Which is why it could be an excellent time to try out a simple mindfulness exercise which could give you a huge mood boost!

I have written before about the many benefits of mindfulness (see Mindfulness and Stress). There is a growing body of bona fide research demonstrating how mindfulness can help with all sorts of stress and depression. In Your Happiness Audit there is a link to a book I highly recommend which will give you some of the sources of that research if you’d like to know more.

But reading about it is one thing, hearing it another, so I’m really pleased to share this BBC link with you for a ten minute mindfulness exercise that it very easy to do and may just become a good habit for 2012. It was part of a happiness challenge the BBC were promoting last year and it’s perfect to do in a spare ten minutes when sitting at your desk. I frequently recommend this to women when coaching and we do a modified version on my women’s courses. It’s not for everyone but if it works for you you’ve discovered a great resource for life!

Here is the link to BBC Happiness/Health/Mindfulness.

Why not try it for just one week and see how you get on? And please do share your experiences with us!

Photo Credit: Tosaporn Boonyarangkul

I imagine that quite a few of you are feeling a tad stressed and overwhelmed with all you have to do, both at work and at home. It’s the time of year when our work home balance can get quite out of kilter.

If that feels like you right now take a few minutes to consider this:

Christmas will happen whatever.

Christmas is not simply one day-it’s a season. If it doesn’t go right one day there’s another on the way.

Most things will still be there on December 28th.

Time is man made. There is no law that says everything must be completed on time (except  tax-do your tax returns on time!)

Are you succumbing to the well known ‘I must be superwoman at work as well as making my own mince pies and knitting a witty cat blanket and still look gorgeous’ syndrome? It’s rife at this time of the year and very infectious. If you haven’t been inoculated you could be in danger.

If you’re getting caught up in the pressures that are heaped onto women’s heads at this time of year (by ourselves as well as others) take a moment to pause and reflect. Try giving yourself this mini cure.

The Cure for Martyrdom

What really matters to you and those you care about during this season? If you come up with the answer a beautiful magazine-photo-fit home and hand knitted mince pies then you’d better give that some priority.

But most of us won’t come up with that answer. Most of us will want a relaxing, argument-free time with people we care about, if we can manage it. If the cards don’t get posted on time, they’ll arrive late; the world won’t stop spinning on it’s axis.

Remember to take a break now and again. Recent research shows that people who practice mindfulness are particularly resistant to the blandishments of the ad industry, and frankly that’s what’s we’re talking about here. Being constantly bombarded with images of the perfect woman organising her perfect Christmas for her perfect family, while wafting clouds of Chanel and simpering Nigella like over the bread sauce are so not real! They are figmentsof the admen’s world.

Instead, let’s ‘channel’ Marje Simpson enjoy ourselves! Cheers, purple haired lady!

P.S. I think it might just be me with the cat blanket thing..substitute your own pointless activity.

Photo Credit: Steven J Sullivan

If the answer is yes, perhaps it’s time to press pause.

Stop

There was a fascinating item on BBC radio a while back about mindfulness. Apparently people who practice mindfulness are a much harder bunch for advertisers to sell to (they can be less stressed all round, see this post). Or rather they were able to resist more effectively the intense pressure of advertising than other groups. They didn’t need so many things to feel content. So here’s a very short mindfulness type exercise which won’t eat into your day but may reduce your stress levels and act like your own internal pause button during these busy weeks.

The Press Pause Exercise

Each hour has 60 minutes. Choose one of those sixty minutes and do the following:

Pause in whatever you are doing (in safety-obviously!). If possible lower or close your eyes.  Become aware of just what your body is doing. Notice if your feet are on the ground, hooked round a chair, if you have crossed legs, etcetera? Now pay attention to your torso. How are you holding yourself, are you able to breathe as well as you can?

Now notice your breathing. How are you breathing? Just take notice, don’t change it (although almost inevitably just being aware will slow your breathing).

Notice how you actually feel. Don’t judge, just notice what your feelings are, become conscious of your emotions.

And finally, when convenient for you, breathe out one breath for a slightly longer time than normal. Just one.

Open your eyes.

Smile.

Press go.

Photo credit: M Kranz

Most of us probably don’t do it enough. Psychologist Dr Nick Bayliss says we ought to be doing it every day. Twenty minutes each day of ‘time out’ time can make you feel great!

20 Minutes of Fun

So, here’s your challenge for the rest of the week. Take 20 minutes and fill it with doing something you love. Be as spontaneous as possible. Maybe you’ll resurrect your old piano skills and tinkle up and down the ivories? Perhaps you’ll pick up your old sketch book? Make a cake? Or simply be and stare at the trees noticing the changes Nature is bringing?

Try it out and let me know how you get on! And do share your favourite 20 minutes of fun time! (if you can…) You could spend your twenty minutes day dreaming! Check out this post on Dream and be Happy!

Photo Credit: Melbia

It seems we Britons continue to work the longest hours in Europe. More than 4 million employees in full time roles work more than 48 hours a week (that’s 700,000 more than did during the 1990s), and one in six regularly works more than 60 hours a week.

According to the TUC, the UK working week is now up to 43.5 hours – three hours longer than the European average. It also found 5.26 million Britons work an average of 7.2 hours of unpaid overtime a week. I’m worn out just writing that!

Technology which has made our lives so much easier on so many levels has also meant it’s much harder to escape from work. It’s always there: in our electronic notebook, our whizzy phone or lap top, staring balefully at us from our briefcase like a silent reproach. How long do you wait before succumbing to those emails? And how many times have you been caught up in the  ‘I can send a work email later than you’ game?’ Be honest!

Stress at Work

You may absolutely thrive on stress at work; indeed maybe you can’t get motivated unless there’s an important deadline looming. This is fine if it works for you. For most of us, however, there comes a point when we need to take a break. (See ‘Do You Give Too Much‘) If you let the balance get out of kilter you’ll start to experience the classic symptoms of stress (see Top Five Symptoms of Stress). Play smart and try and stop it before it starts!

Work Life Balance Exercise

Try this for one week. Keep a time diary (otherwise known as a time and motion study on yourself!). As accurately as you can jot down everything you do every day over 7 days with a note of how much time you spend on it. Work could be broken down into tasks if you can manage that. Then you’ll probably have family or friends time, your hobbies, professional development (which includes things like reading a professional magazine). There will be things you do for others and things you do just for you. Just log it, don’t make a value judgement.

Once you have your week’s worth of data sit down in a comfortable chair and look through it. Honestly assess yourself; there is no right or wrong balance to achieve. You will know yourself if it’s getting out of kilter. At different stages of your life you’ll be applying your attention & time in different places. Listen to your intuition; if it feels right it probably is right. But if there is a nagging doubt, pay that doubt some attention and think about some alternative strategies. Get to the stress before it gets to you!

How do you know when your balance is tipping too far in one direction?

Picture Credit: Juanita De Paola

I like the title (heaven knows, I’ve had much worse!) Cats have a lot to teach us; my cats may be a tad atypical as they were rescued at a very young age and were not brought up by a cat, but by me! But this is what I have learned from cats and these could be good lessons for you to follow this week end:

3 Life Coaching Lessons from Cats

• Eat and sleep when you need to, not when others think you should.
• If you need a hug ask for one (although not necessarily by rolling on the ground exposing your furry stomach. You know what I mean!). Let people give you a stroke now and again. And offer the odd snuggle back as you’ll find it results in more hugs!
• To your own self be true. If doing something doesn’t feel right to you, it’s probably not right for you. Trust your instincts and care more about what you think of yourself than what others think of you. Be an individual cool cat!

What life lessons has pet owning taught you? Please share!

Photo Credit: Pepiotana

Stress Management

If you’re going to rise high in an organisation or your business, you’re going to get stressed from time to time. Fact. In fact, stress is a much maligned word and generally used to mean something undesirable. Yet a  bearable amount of stress, like when we venture to try something new, can be enormously beneficial. It can actually advance our careers. It’s getting the balance right  that is difficult. If you always tried to avoid stressful situations you’d never advance, never learn and change your ideas. You’d stay where it’s always comfortable. (This is a significant point for ambitious professional women as generally speaking we emerge from surveys as being risk averse and also as disliking conflict. I’ll cover this in a future post)

When the balance gets out of kilter it can have disastrous consequences, for ourselves, and others. Work overwhelm is a serious business.

Work Life Balance

I was listening to an interesting seminar from Julie Hirst the other day (courtesy of  a Women in Logistics seminar, many thanks to them). Julie had been part of a project which  had run for ten years looking into work life balance and how stress affected people. An interesting distinction emerged. Working long hours which spilled over into your personal life were not such  a huge cause of stress for people at the top of an organisation as for those lower down.

In Control of Your Work

The variable factor is actually feeling in control of what is going on. It’s about having a choice; people who felt this was imposed upon them exhibited other symptoms of stress too. When we feel out of control at work serious ill health is sure to follow and then we are NINETEEN times more likely to make a major error. And I mean major error. The survey invited folk to give examples annonymously of mistakes they had made at work. The results were scary, down to actually causing death.

Having an element of control as a factor in helping manage stress is not surprising. The same thing happens in organisations when they are undergoing significant organisational  change. The feeling of not knowing, of having no control is the one which produces the most stress and leads to higher than average sickness levels.

Top 5 Symptoms of Stress

1) Sleeplessness on a regular basis.

2) Fatigue, again feeling tired most of the time, even when you’ve done little.

3) Inability to focus and concentrate

4) Irritability with others and with self

5) Pains in the neck, head and shoulders.

So, if you tick any of these boxes it’s time to start taking your well being seriously.

Sometimes it’ s impossible to take control of the external events, even if you are at the top. And that’s when we have to look within ourselves. There is one place where we can always have control. We can control and manage how we react to the external events. I don’t mean to sound trite, because it’s not as easy as talking positive (although that is a part of it). But it is possible.  Take steps to recognise your stress and then take steps to address the cause when and however you can. But always, take care of what is within your contol- you and your feelings.

Epictetus: “We are not touched so much by life events themselves but by the view we choose to take of them.” Wise words from a Stoic philospher AD 55-AD 135.  There is always a choice.

How do you manage work place stress? Do please share your ideas. The best thing I ever did to manage my work stress was to run my own business! And there are 3 tips here. Or, try listening to my free visualisation and see if you find that calming. Loads of women have told me how much they love it.  Here’s the article that accompanied it : What’s your perfect working day?

Photo Credit: Irum Shahid

But somehow the week end you had planned doesn’t quite cut the mustard. Your longed for rest and relaxation doesn’t materialise and you find yourself tetchy and irritated for much of the time. People around you are getting on your nerves and maybe you find yourself snapping at those close to you – kids, your partner or friends

You’ve taken that workplace stress home with you and it’s infecting other areas of your life.

3 Tips for Managing Work Place Stress for Women

It’s so easy to do. We know the research – even high fliers at work still end up doing more of the household chores than men (if the stats are to be believed). This is frequently an issue for women who are working with me, either one to one or on my women’s courses; it seems getting the work-life balance right is harder sometimes than getting that promotion!

So here are a few of my tips that have worked with other women.

• Finish work properly.
  By which I mean clear your desk, pack away any files and leave everything ready for Monday. Don’t take work home to sit reproachfully in your briefcase unless you are absolutely sure you a) really have to, and b) will be able to do it. Otherwise you literally have your work at home scuppering your chances of proper relaxation. I know at a certain level working at home is inevitable, but see if you can’t schedule this into the week nights and keep your week ends sacrosanct . You will be more productive the rest of the week for having a proper break. And leaving that desk primed for Monday is sending you a subtle but strong psychogical message.
• Share the chores.
  With a little more  probing it often emerges that women do have partners who are happy to share the chores but there is a undertone of  ‘they won’t do it properly so I’ll only have to do it again. It’s quicker to do it myself‘. If this sounds like you try to adopt the ‘good enough’ principle with some household tasks. Good enough means being good enough, not perfect. Don’t add to your stress by placing excessively high demands on yourself and others. Sometimes we can get a bit of victim mentality as we dash around trying to do it all…
• Take a guilt break.
  Being superwoman all week end (as well as all week!) means you’re on a hiding to nothing and probably quite difficult to be around. Make sure you do something over the week end that is just for you, that helps you recharge your battery. It may be tea in bed with the newspapers for half an hour; it may be a long phone conversation with a friend. Often it’s not a big thing but I find even when women do make time for themselves they tend to feel a bit guilty about it. Men do a lot of rushing around at week ends too. The difference I find is that men don’t tend to have the same feelings of guilt if they can’t do it all, or when they have a game of golf, watch the football, go to an exhibition. Whereas we women can get really good at beating ourselves up.
  Work out what it is you need to do to keep yourself on top form and then make time to do it! (If that’s on your too difficult pile take a look at What Stops You being Assertive?)

Life is a balance, sometimes a very delicate balance, of managing our needs and the needs of others. Remember, though, however many responsibilities you have at work and home, everyone needs a break, space to recharge. Make sure you build some time in for that, your essential maintenance down time! Happy Week end!

Photo Credit: Craig Hauger

Three easy tips for mind de-cluttering

• Bring yourself fully into the present for just three minutes. It’s not long but if you are not used to it you’ll probably need a few goes at it. Whatever you are doing, eating a sandwich say, focus exclusively on it, (assuming you are somewhere safe and don’t eat your sandwich atop some scaffolding like that famous poster!) Look closely at your sandwich, notice the tiny holes in the bread, the way the filling is piled inside.  Take care over the eating of your sandwich and pay attention to what you are about to eat. And as you eat it really savour every mouthful. Notice how the combination of food feels inside your mouth, how long it takes to chew. Try not to allow your mind to wander to what you have to do later. Just focus totally on the task in hand, don’t think about the past, or the future. Be totally in the now.

• Next, focus on how you feel. Do a little mini audit, examine your emotions as well as any physical feelings. Once you’ve identified, for example, that you feel warm and maybe a little irate, work out where these feelings have come from. You may feel warm because you have just run up a flight of stairs, or because the sun is streaming through the windows. Are you warm comfortable? Or warm and uncomfortable? Just notice. Where has that touch of irateness come from? Don’t try to analyse, just notice and evaluate. Perhaps on the run up the stairs you passed someone from the office of a colleague with whom you are in dispute. Until you stop to check out your feelings you may not even have been aware what you are holding onto.

• After you’ve finished your sandwich sit back and look around at your fellow (wo)-man. Again just notice what is happening around you, without making any judgements as to why they are happening. Always coming to a conclusion or making judgements on folk can be mentally draining. Try to suspend your story-making and judging faculties for ten minutes or so, especially if your job requires this of you regularly. If you see someone dressed unusually, for example don’t jump to a judgement about them. Just notice and allow it to wash over you. If someone says something that normally would rile you, just smile and accept it as their point of view.

That’ s your mini mind spa over! Don’t worry if it doesn’t come easily; with a little practice it will and you can give yourself a mind de-clutter in every lunch hour if you wish!

Photo credit: Idemidem

When I am working one to one with people who are experiencing difficulties with colleagues, the issue of personal power is often key in understanding and dealing with the problem. Ask yourself:

“Why are you giving away your power? Why are you letting ‘them’ have this degree of power over you?” (Obviously there are multitude of reasons for that which is why we’re talking in the first place!) Try to fully understand the situation you find yourself in from all angles.

Personal power is a funny thing. You experience a sense of power when you feel in control of your life yet can feel really powerless even if you’re the top woman in your organisation. Feeling powerful helps you achieve your goals.  Projecting personal power appropriately helps you influence others. It’s worth paying attention to it consciously.

Communication is Powerful

Considerable power comes from the ability to communicate really well; think about some of the great orators of our time (and if you’ve seen the film, The King’ s Speech, you’ll appreciate how our influential our upbringing can be, regardless of wealth or status).

People who are in control of their personal power don’t play the blame game much. Once you start blaming, or attributing consequences for you to someone else, you are effectively giving away your power. This commonly translates as:

“They make me feel….”

Stop right there. No one can make you feel anything. It’s the one area you have control. ‘They‘ may wish to make you feel small, insignificant etc but you can choose not to let them sap your personal power in this way. In the free world we all make choices about what we do, where we live, (within reason), who are our friends, what books we read, etc. Once we start allowing other people to control our feelings we are giving away power.

Choose Energy & Optimism

Power includes enthusiasm and optimism and power is related to self-esteem and confidence. So it follows that if you give it away your energy and confidence gets zapped too. And that’s a hard place to recover from. If you find yourself in that position, just ask yourself: “How much will I let this person/situation into my inner personal me. OK, I have to work here,( at the moment), I have to put up with cuts in service, changes in practise, changes in personnel. Or I may choose to stay in this relationship right now for various reasons, but deep within me I can remain intact”.

Become aware of the impact of other people on you, communicate with them assertively but respectfully and keep hold of your personal power!