Coaching Stressed Clients

In my post-graduate applied neuroscience work I examined the effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction for work-related stress.

While there were some methodological shortcomings in the existing literature at the time, in 2018, 18 studies confirmed the effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in reducing work-related stress or symptoms of stress.

Great!

Except that delivering an MBSR program, which typically runs for 8 weeks, is often not practical, cost-effective, or appropriate in a coaching context for helping clients cope with stress or deal with stressful situations.

Some clients may not even be on board with the idea of mindfulness.

Now don't get me wrong, mindfulness is a very effective tool.

But if you've been coaching for a while you probably already know that it has limitations.

So, how else can we effectively approach stress management?

Well, when I dug deeper into how stress has been conceptualized I realized that, put simply, stress occurs as a result of perceiving a situation in a way whereby the demands made on us exceed the resources we have to deal with it.

This is known as the cognitive appraisal theory of stress. It sits within the larger context of emotion regulation.

See, stress is actually perceived stress.

In fact, the most widely used psychological instrument for measuring stress is called the perceived stress scale! Shocker!

Now that doesn't mean that our client's stress is all in their mind.

Stress has very a real physiological response, with chronic stress linked to a wide range of health problems, including:

• Cognitive impairments (eg. memory and attention)
• Mental health disorders (eg. depression, anxiety)
• Cardiovascular diseases (eg. hypertension, heart attacks)
• Obesity and metabolic syndrome
• Weakened immune system
• Gastrointestinal problems (eg. GERD, gastritis)
• Endocrine disorders (eg. diabetes)
• Skin conditions (eg. acne, psoriasis)
• Reproductive issues
• Sleep disturbances
• Numerous brain-related issues

While not all stress is bad, and some types of stress can increase performance, chronic stress makes almost everything in life worse. So it's clear that we need to help our clients learn how to manage their response to stress!

In the years since my investigation into stress reduction, I have developed a brain-based approach that can help fundamentally shift the way in which we perceive the world and our experiences (including stressful ones).

It's a transformational approach, which draws from the field of ontology, and focuses on our way of being.

Our way of being drives our perception.

And, as we've just discussed, it's our perception that drives the stress response.

Shift our way of being. Shape our perception. Change our relationship to how we perceive and process stress and stressful situations.

I’ve taken this transformative approach to stress management, that we’ve taught to coaches here at BrainFirst Institute with our accredited certification programs, and created...

The Coaching Stressed Clients Workshop.

In this workshop, you'll learn:

• The science of stress and its impact, so you can be the trusted source of information for your clients
• How to assess your client's stress, to get an indication of the severity and source of their stress
• How to transform your client's relationship to how they perceive and process stress and stressful situations
• The brain-based transformative model and method of coaching stressed clients, so you can get rapid, deep and lasting results

Now, we could easily spread this training out over many weeks and charge a lot more for it...

...but I wanted to make this a no-brainer so that you can put this to work with your clients straight away!

So, I've packed Coaching Stressed Clients into two short sessions over two days (details below).

To your success,

Ramon David
Founder, BrainFirst Institute