WEEK 4

What did you do?

This week we combined the previous weeks activities with deep breathing exercises, for 10 mins each morning, and drinking chamomile tea each night before bed. For the breathing exercises Grace will be using the 4-7-8 techniques as well as the rolling breath technique (Source 8). We will also use gifs (see below) to help time Grace’s breaths. We also included a week planning session, which included aims for sleep, extracurricular activities, homework and relaxation times, as well as times to complete this week’s intervention activities. we finished the week by doing another stress, anxiety and depression test (Source 10).

How did it go?

It didn’t go so well this week. We found out that the tea was making Grace feel unwell. So we had to stop that part until we found an alternative. However, on all other counts the week went pretty well. Grace was getting about 9 hours sleep, and completed 7 logic puzzles, each in under 3 mins, but was unable to complete the 2 ½ hours of exercise due to injury.

What were the test results?

This week we saw a pretty large decrease in both Grace’s stress and anxiety levels. We saw a decrease of 1 point in anxiety, which made a transition from mild to normal levels. We also saw a reduction of 2 points in stress, going from moderate to mild levels.

How did you feel?

I felt a little stressed this week when having to find an alternative to the tea we incorporated into the intervention. This was especially important, due to the fact that this week was a trial week and Grace would not be continuing this activity, unless she chooses to continue it in week 6. However after an alternative was found, I was feeling pretty good about the rest of this week.

How was the client feeling? Client feedback

At the start of the week, I was feeling really unwell, but after the change from tea to yogurt and dark chocolate, I started feeling much better. I found the breathing exercises very relaxing, and when I got especially stressed, I found that it helped put things into perspective.
- Grace

Was it successful? Why?

While this week still had some level of success, it definitely was not as successful as previous weeks. By the end of the week we had been able to find an alternative to the tea, a combination of 1 cup of yogurt and 15 grams of dark chocolate each day (Source 9). So Grace still had a chance to experience the deep breathing and relaxing foods activity week, so she will still be able to compare the effectiveness of the week 4 and 5 activities.

What changes need to occur?

Due to the tea causing Grace to feel nauseous, we had to conduct further research to find an alternative, for this we found that a combination of yogurt and dark chocolate would create similar results. Towards the end of the week these were quite successful and, if continued in week 6, will be implemented.