Workplace stress is increasingly becoming a larger part of the conversation since the pandemic.Reports indicate that the number of people seeking help with stress or anxiety has increased by 55%, according to a study by a mental health services provider in the United Kingdom.In 2021, 822,000 workers in the U.K. suffered from work-related stress, depression, or anxiety.

Workplace Stress

Stress is our body's response to pressureOften a sign you've pushed yourself too far without making time to consider whether what you're doing is sustainableAs ambitious high achievers, we ultimately want to go the distance, but going the distance is impossible when struck with migraines, low moods, anxiety, and irritability

The Root Cause Of Stress

<ul><li>Stress is unique to each person. For some, stress is incapacitating, while others actually need a bit of stress to keep them motivated.</li><li>It's easy to slip into the idea that if you take your foot off the pedal, even for one second, everything will come crashing down.</li><li>The issue with this thinking is that you are denying yourself an opportunity to refuel, despite being on a marathon of the mind for years on end.</li></ul>

Take A Break: Things Will Work Without You

<ul><li>Dealing with strain becomes significantly easier when we are fulfilled as people.</li><li>Managing stress becomes a possibility when we've invested the time to become bigger versions of who we are.</li><li>Life as a high achiever comes with challenges, greet those challenges as someone who has been given every possible opportunity to cope with it.</li></ul>

A Bigger Version Of Ourselves

<ul><li>Leaders need to address the responsibility of leaders in the fight against work-related stress</li><li>Creating an environment that prioritizes flexibility, mental and physical well-being, personal growth, and open channels of communication are steps toward combating stress for high achievers.</li></ul>

What Leaders Can Do

For high-achieving professionals working in competitive fields, it’s important to find the best way to preserve your mental resilience.

career

Career

mentalhealth

Mental Health

How to deal with stress while working in a demanding industry

<a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90696814/4-signs-youre-experiencing-burnout-according-to-a-cognitive-scientist">Many factors</a> contribute to burnout, the perpetual weariness along with a disinterest in work. Here are five bad habits that could be barreling you toward burnout and what you can do to turn your situation around.

Burnout

A common burnout reason is that you could have too many responsibilities. This could happen because you say, “Yes,” too often or volunteer for tasks—even though you don’t have the time.To remedy this situation, you’ll need to get clear on how much you can actually handle. Do this through daily and weekly planning where you decide on your priorities and place them in open times in your calendar.

Reasons For Burnout: Saying Yes in Every Circumstance

But sometimes—or in the case of burnt-out people a lot of times—you’re working a second shift in the evening.If you fall into that category, set a cut-off point for when you get off of your computer. That way you have enough time between when you stop working and when you lay down in bed for your mind to calm and unwind.

Working Right until To Bedtime

Longer periods of time off for vacation can definitely help to reduce feelings of fatigue, especially if it’s a <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90664370/us-workers-are-burned-out-could-company-wide-vacations-help">company-wide vacation</a>. Many workers are not even taking any days off on the weekend: They’re literally attempting to work seven days a week. Or if they don’t actually pull out their laptops, they’re at least mentally carrying the load of thinking about work all the time.Take at least one day a week where you don’t allow yourself to work at all: no meetings, no project work, no email checking, no messaging, no nothing related to your job.

No Off Days

There are some activities that you can truly only do for yourself like sleep, exercise, or making important decisions for which you’re directly responsible. But there are many tasks where you could ask others to do them or at least get some support on the overall goal.You don’t have to do everything by yourself. Asking others for support not only saves you time but also leads to a positive emotional state that can elevate you out of the cynicism associated with burnout.

Doing Everything Yourself

When you skip out on what you find really fun—whether it’s time with friends, exercising, playing with your dog, spending time with your kids, doing a craft, or simply being outside in nature—you end up taking breaks anyway but on activities that aren’t nearly as refreshing, such as scrolling on your phone.Fun isn’t the thing that you do once you get 100% done with work—which is unlikely to happen because it keeps coming. Fun is what you do that helps fuel you to have the energy to get all the work done.

No Fun!

productivity

Productivity

timemanagement

Time Management

5 habits that are barreling you towards burnout

After two years of the pandemic, employees feel more burned out and stressed. Most people have been working remotely, feeling isolated and uncertain of the future. This has taken its toll on our mental health, resulting in a record number of employees quitting their jobs. In the face of the great resignation, the question is how to get employees to stay. Marilyn Suttle, wellbeing author, speaker, and coach, explains wellbeing practices in and outside the workplace and how to equip employees to deal with stressful situations.

Wellbeing in and outside the workplace

Wellbeing is a sense of ease, peace of mind and even happiness. When your employees lack that sense of wellbeing, it affects their productivity, teamwork, and customer interactions. Career wellbeing depends on creating a sense of social support in the workplace where you can gain skills and practice. As a leader, it’s your job to create a stimulating atmosphere where employees feel appreciated and have room to make mistakes and grow.

Employee wellbeing

<ul><li>Physical wellbeing. Physical wellbeing should be encouraged in the workplace. How are people sitting at their computers? How would someone look if their body was in a state of wellbeing?</li><li>Career wellbeing. People want to be appreciated for good work and want to know there's room for growth. Leaders can focus on mistakes or see them as tuition towards education and accelerated learning.</li><li>Emotional wellbeing. Employers should create an environment where stress isn’t seen as a threat but as a challenge.</li></ul>

Pillars of employee wellbeing 

Breathing slowly and counting to 10 triggers a relaxation response in your nervous system, helping you calm down when stressed. When you count, it reactivates your logic centres. The best way to be fully present is to savour the moment. Take a minute to enjoy the good things, even if it’s just a warm cup of coffee or taking a walk.

Breathing can help restore wellbeing

In a stressful situation, we tend to be more focused on the story we tell ourselves than the facts and exaggerate the action we should take. When you say, "This is the worst day ever," is it true? When you're in a stressful situation and can't think of what to do, asking yourself: “Is it really as bad as I think it is?” can help you challenge overwhelming feelings and see things more clearly.

Challenge your story

Many companies are taking employee wellbeing seriously. They are putting initiatives together and changing their culture to include that.  The problem is that work and life are integrated and it's never going back. To thrive in a hybrid situation, we need to embrace how to create a culture of wellbeing.

The future of employee wellbeing

In our recently published Customer Support Trends Report for 2022 a significant 64% of support leaders say their team have felt “burned out” in the past 12 months. Companies that focus on their wellbeing will be the ones to thrive. That's why this week on Inside Intercom we spoke to wellbeing coach Marilyn Suttle about wellbeing practices in and outside the workplace and how to restore good feelings after dealing with stressful situations.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

mindfulness

Mindfulness

podcasts

Podcasts

On Inside Intercom you'll hear the team from Intercom interview makers and do-ers from the worlds of product management, design, startups and marketing.

Inside Intercom

Wellbeing coach Marilyn Suttle on curbing burnout and attrition

There’s the cultural messaging we’ve received our whole lives that putting in more hours and more effort ensures our success, even though discerning what to put your effort into is far more important than blanketing your life in hard work. The stats on overwork also show a huge risk to health. Study shows us that we don’t change our minds even when given new, factual information that proves our previous beliefs wrong. Dialing it back is smart for both our productivity and our health, we have trouble giving ourselves permission to do it.

More Work Hours is Less Effective 🕤

We have a choice to continue our old behavior of blowing past our boundaries to parts of our life outside of work.In those moments Ask yourself "what if I don't do this today?" You’ll probably be behind tomorrow, ask yourself again: Then what? Keep digging until you get to the core story. It will often be like, “I’ll lose my job and then lose everything.” And Then Ask yourself: Is it true? In most situations, probably not. Taking a few minutes to interrupt your automatic thoughts, feelings, and behavior makes it more likely that you can make a change.

Then What?

S<a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-45131-001">haring your goal with someone</a> you perceive as having higher status or you respect, holds you accountable for doing it because you care about their opinion of you. The person you share your goal with doesn’t have to be within your company. It could be a mentor, friend, or family member who you admire for their ability to do great work while also giving themselves permission to live their life to the fullest. They might also offer helpful guidance to you about how they gave themselves permission to dial it back that you can then follow.

Share with someone you respect 

D<a href="https://hbr.org/2020/05/want-to-be-more-productive-try-doing-less">o a 80/20 analysis</a> and determine what 20% of tasks or projects give you 80% of the results at work.  <ul><li>List your biggest wins at work (the results you’re after, or your top goals) on one side of a piece of paper and the tasks you do on a daily basis on the left. </li><li>Draw a line from each of the big wins to the tasks that were most directly responsible for that outcome. Circle the tasks that have lines drawn from them. That’s your 20%.</li></ul>You can now give time and energy to the things that matter, and you can see the other areas where you can dial it back, delegate, or eliminate things altogether.

Go all-in on what matters

It's common for people to wish they hadn’t worked so much when they’re on their deathbed. When you feel stuck in an old pattern and have difficulty changing your behavior, fast-forward and ask your 85-year-old self what they would wish they would have done at the current stage of your life. Doing so allows you to see the bigger picture, rather than the deadlines or stressors that are your immediate focus at that time. Giving yourself permission to dial it back (even a little) has the potential to drastically improve your results and protect your health. Work Hard and do work that matters

Fast forward ⏩

Four strategies to help you convince yourself.

Burning Out? Give Yourself Permission to Dial It Back.

Whenever we reach for our phones when we're bored we want to relieve feelings of fatigue and boredom, but a study suggests that doing so only increases those feelings even more.The study's results showed that even though we're on our phones a lot, we still take "phone breaks" every 20 minutes or so and spend about 90 seconds every time.

When Boredom Strikes

There are two speculated reasons as to why we're more bored after taking phone breaks;<ul><li> Switching from work to your phone and back again may end up being more mentally tiring than it is stimulating; and</li><li>Picking up our phones might serve as reminders of all the fun we could be doing instead of doing work-related things.</li></ul>

Increased Boredom After Phone Breaks

<ul><li>Practice mindfulness and drink a hot beverage -- tea, coffee, cocoa;</li><li>Take a walk down the block or in a park;</li><li>Sketch something or doodle;</li><li>Talk to someone -- having a simple conversation with someone you like talking to is a mood booster; or</li><li>Read a book, a couple pages or chapters, depends on how long you plan on taking a break!</li></ul>

How To Take Better Breaks

You think your phone will relieve your boredom, but science shows it's more likely to increase it.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

product

Product & Design

A Warning From Science: Looking at Your Phone Will Just Make You More Bored

In the age of artificial intelligence, there is a growing number of devices that communicate with us. We give them names like &quot;Siri&quot; and &quot;Alexa&quot; and don&#39;t find them threatening - until they are given a face.
Evolving technology can create robots that look like people, but it is also at this point where people start to object. Once you can make eye contact with a machine, it starts to look like a horror movie.

People feel threatened by human-like computers

<ul>
<li>On the extreme, a Swedish manufacturer produced robot clones of a loved one who has died. The robots can control speech, has the capacity for facial recognition and other artificial intelligence capabilities.</li>
<li>During the pandemic lockdown, the supplier Silicone Lovers experienced an increase in demand for these dolls.</li>
</ul>
The dolls cost $5,000 to $10,000 plus an added charge of $3,000 to $5,000 for the printing cost, but most people won&#39;t buy one because of the unease it creates.

Realistic robots are profitable

Research explored some of the reasons people view robots that are too realistic as creepy.
<ul>
<li>Human replicas cause creepy perceptions, known as the &quot;uncanny valley.&quot; They found that exposure over time decreases the perception of uncanniness.</li>
<li>While robots can have some human features, there can be too much of a good thing. That can produce feelings of unease, eeriness, and revulsion.</li>
</ul>
Perhaps that is why animated dolls are more associated with characters in nightmares, regardless of usefulness.

Realistic robots feels creepy

In many jobs, artificial intelligence is replacing real people. But we are very unsettled when robots look real.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

artificialintelligence

Artificial Intelligence

Why We Are Unsettled by Robots That Look Too Realistic 

There are two prevailing ideas about how success happens:
<ol>
<li>A challenge presents itself. You rise to the occasion, follow your inspiration that sparks a process and leads to victory.</li>
<li>You start a business, grow it steadily, and consistently reap the benefits.</li>
</ol>
The first story is exciting, while the second is just boring. Success in the second case is primarily invisible because it doesn't feel like anything. It is also the most common form of success.

How success happens

It is not the mechanism for getting results. Progress is often dull and invisible and moving along eventually results in success. 
Inspiration is simple because it gives a surge of motivation to overcome obstacles. But systems that help us to get results are not. They need careful planning that can help you make gradual progress without risking exhaustion.

Inspiration is a good starting point

Inspiration vs systems is an oversimplification because motivation is often part of the system.
<ul>
<li>Motivation can help us over challenging goals.</li>
<li>Many goals are really external motivators that motivate us inconsistently.</li>
</ul>
If we can view motivation as a kind of system, we can consider how we can make adjustments to guide our goals.

Motivation as a system

Instead of major inspiration that leads to action, it's the subtle systems that give results over time.
When we understand this, the attitude we need is curiosity, not just bravery. Success is primarily the result of careful design, not inspiration.

The factors that create success are invisible

There are two stories about how success happens. One is overcoming a heroic challenge. The other is a lot more subtle...

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

habits

Habits

Inspiration is Overrated | Scott H Young

Clear-cut, zero-tolerance decisions and self-commitments are better than having to decide every time, or committing conditionally.
A 100 percent decision is better than a conditional decision, which can lead to decision fatigue and waste your limited willpower.

100 Percent Commitment

If you are only 90 percent committed to your goal (like following a certain diet, for example) you have to ask yourself and test your commitment multiple times a day.
You end up unable to predict your behaviour, and any future outcomes. By having a loose commitment setting in your mind, you are bound to deal with decision fatigue and see yourself repeatedly fail, lowering your confidence.

Loose Commitment And Decision Fatigue

When the commitment is 100 percent, your future behaviour is already set in stone, with no back-and-forth struggle and revisiting of the decision-making condition.
When your best friend offers you a Coke, you know very well that the decision to not have anything like that is already made, and it is easy to say no.

Setting In Stone Future Behavior

“Once I made a decision, I never thought about it again.”

“We are kept from our goal not by our obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal."

It states that motivation requires simplicity and clarity. 
Any complex flow chart or decision matrix decreases your chances of success. A clear outcome and resultant progress also improve your confidence.

Expectancy Theory

<ol>
<li>Implementation Intentions: A pre-planned, pre-configured response, that is automatically coming when you are triggered or coaxed into doing something that you don’t want to.</li>
<li>Future Self Concept: Asking your future self the same decision that is put on you, instead of answering it with your current self.</li>
</ol>

Two Strategies For Decision Making

problemsolving

Problem Solving

The 100 Percent Rule That Makes Life a Lot Easier

Practical wisdom is the answer to the question: How best shall one live?
The Value Fulfillment Theory states that wisdom is the skill sets, dispositions, and policies that help us understand and make use of the means and ends to live. This includes the capacity to see and refine one’s values, along with the traits of self-awareness, open-mindedness, humility, and perspective.

The Meaning Of Wisdom

The Value Fulfillment theory assumes that most people have different values, but are the same at a universal level. Human nature can be simplified by taking the most common values and perspectives on what a good life should be.
Individuals struggle, and through their personal journey of pain, suffering, misery, and other colors of life, experience real growth and are in the right mindset to grapple with the essential question of life. Without the journey, the questions are mere theory, and would not be actively confronted by most people.

The Value Fulfillment Theory: Values Are Personal

“We don’t want suffering, but [unwittingly] cherish and chase after its causes.”

The Value Fulfillment Theory provides us with a sensible way to understand how ours and others lives could be better. How our choices influence our value fulfilment and helps us reflect on the question: What truly matters to us?
Our values have in-built motivation inside, along with unique perspectives. By focusing on our ultimate or core values, we go beyond unwanted polarizations and orient ourselves towards what is fundamentally important.

The Pursuit Of Happiness And Well-Being

What do our values have to do with wisdom and well-being?

philosophy

Philosophy

communication

Communication

Wisdom and Value-Fulfillment

The snowy hill represents the brain, the people sledding are like the memories, and the trails left behind are the synapses in the brain.Think of the brain as a hill covered in snow, and thoughts as sleds gliding down that hill. As one sled after another goes down the hill a small number of main trails will appear in the snow. And every time a new sled goes down, it will be drawn into preexisting trails, almost like a magnet. In time it becomes more and more difficulty to glide down the hill on any other path or in a different direction.

The Brain as a Snowy Hill

A method to enhance memory using visualizations with the use of spatial memory.<ol><li>Choose a place that you know really well.</li><li>Plan the route and pick specific locations in your route.</li><li>Decide what you want to memorize</li><li>Place an object or two, with a mental image, and place them in your memory palace. Exaggerate your images. For example, use nudity or crazy images forcing it to stick in your mind.</li><li>Make the image into a mnemonic</li></ol>

Memory Palace/The Method of Loci

A memory device that helps you retain and retrieve information simply with the use of retrieval cues to encode information in the brain.<ol><li>List the words you want to remember.</li><li>Write the initials of each word vertically.</li><li>Create a sentence/phrase using the initials.</li></ol>

Mnemonics

... is a technique in memorizing lists by memorizing the words that rhyme with a number easy to associate with the word you want to remember. <ol><li>Assign an easy word that rhymes with every number. For example: 0 = hero, 1 = bun, 2 = shoe, 3 = tree, ...</li><li>Associate the words you want to remember with the number system you created.</li></ol>

Mnemonic Peg System

... is a way to remember large bits of information by chunking them into smaller pieces of information.<ol><li>Write down the numbers or content you want to remember.</li><li>Cut the numbers to segments or divide the content to phrases through chunking.</li></ol>

Chunking

... is a way to learn something in one area and apply it to another.<ul><li>Vertical Transfer/Far Transfer: Learning of something in the early years and applying it later in life. </li><li>Horizontal Transfer/Near Transfer: Learning a concept from a certain subject and applying it to another.</li></ul>

Transfer by Learning

I'm sure you've come across ' morning routines ' being talked about as something very important if you want to be healthy and successful. However, I'm guessing you haven't heard of 'night routines' being talked about so much. Night routines are not popular, as sticking to a healthy routine isn't easy, especially at night after a whole day of work.

How to deal with stress while working in a demanding industry

5 habits that are barreling you towards burnout

Wellbeing coach Marilyn Suttle on curbing burnout and attrition

Burning Out? Give Yourself Permission to Dial It Back.

A Warning From Science: Looking at Your Phone Will Just Make You More Bored

Zoe Weiss