Stress Mangement

Click A Very Tranquil Place to see the assignment and the submission form. Your best strategy is to compose the assignment offline first and then copy and paste it into the electronic submission form; that s the best way to avoid losing your work in case of a glitch. Don’t forget to hit submit or your paper will not route to my grade book.
Your paper should be roughly the equivalent of about 3 pages of typical written work, single spaced (though I would appreciate double spaced on the actual assignment €“ easier to read!). The paper is graded on a scale of 1-5:
5 = excellent/superb (A)
4 = good or very good (B)
3 = on the low side (C)
2 = Poor (D)
1 = you call this a paper? (F)
The most popular grade received in past semesters is a 4€³; 5€³ is a close runner-up. Advice: Strive for a 5€³ but be happy if you get a 4€³; it’s also a fine grade. 4.5 is a great grade; like a B+ or A-. Keep in mind that a 5€³ is never given, regardless of how excellent the content, if the paper is poorly written in terms of grammar, spelling, etc.
Unlike the exams, written assignments can be accessed multiple times, and does not need to be completed in one sitting.
Don’- t forget to hit the SUBMIT button on the lower right corner. Your assignment will not be routed to my grade book unless you hit the submit button to send it there. Also remember: Spelling and grammar absolutely count!!!!!!!!! (of course you won’t Did you ever try to amuse, entertain, or soothe yourself by imagining a perfect room, or place, or even world that is exactly suited to you? If you have, then you were practicing a form of stress management, especially if you have held on to that scene and used it from time to time when you needed to just relax or escape for awhile.
I have such a scene €“ for many, many years€¦ long before my teaching career. It is a secret place in my mind with only one single country scene that over the course of many many years it has varied, but never varied much. It is an after-the-rain place where the sounds and smells are always the same, the trees are always lushly green and laden down with water from a recent downpour, and orange rays of sun always beam down sporadically unto the wet grass. And I am always slowly walking down the wet path, and a sense of peace and tranquility fills the air and grows with every step. To this day I LOVE thunderstorms and the aftermath€¦ I’m sure much of that love has to do with my secret after-the-rain country scene. I don’t go to that place often, but it doesn’t matter €“ it is always there, waiting for me, whenever I need a minute or an hour of escape . Many times I have used that scene to lull me to sleep after I’ve gone to bed, or to calm me after a bad argument, etc.
As you read in one of our lectures, autogenic training, a form of self-hypnosis where one uses the mind to relax the body, is a specialized type of coping skill that can be developed to a powerful and effective tool to manage stress or provide a temporary escape for awhile. I conjured up my wet country scene long before I began teaching stress management; only when I started teaching it did I realize that I had been practicing an effective and rejuvenating form of autogenic training every time I visited that secret place of escape. I’ll never let go of it, and I am ever grateful that I have it.
For this assignment, take a few minutes and sit or lie down comfortably in a quiet and darkened room. If you don t already have a secret place in your mind that you go to from time to time, then here is your opportunity to create one. Hopefully, the place you create will stick with you for a lifetime like mine did, and will remain a safe haven for you whenever you need it.
To help you develop your secret place, first think about what really would please you €“ anything goes! Many students create a place totally from scratch. Others let their minds drift back to a special experience they have had €“ a marvelous vacation somewhere, or a childhood home. Think about things from the past that might comfort you today €“ it might be the aroma of special foods that filled your childhood home. Or it might be a long-ago memory of the sound of heavy rain falling on a tin roof that so many students from the Caribbean and elsewhere have reported loving to listen to.
So, build your perfect scene and fill it with the sounds and the smells and the colors of the things that fill you with a sense of tranquility. Add your ideal temperature€¦ think about whether you are with someone, or people, or all alone. Also think about what time of day it is, and what you are doing. Gang, this can be ANYTHING and ANYWHERE and can be as fantastic as your preferences and imagination allows. I’ve had students describe glorious places that were obviously not of this world€¦.. such as extra senses (i.e., being able to see perfume scents, etc.), or living underwater, etc. Anything goes! BUT!€¦. try to keep it in line with your preferences. Don’t just write in order to get a good grade. I know you want that, of course, but as long as you are writing anyway, here is a real opportunity for you to develop such a place exactly tailor-made to your specs €“ something real you can use again and again as a stress buster when it is needed €“ for a lifetime!
Take your time developing your place of tranquility. Then, write it up for this assignment. Be richly detailed in your description; anything goes.
After you submit the assignment, try to keep that place and visit it whenever you need it. You might shape it around the edges and add things to it over time. In the beginning you might be able to reach that place only by lying down in a darkened and quiet room, but the more you visit your scene over time, the more easily you will be able to conjure it up wherever you are (yes, even on a crowded smelly subway car during rush hour) for a quick and refreshing break whenever you need it. text message words like 4U, or gonna or wanna, right?)/>