Potsdam Graduate School: Self-Leadership under permanent pressure to perform

Academic tasks and administration, tutoring and teaching, collaborative projects—and family first of all! Just reading this can make you feel the stress rise. Handling everything simultaneously is a fundamental part of academic life. In such a demanding environment, stress competence is crucial to maintaining a healthy balance and effectively managing the multitude of roles and demands.

This workshop provides a valuable opportunity to calmly reflect on your main sources of pressure and strain and to devise strategies to manage them. You will explore the triggers and consequences of stress and learn how to bolster your personal resilience. We focus on three dimensions of stress competence: instrumental (e.g., time management), mental (e.g., dealing with perfectionism), and regenerative (e.g., leisure and breaks). The key objective is to provide you with practical insights and tools to help you maintain a healthy balance between productivity and self-care.

The workshop covers stressors in academia, the mechanisms and consequences of stress, and the three pillars of stress competence: mental, instrumental, and regenerative. It helps participants identify personal resources and offers insights into personal stress management strategies. The methods employed include input and discussion, individual and group work, and coaching techniques.