New evidence for the effectiveness of stress management training in groups.

The team ran an eight-week group class for adults. Each week the group practiced three skills: relax the body, challenge stressful thoughts, and speak up for needs.

Half the adults started right away. The other half waited. Both groups took stress tests before and after.

The group that trained scored lower on stress tests. They beat the wait-list group on three of four measures.

A short, low-cost class clearly cut stress.

Malagodi et al. (1989) used almost the same six-week package with angry teens. Relaxation plus self-talk worked there too, showing the mix travels across ages.

Bhaumik et al. (2008) later tested adults with long-term fatigue. Their CBT plus relaxation also beat no treatment, giving a near-repeat of the 1989 result.

Lappalainen et al. (2007) pitted classic CBT against ACT. Trainee therapists saw equal anxiety drops with both models. This backs the core idea that teaching coping skills lowers distress, even when the brand changes.

You already have the tools: brief relaxation, thought cards, and assertiveness drills. Run them in a lunch-time group for staff or parents. Four to eight sessions may be enough to see a drop on a simple stress rating scale. Track one score weekly; if it flattens, plug in a new relaxation module just like Boswell et al. (2023) did. Cheap, fast, and you can train a helper to run it.