Creative And Art Techniques In Stress Prevention For Prospective Teachers

Understanding key concepts

Selye (1994), Lazarus (2006), Antonovsky (2006) and others have made a great contribution to the development of stress theories. Stress, according to Selye (1994), is non-specific response of the body to any demand accompanied by the restructuring of the body’s defense mechanisms; according to Lazarus (2006), stress is the process of activating a cognitive activity by which an individual appraises and interprets events as harmful, threatening, or challenging and compares the arising difficulties with his/her own ability to overcome them, according to Welford, stress is the result of a mismatch between human body capabilities and the demands imposed on it (as cited in Serebryakova, 2007). We will rely on Zinchenko’s definition of stress as a state of mental tension that occurs in an individual in the process of his/her activity under the most difficult, challenging conditions, both in everyday life and under specific circumstances (as cited in Mesheryakova & Zinchenko, 2013).

Overall, nine definitions of stress resistance have been examined. The analysis shows that it is possible to distinguish between the three interpretations, (1) as an “an individual’s psychological trait” (Bannikov, 2003) and “an individual’s ability” (Mitina, 2018), (2) frequently used as a “complex trait, quality of individual’s personality’ (Lozgacheva, 2004; Velichkovsky, 2007), (3) as a ‘psychophysiological state’ (Lee Kang, 2005). As a working definition, we use Velichkovsky’s (2007) definition of stress resistance as “a systemic personality trait that ensures the successful adaptation of an individual to the effects of external stress and negative factors without entailing negative consequences for his/her physical and mental well-being” (p.9).

Prevention is a set of measures that prevent deviations, diseases, or protect against something. According to Dubrovina (2004), any preventive activity has three levels. Primary prevention involves working with the entire audience and is aimed at raising public awareness of any phenomenon (10 out of 10 participants). Secondary prevention includes “risk group” participants who require a special approach. This prevention focuses on people most likely at risk of deviation, disease, addiction, etc. Tertiary prevention is a more complex prevention mode and implies working with addicted, sick people who need regular assistance from multiple field experts. In our opinion, stress prevention is a set of actions, operations and procedures aimed at preventing a state of mental overstrain that occurs in an individual when operating under the most difficult, challenging conditions, both in everyday life and under specific circumstances

Stress theories and approaches to stress coping

Selye (1994) holds the view that stress is as a response of the body responsible for protecting a human and his/her body, by maintaining the integrity. In general, the defense reaction occurs in three stages and is referred to as an adaptation syndrome. A strong defensive reaction of the body develops into the stage of stress over a long period. Selye (1994) found three stages of stress development as analogous to the three stages of a man’s life: childhood (with its low resistance to environmental factors, anxiety), adulthood (adaptation of an individual to all external factors, an increased level of resistance), old age (loss of resistance, body exhaustion, fatigue). Selye (1994) emphasized the importance of an individual’s ability to understand and evaluate the positive and negative aspects of stress. While contributing to the manifestation of creative and effective labor activity, balancing the positive and negative aspects of stress plays a significant role in maintaining mental and physical well-being.

At the core of his cognitive stress theory , Lazarus views the role of subjective cognitive assessment of a potential threat , adverse impact, as well as individual’s possibility and ability to overcome stress. He distinguished between the concepts of eustress and distress while paying attention to emotions and the intensity of emotional reactions. He believed that stressful events themselves rarely cause disorders, whereas they become threatening to one’s body and life only when coupled with internal and external factors (Lazarus, 2006). Thus, Lazarus (2006) paid close attention to the process of perception, assessment of a situation, leaving aside the matters of how to manage stress, or develop strategies and techniques for resisting stress; he also left the role of the individual and personal resources of a person unattended. After all, any psychological stress progresses further, given a delay or lack of resources to manage it.

Antonovsky’s theory of salutogenesis identifies a number of factors that help to cope with the adverse effects of stress (Antonovsky, 2006):

• psychological factors (optimism, tolerance, inner balance, sociability, internal locus of control, creativity and intelligence);

• social factors (social environment, interpersonal communication, interaction with others, cooperation);

• physical factors (environmental conditions).

Antonovsky (2006) notes that participants with a high level of integrity are more likely to avoid unpleasant situations that can potentially threaten their well-being, while engaging themselves in health-preserving activities.

Below is a summary of the effect of stress on the body according to Shemyakina (2012), in which behavioral, cognitive, physiological and emotional changes under stress are captured (table 01 , figure 01 ).

For this article, let us briefly establish the four approaches to stress prevention informed by the related research: dispositional, situational, resource and COPE-approach (Gramling & Aulenbach, 2002).

As it is known, the process of overcoming difficult situations in an individual’s life is usually referred to as coping behavior. The key issue of the dispositional approach is to study coping behavior in stressful situations and to examine how it affects human health, the ability to successfully overcome stress, and psychological well-being. There are repressor, sensitizer, monitor and blunter coping styles. The situational approach (Monina & Rannala, 2009) considers stress as a process, while highlighting its specific features in relation to specific situations. Researchers in the field argue that any stressful situation has a developing nature, namely, first there is a cognitive assessment of the situation, followed by a reassessment of the situation, then coping style is selected, and new experience is emotionally processed.

Recently, a resource-based approach has gained momentum in stress prevention. The theory raises the issue of accumulating various resources and their subsequent allocation to stressful situations. Hobfall believes that it is the loss of resources that entails stressful reactions, given that the body is in a depleted state (as cited in Monina & Rannala, 2009).

The COPE approach is related to the Lazarus theory. As part of the COPE approach, the scholars have developed a stress management questionnaire, which was based on Lazarus’ theories of stress and on their unique behavioral self-regulation model. The COPE questionnaire is aimed at measuring both coping styles and situational reactions, in addition to that the questionnaire is capable of measuring the extent to which individuals under stress are prone to seek social support (Bodrov, 2001).

The literature showed the existence of several views on stress prevention levels. For example, Murphy, Gray, Sterling, Reeves, and DuCette (2009) operates with three levels in his works, while Williamson distinguishes four stages (Harkavi, 2006). According to Murphy et al. (2009):

• Primary prevention aims at reducing the impact of the stressor by removing sources of stress (such as changing jobs)

• Secondary prevention aims to address symptom relief through SMT (stress management training)

• Tertiary prevention is more of a therapy than prevention (p.331).

Harkavi (2006), highlighting the four planned stages of prevention, defines the basic operating techniques as follows:

• Primary prevention stage, where changes are introduced in the client’s environment;

• Secondary prevention stage involves the use of positive thinking, cognitive techniques for understanding and accepting the situation;

• Tertiary prevention stage helps an individual to cope with stressors through medication or during training with the participation of “difficult participants”;

• Quaternary prevention stage teaches participants to react to situations in a different way, with the help of various activities, while a new lifestyle is being acquired (Harkavi, 2006).

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These approaches are connected with the cognitive understanding of the coping behavior. In addition, during the Murphian preventive stages, the following basic stress coping components are used: relaxation, meditation, cognitive restructuring, persistence training, and “stress immunization” training. In another major study, Harkavi (2006) identified 4 basic stress prevention techniques using conscious self-regulation, namely, relaxation, anti-stress ‘restructuring’ of the day, providing first aid in case of severe stress, and internal analysis of stress. Thus, it is important to teach how to gain better understanding of stressful situations, their symptoms, how to assess and develop coping behavior (Awe et al., 2016), and equip oneself with relevant prevention strategies. In our study (Mynbayeva & Serikova, 2018), based on the previous work, which showed a correlation between creativity and stress resistance in schoolchildren, we incorporated creative and art techniques into training sessions for prospective teachers. The training is aimed at introducing the theories of stress, measuring coping with stress, and reflecting on resources available for students to overcome stress. The training is conducted using creative and art techniques. Conventionally, we connected the creative techniques with cognitive activities to create the “new”, to produce new solutions (for example, brainstorming, six thinking hats and others), while the art techniques were associated with art work (Serikova & Mynbayeva, 2019), the arts. In fact, the techniques represent a useful resource for learners. Let us now turn to transferring the theories learned into a visual presentation (figure 01 ) that may be used as a handout for students.

Based on the summarization and organization of the theories, a program for stress prevention and building stress resistance in prospective teachers has been designed.

Module I ‘Stress prevention’

Training session 1 - What is stress? Measuring the level of exposure to stress. The first session is introductory, when stress level, coping behavior in stressful situations and stress self-assessment are determined using the selected instruments. Then the basic stress-related concepts are given, along with the mechanisms of stress occurrence, coping behavior and strategies for managing stress. Activities are given for better understanding of a presence or absence of stress using the ‘Stress lies in our hands’, ‘Response to stress’ activities, which feature the elements of creativity (Gramling & Aulenbach, 2002).

Session 2 - The first signs of stress. Students are given materials on how to detect stress being aware of its main early signs, whereby each student can ‘diagnose’ stress reactions to certain stimuli with the help of a self-observation diary and introspections. The activities are conducted to generate experimental self-regulation techniques in the form of simulating an emergency meeting of researchers, where everyone shares their ideas after some thinking. The ‘Unconventional Application’ activity designed to develop creative thinking within a limited time, employs participants being given various items that they should find effective applications to, and demonstrate their use practice. In addition, during the second session, activities are conducted to develop associative thinking, which proved to be effective in stressful situations.

Training session 3 - Solving problematic situations using the Six Thinking Hats method. The participants are invited to try on different roles depending on the color of the hat (De Bono, 2017). During discussion, a non-standard life situation is presented, which does not have a universal solution. Then students are given hats of six colors, to which various functions are assigned. After discussing the situation, students express their thoughts about the situation and strive to come to a solution. Following a vigorous mental activity, students are offered tension release and relaxation breathing techniques.

Training session 4 - 10 Ways to Prevent Stress. Each student is given an A3 sheet for a poster-making activity, where the unique 10 ways to prevent stress are showed. Students explain each technique to the audience and share their life experiences. ‘Changing hands’ and ‘Modification’ activities are actively used in NLP practice. These NLP techniques work well at least because they bring us people of the state of unconsciousness. Most participants are unable to control stress because they are unaware of their potential to control it.

Training session 5 - Visualizing inner experiences in a creative way. ‘Creative visualization of experiences’ activity helps to illustrate one’s actual experience on a sheet of paper with the help of hands, without brushes, which allows relaxing in the course of this task. After that, a second picture is placed on top of the picture, which shows what helps to cope with stress. Then, ‘The application of skills’ activity is carried out, where everyone shares their skills in different areas, then students think of the ways how these skills may be applied in other areas. The activity teaches how to generate ideas about practical application of the resources available to the participants (Gretsov, 2006).

Module II ‘Building resistance to stress’

Training session 1 - The essence of stress resistance. Determination of the level of stress resistance. A mini-lecture on ‘The essence of stress resistance’ is held, where the main signs of stress resistance and methods of their development are discussed. After that, the ‘Wheel of Life’ technique is applied, during which the trainees clearly see how satisfied they are with various areas of their lives, choose their priority goals and set specific tasks for a certain timeframe. ‘Two random words’ activity is aimed at developing creativity in the trainees.

Training session 2 – The tips and lifehacks of resistance to stress. The session is devoted to the study of tips and techniques of stress resistance, where the participants independently establish 7 golden rules of stress resistance. For the development of creativity, ‘Deciphering hieroglyphs’ and ‘Associations (5 + 5)’ activities are conducted.

Training session 3 - Brainstorming as a way to build stress resistance. With this technique, students are looking for effective options in managing stress and building resistance to stress. Then a life situation is read out, which must be resolved with the help of ‘brainstorming’. ‘Storyteller’, ‘I am different’ activities are also aimed at developing creativity, which is believed to help develop resistance to stress.

Training session 4 - Mind map: creatively, logically, promptly. When performing the ‘Mind mapping’ activity, the trainees are asked to write down the “Stress” keyword. Then the branches of ‘Stressful situations’ are shown. In doing so, it is necessary to write exactly which situations cause anxious thoughts. Then the branches grow into the approaches, methods and techniques for managing these problems, which are written down. This is followed by ‘Cooling Breath’ relaxation activity and ‘The Creative Architect'’ creativity task.

Training session 5 - Building resistance to stress through associative search. For the activity on the associative search, students are given stimuli showing the same figures, and their task is to give each figure the outline of an object, an animal. Next is ‘Tiny Truths’ activity, which was developed by White at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Training session 6 - Insight as a creative step towards stress resistance. The final training session is aimed at developing creative insight and creative thinking. At the end of the session, a follow up diagnostics of the stress level, stress resistance is carried out and the leading coping behavior in stressful situations is determined. The results of all sessions are then summed up.