Understanding Stress Triggers and Building Resilience Sunshine, long summer days and perhaps a holiday getaway can mask the stress and anxiety many people are experiencing right now. According to a CAMH survey last week 19% of Canadians suffered moderate to severe levels of anxiety related to the pandemic. That number was basically unchanged from three weeks prior. As a type professionals, you have an additional lens to use to help people understand their stress triggers and those of the people around them – or the people they lead. Below is an activity you can use in person or virtually to get people talking about stress and resilience. Overview This exercise uses a ‘speed-dating’ format to get people talking about differences. Time 20-30 minutes Materials Flipchart, list of stress-related sample questions Instructions Arrange everyone into two lines – A and B – so they’re standing up and facing each other. Make sure you have the same number of people in each line, and each person is directly opposite another person Tell everyone it’s an activity about stress and it uses the speed-dating format Give them the first question (you can write it on the flip-chart too) Sample questions When do you feel most energized at work? What usually makes you feel stressed? How do you usually react to stress? When have you experienced extreme stress? Give them two minutes to talk about it with the person opposite After two minutes, ask everyone in line B to move to their right by one person. Line A stands still. The person at the end of line B moves round to the start of line B. Everyone should now be opposite a different person Give participants a new stress topic Give them two minutes to discuss Repeat for as many topics as you have time for Debrief Give participants a few minutes for reflection. Ask them what they think they’ve learned about themselves, then ask for any observations. It may take some time before participants are ready to share Tips for using this activity in a virtual workshop Give each participant a number Share the numbers in the chat box so that participants can refer to them later For each round, ask participants to enter a chat room in pairs to discuss the topic After two minutes, ask everyone to return to the main chat and give them a new partner Share the next topic and ask the participants to go into a new chat room to discuss the topic To save time, you can plan partners for each topic in advance. Then copy and paste the list of partners into the chat box at the start of each round. Additional Resources MBTI Stress Heads Raising awareness about stress Thank you to The Myers-Briggs Company for providing this activity in “The MBTI® Playbook”. This guide to delivering impactful MBTI programs in organizations will be released to Psychometrics Canada customers in the near future.
