Objectives

When you complete this lesson, you should be able to:

  • evaluate how stress and happiness affect various dimensions of health
  • demonstrate strategies to prevent, manage, and resolve stress and interpersonal conflicts
  • develop strategies for demonstrating sportsmanship and including people of diverse backgrounds and abilities

The Mind-Body Connection

fear

Fear or Worry

  • Sweating
  • Increased heart rate
  • Inability to focus
  • Headache
happy

Happiness

  • Smiling
  • Laughing
  • Increased energy
angry

Anger

  • Tightening of the muscles
  • Increased heart rate
  • Inability to focus
sad

 Sadness

  • Crying
  • Decreased energy
  • Loss of appetite

The good news: there are things you can do to manage stress, worry, anger, and other negative emotions to help you bounce back to a more positive state of mind and be happy!

It's usually easy to handle stressors that are considered eustress, or positive stress. Would you really want the good things in life to stop happening? It's the distress, or negative stress, that is a concern because it can cause health problems. Finding a way to keep life fun while managing the tough stuff will lead to greater happiness. Work on smiling and being happy because it is contagious!