I rested for quite some time until I regained sufficient strength to go back out into the ocean. When people tell me about their days and about how they spend their time, it sounds a lot like my experience that day in the ocean. Wave after wave of stressful events knock them off their feet. They are barely able to come up for air when another “wave” hits them. Soon, they
wear out, fatigued from the constant daily battle. In the present moment, we are always free to choose what we do. You may think that you have to do something, but you don’t. Nobody is forcing you to do anything at any time. There are consequences for what you do, and you may not want those consequences, but you always have a choice about what you do. When I mention to my students that they always choose how they spend their time, they become uncomfortable. They are not accustomed to having that much freedom. I tell them that they don’t have to be in class, they don’t have to go to work, they don’t have to eat lunch at a certain time, and they don’t have to sleep the same hours of the night that “normal” people sleep. They really don’t have to do anything. They always have a choice about what they do with their time – always. We say that we “have to” do something or we “have to” be somewhere, but we don’t. What we do with our time is always our choice. Now that we know that we always choose how we spend our time, we also realize that we also always receive the consequences for how we chose to spend that time. Those consequences can be good or not so good depending on the choices we make. The real problem most people have with time management is not the amount of time they have to spend, but how they spend the amount they have. Here is one of the most important things you can possibly do to get out of the pounding surf and really manage your time. Keep an up to the minute time log for at least one day. Think about it, no quality plumber would go in and start replacing pipes before he knew where the leaks were, right? So it is with our time. When I ask my students to keep an up to the minute time log for just one day, they come back absolutely amazed because they now realize where all the time leaks are and it becomes a lot more obvious how to fix them. Even though keeping a time log is one of the most important, eye-opening activities a person can experience in time management, some people will not do it. Why? It may be that when people are faced with the reality of the amount of time they waste, they realize that they will have to be responsible for that time from here on out. People, who want to stay stuck, don’t want to change. They want to blame something that is “out of their control,” like not having enough time in the day to do everything they “need” to do. The thing they don’t realize is that they need to figure out how much time they actually have before they can decide how they will spend it the most efficiently. Time logs help to figure that out. Take the challenge. Keep an up to the minute time log. Keep a paper and pencil with you all day. Every few minutes, or every time you change activities, write what you have done and how many minutes you were at it. Be sure to include computer time, talking on the phone, texting, making meals, flipping through the television channels, making dinner, driving, doing homework, cleaning, getting ready for bed, or if you are like my wife, the time standing in a room because you forgot what you were going to do when you got there. I think that happens to everybody. The most important thing to include may be transition time. That is the time it takes you to move from one activity to the next. Transition time is similar to being in survival mode, like when I was recovering from one wave and just before I was going to be hit by the next. There is a lot of time and energy wasted without a lot of productivity during transition time. This may be time looking for your keys before you leave somewhere, the time in between eating a meal and beginning your homework, or the time after the television show is over and you actually turn off the lights and go to sleep. Be brave. Be honest. This is one thing that can get you out of being stuck in the “doldrums” and on your way to becoming a productive, happy, less stressed person. If you have the courage to really see where the time leaks are and become responsible for fixing them, you will have an excellent foundation for the other principles in time management yet to come.
wear out, fatigued from the constant daily battle. In the present moment, we are always free to choose what we do. You may think that you have to do something, but you don’t. Nobody is forcing you to do anything at any time. There are consequences for what you do, and you may not want those consequences, but you always have a choice about what you do. When I mention to my students that they always choose how they spend their time, they become uncomfortable. They are not accustomed to having that much freedom. I tell them that they don’t have to be in class, they don’t have to go to work, they don’t have to eat lunch at a certain time, and they don’t have to sleep the same hours of the night that “normal” people sleep. They really don’t have to do anything. They always have a choice about what they do with their time – always. We say that we “have to” do something or we “have to” be somewhere, but we don’t. What we do with our time is always our choice. Now that we know that we always choose how we spend our time, we also realize that we also always receive the consequences for how we chose to spend that time. Those consequences can be good or not so good depending on the choices we make. The real problem most people have with time management is not the amount of time they have to spend, but how they spend the amount they have. Here is one of the most important things you can possibly do to get out of the pounding surf and really manage your time. Keep an up to the minute time log for at least one day. Think about it, no quality plumber would go in and start replacing pipes before he knew where the leaks were, right? So it is with our time. When I ask my students to keep an up to the minute time log for just one day, they come back absolutely amazed because they now realize where all the time leaks are and it becomes a lot more obvious how to fix them. Even though keeping a time log is one of the most important, eye-opening activities a person can experience in time management, some people will not do it. Why? It may be that when people are faced with the reality of the amount of time they waste, they realize that they will have to be responsible for that time from here on out. People, who want to stay stuck, don’t want to change. They want to blame something that is “out of their control,” like not having enough time in the day to do everything they “need” to do. The thing they don’t realize is that they need to figure out how much time they actually have before they can decide how they will spend it the most efficiently. Time logs help to figure that out. Take the challenge. Keep an up to the minute time log. Keep a paper and pencil with you all day. Every few minutes, or every time you change activities, write what you have done and how many minutes you were at it. Be sure to include computer time, talking on the phone, texting, making meals, flipping through the television channels, making dinner, driving, doing homework, cleaning, getting ready for bed, or if you are like my wife, the time standing in a room because you forgot what you were going to do when you got there. I think that happens to everybody. The most important thing to include may be transition time. That is the time it takes you to move from one activity to the next. Transition time is similar to being in survival mode, like when I was recovering from one wave and just before I was going to be hit by the next. There is a lot of time and energy wasted without a lot of productivity during transition time. This may be time looking for your keys before you leave somewhere, the time in between eating a meal and beginning your homework, or the time after the television show is over and you actually turn off the lights and go to sleep. Be brave. Be honest. This is one thing that can get you out of being stuck in the “doldrums” and on your way to becoming a productive, happy, less stressed person. If you have the courage to really see where the time leaks are and become responsible for fixing them, you will have an excellent foundation for the other principles in time management yet to come.
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All Stress Begins with our Thoughts
All stress begins with a thought. It isn’t what’s happening “out there” that initiates the stress response. It’s how we interpret what’s happening “out there” that causes us to become stressed or not. We call this a perception of a threat. If we think this situation will lead to some kind of pain (emotional, mental, spiritual, or physical), we turn on the stress response automatically to prepare for the potential pain. The potential pain is what we call a “threat.” Prevention of stress, then, is best done by
Parable of the Stacked Stones
I love to bike, hike, and run in the hills and mountains of northern and southern Utah. I love the workout of going up. I love the thrill and speed of coming down. Best of all, I love the views I get when I reach the tops of the trails.
I particularly enjoy one trail that happens to be located only a few short minutes from where I live. Within minutes from home, I can find myself on a path where it immediately feels like no city exists anywhere nearby. I disappear into undeveloped terrain.Welcome to the Stress Management Place!
Our intention is to help you make your life less stressful. Our goal is to provide you with resources such as: books, online media, articles, information, and other resources that can help you achieve a happy, healthy, and productive life. Read More About Us
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Breathing Techniques Reduce Test Anxiety and Increase Performance
Have you ever been disappointed with a test score because you knew you could have done better but were just so nervous you didn’t do your best?
How about on a job interview, or when giving an important presentation? When we are anxious or nervous our breathing changes from deep diaphragmatic breaths to shallow chest breathing. This kind of breathing restricts oxygen flow to the cells of the body and may cause drowsiness, irritability and even headaches.
Relax with this Easy Breathing Technique
Have you ever asked yourself today, “How’s my breathing?” It seems like an odd question, but breathing is the foundational component of most relaxation exercises.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Monday, April 23, 2012
Instruction
Use these two links to gain access to classroom instruction on Stress Management and Mind/Body Wellness
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Saturday, April 21, 2012
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