Your One Minute Mood Lift!
Next time you begin to feel stressed, (unless you are driving!) take one minute out of your hectic schedule to try this.
- Imagine you are making a scan of your body starting with your head right down to your toes. As you mentally travel down your body be aware where any tension is located and as ‘your scanner’ gets to it, exhale noisily and see the tension flowing away from you with the breath.
- Close your eyes and allow yourself to smile very slowly. Make sure that you don’t have a clamped jaw and a gritted teeth smile! Just allow a slow soft smile to form on your lips. You should feel your face muscles relaxing as you do this.
- Think up your own calming words. Words which help you slow down and repeat them slowly in your head. They might be: ’soft’, ‘calm’, ’soothe’,’ love’, ‘comfortable’, ‘release’, ‘warmth,’ or ‘relax’. Choose one that works for you.
When life gets a bit busy, give yourself just 60 seconds every day to try the one minute mood lift!
Do share any quick de-stressors you find helpful too!
What’s Your Work/Home Balance?
A few weeks ago I was at a conference hosted by Pepsico, listening to one of their top women executives talking about the company’s philosophy on work life balance. I found it interesting.
For example, they don’t talk about work-life balance as work is part of life. Instead they refer to work/home balance, a much better description sending a subtle message.
Pepsico believes that workers contribute more at work when they are able to bring their whole selves to work. In the last few years they have introduced some very home friendly working practices which has had a huge impact on all staff, but particularly on women in their organisation.
Coaching Question
And one question they asked all employees at their annual appraisal is one I am sharing with you now as it’s such s good one. (Slightly paraphrased)
If you could set one goal in relation to your work/home balance what would it be, and what do you need from your employers to achieve it? Be clear and specific, and then be assertive and ask for it!
How do you manage your work/home balance?
Take Time to Unwind
Do you sometimes find it hard to relax and unwind? If so, give this is a try:
Think of three words that mean relaxation to you. They might not mean relaxing to anyone else, just to you.
For example, I might say ‘gardening’ as I can find that extremely relaxing. However, I can say with 100% certainty that word would have the opposite of the desired effect on my partner – he’d break out in a cold sweat at he thought of the torrent of requests coming from me to shift earth etc! ‘Golf’ would probably do it for him!
So choose three words that conjure up calmness, relaxation and tranquility for you. They might be colours, or even words you find particularly soothing because you like the sound.
Now, just be aware of you breathing for a moment. Simply notice how you are breathing. Breathe out fully and then take a breath in more deeply than normal. Let this breath out slowly, repeating one of the words in your head. Breath normally for a minute and then repeat with the remaining two words.
You can take a few minutes to do this at your desk any time you feel the stresses coming on, and it could be a really good way of ending your working day, helping you to leave work behind you!
What helps you relax and unwind?
Stress – What is Causing It?
Once you have done your mini audit and identified that you are feeling stressed, as well as alleviating the symptoms of stress (more on that in a later post) you need to try and determine what is actually causing you to feel stressed.
It’s easier said than done but do take a few moments to recap the last few months. Can you pinpoint when the changes in your behaviour started? If you can’t ask your partner or close friend if they noticed anything.
It might be they tell you something you hadn’t spotted, like your alcohol consumption went up when the new boss started! Or that you became much harder to live with, so brace yourself if you want an honest answer.
Work & Stress
When I’m coaching work comes up as a frequent cause of stress but people don’t always know what it is about work that is stressing them. Try answering these questions:
- Have there been changes at work recently?
- Has your workload changed (up and down, too little work can be stressful)
- Have you had a change of manager or personnel?
- Is there an individual you find difficult to be with?
- Is the work you do at odds with your own personal value base?
- Do you find it difficult to delegate so take everything on yourself?
- Do you think you are the only person who will do it properly?
- Does your partner or family value the work you do?
- Do you want something else but don’t know what it is?
- Is your time management causing you stress?
Naming the beast is halfway to taming the beast! Once you know the causes you can start to manage your stress!
Stress – And How to Manage It
This is the first in a mini series of posts on how to cope with stress. I hope you find it helpful; please share your own stories and tips too!
Recognise Your Signs
What you find stressful may be the breath of life for someone else, and vice versa. You can’t compare. And some days things will cause you stress which wouldn’t on another day; it depends what else is happening in your life right now. All of us feel stressed from time to time and it needn’t be a problem unless we fail to recognise and take remedial action. Then it can cause us no end of problems and unhappiness and potentially long term ill health.
Here are some commonly agreed symptoms of how stress might show itself in you:
- Do you feel on verge of being angry a lot of the time, as if the anger might burst out unbidden? (Indeed, it may, often at the person least due it)
- When you wake up in the morning do you feel as tired as if you hadn’t slept? Is your sleep pattern different from normal?
- Do you feel tired most of the day, generally below par?
- Maybe you are getting a physical sign like a flare up of eczema (When I was doing social work with abused children I would often get patches of painful eczema in the centre of my palms – a sure sign I was under stress.)
- Are you suffering from more than your fair share of headaches?
- When you get in from work do you feel too tired and flat to do anything other than slump? (I mean regularly feel like this; we all experience this from time to time.)
- Has your appetite changed, either eating compulsively or having no appetite for food at all?
- Is your concentration less good than it was? Do you find yourself spending ages on one task and never really finishing it (again, a common occurrence from time to time for all of us! But if it’s happening regularly, it may be telling you something)
- Have your lost your sense of humour, your ability to make light of situations?
- Is your decision making faculty less good? Do you dither about the simplest of things?
We all experience all of the above from time to time but you will know if it is out of the ordinary for you. Stop and take stock from time, do a little stress inventory on yourself. Recognising the signs is the first step to tackling it.
In the next post I’ll be looking at some of the ways we can help manage our stress at work. Don’t forget to share any of your own ideas and suggestions!
