SHORT
DEFINITION FOR SELF CARE:
An activity that promotes physical and/or emotional wellness
An activity that promotes physical and/or emotional wellness
BEHAVIORAL
INDICATORS FOR SELF CARE:
- I eat healthy foods more often than not
- I drink more water than anything else
- I get enough sleep so when I arrive at work I am rested & ready to go
- I prioritize getting time in nature or with a hobby or just relaxing
- I am physically active at or outside of work (walking, hiking, yoga, etc...)
- Come to work smiling and others will follow you (leadership)
Can positivity result in better work? - A TED Talk by Shawn Achor (click here to view)
Shawn wants us to consider the impact of creating “ripples of
positivity”.
His suggestions for creating positive change include:
- Gratitude: Reflecting on 3 positive things daily - 21 days in a row - creates a pattern
- Journaling: About a positive experience allows you to experience it again
- Exercise: Teaches the brain that our behaviors matter
- Meditation: Just being, focusing on the task at hand
- Random Acts of Kindness: Creating positivity for others...
ARTICLE: 10 Things
Super Successful People Do To Stay Calm
10 THINGS SUPER SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE DO TO STAY CALM
Forbes | by Travis
Bradberry
The ability to manage your
emotions and remain calm under pressure has a direct link to your
performance. TalentSmart has conducted research with more than
a million people, and we’ve found that 90% of top performers are skilled at
managing their emotions in times of stress in order to remain calm and in
control.
They Appreciate What They Have
Taking time to contemplate
what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the “right” thing to do. It also improves
your mood, because it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%. Research
conducted at the University of California, Davis found that people who worked
daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experienced improved mood, energy,
and physical well-being. It’s likely that lower levels of cortisol played a
major role in this.
They Avoid Asking “What If?”
“What if?” statements throw
fuel on the fire of stress and worry. Things can go in a million different
directions, and the more time you spend worrying about the possibilities, the
less time you’ll spend focusing on taking action that will calm you down and
keep your stress under control. Calm people know that asking “what if? will
only take them to a place they don’t want—or need—to go.
They Stay Positive
Positive thoughts help make
stress intermittent by focusing your brain’s attention onto something that is
completely stress-free. You have to give your wandering brain a little help by
consciously selecting something positive to think about. Any positive thought
will do to refocus your attention. When things are going well, and your mood is
good, this is relatively easy. When things are going poorly, and your mind is
flooded with negative thoughts, this can be a challenge. In these moments,
think about your day and identify one positive thing that happened, no matter
how small. If you can’t think of something from the current day, reflect on the
previous day or even the previous week. Or perhaps you’re looking forward to an
exciting event that you can focus your attention on. The point here is that you
must have something positive that you’re ready to shift your attention to when
your thoughts turn negative.
They Disconnect
Given the importance of
keeping stress intermittent, it’s easy to see how taking regular time off the
grid can help keep your stress under control. When you make yourself available
to your work 24/7, you expose yourself to a constant barrage of stressors.
Forcing yourself offline and even—gulp!—turning off your phone gives your body
a break from a constant source of stress. Studies have shown that something as
simple as an email break can lower stress levels. Technology enables constant
communication and the expectation that you should be available 24/7. It is
extremely difficult to enjoy a stress-free moment outside of work when an email
that will change your train of thought and get you thinking (read: stressing)
about work can drop onto your phone at any moment. If detaching yourself from
work-related communication on weekday evenings is too big a challenge, then how
about the weekend? Choose blocks of time where you cut the cord and go offline.
You’ll be amazed at how refreshing these breaks are and how they reduce stress
by putting a mental recharge into your weekly schedule. If you’re worried about
the negative repercussions of taking this step, first try doing it at times
when you’re unlikely to be contacted—maybe Sunday morning. As you grow more
comfortable with it, and as your coworkers begin to accept the time you spend
offline, gradually expand the amount of time you spend away from technology.
They Limit Their Caffeine Intake
Drinking caffeine triggers
the release of adrenaline. Adrenaline is the source of the “fight-or-flight”
response, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for
the hills when faced with a threat. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps
rational thinking in favor of a faster response. This is great when a bear is
chasing you, but not so great when you’re responding to a curt email. When
caffeine puts your brain and body into this hyper-aroused state of stress, your
emotions overrun your behavior. The stress that caffeine creates is far from
intermittent, as its long half-life ensures that it takes its sweet time
working its way out of your body.
They Sleep
I’ve beaten this one to
death over the years and can’t say enough about the importance of sleep to
increasing your emotional intelligence and managing your stress levels. When
you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories
and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams), so that you wake up alert
and clear-headed. Your self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced when
you don’t get enough—or the right kind—of sleep. Sleep deprivation raises
stress hormone levels on its own, even without a stressor present. Stressful
projects often make you feel as if you have no time to sleep, but taking the
time to get a decent night’s sleep is often the one thing keeping you from
getting things under control.
They Squash Negative Self-Talk
A big step in managing
stress involves stopping negative self-talk in its tracks. The more you
ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them. Most of our
negative thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts. When you find yourself
believing the negative and pessimistic things, your inner voice says, “It’s
time to stop and write them down.” Literally stop what you’re doing and write
down what you’re thinking. Once you’ve taken a moment to slow down the negative
momentum of your thoughts, you will be more rational and clear-headed in
evaluating their veracity.
You can bet that your
statements aren’t true any time you use words like “never,” “worst,” “ever,”
etc. If your statements still look like facts once they’re on paper, take them
to a friend or colleague you trust and see if he or she agrees with you. Then
the truth will surely come out. When it feels like something always or never
happens, this is just your brain’s natural threat tendency inflating the
perceived frequency or severity of an event. Identifying and labeling your
thoughts as thoughts by separating them from the facts will help you escape the
cycle of negativity and move toward a positive new outlook.
They Reframe Their Perspective
Stress and worry are fueled
by our own skewed perception of events. It’s easy to think that unrealistic
deadlines, unforgiving bosses, and out-of-control traffic are the reasons we’re
so stressed all the time. You can’t control your circumstances, but you can
control how you respond to them. So before you spend too much time dwelling on
something, take a minute to put the situation in perspective. If you aren’t
sure when you need to do this, try looking for clues that your anxiety may not
be proportional to the stressor. If you’re thinking in broad, sweeping
statements such as “Everything is going wrong” or “Nothing will work out,” then
you need to reframe the situation. A great way to correct this unproductive
thought pattern is to list the specific things that actually are going wrong or
not working out. Most likely you will come up with just some things—not
everything—and the scope of these stressors will look much more limited than it
initially appeared.
They Breathe
The easiest way to make
stress intermittent lies in something that you have to do everyday anyway:
breathing. The practice of being in the moment with your breathing will begin
to train your brain to focus solely on the task at hand and get the stress
monkey off your back. When you’re feeling stressed, take a couple of minutes to
focus on your breathing. Close the door, put away all other distractions, and
just sit in a chair and breathe. The goal is to spend the entire time focused
only on your breathing, which will prevent your mind from wandering. Think
about how it feels to breathe in and out. This sounds simple, but it’s hard to
do for more than a minute or two. It’s all right if you get sidetracked by
another thought; this is sure to happen at the beginning, and you just need to
bring your focus back to your breathing. If staying focused on your breathing
proves to be a real struggle, try counting each breath in and out until you get
to 20, and then start again from 1. Don’t worry if you lose count; you can
always just start over. This task may seem too easy or even a little silly, but
you’ll be surprised by how calm you feel afterward and how much easier it is to
let go of distracting thoughts that otherwise seem to have lodged permanently
inside your brain.
They Use Their Support System
It’s tempting, yet entirely
ineffective, to attempt tackling everything by yourself. To be calm and
productive, you need to recognize your weaknesses and ask for help when you need
it. This means tapping into your support system when a situation is challenging
enough for you to feel overwhelmed. Everyone has someone at work and/or outside
work who is on their team, rooting for them, and ready to help them get the
best from a difficult situation. Identify these individuals in your life and
make an effort to seek their insight and assistance when you need it. Something
as simple as talking about your worries will provide an outlet for your anxiety
and stress and supply you with a new perspective on the situation. Most of the
time, other people can see a solution that you can’t because they are not as
emotionally invested in the situation. Asking for help will mitigate your
stress and strengthen your relationships with those you rely upon.
FURTHER READING:
Book Link - Amazon.com: "The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth” by John Maxwell
Book Link - Amazon.com: "Good and Cheap – Eat Well on 4 $ a Day” by Leann Brown
1 comment:
Thank you for the tips and explanations of some of the behaviors associated with the needs of the body.
I really appreciate the eye opening things needed that I am not achieving.
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