It sometimes feels like resilience is a dirty word. Whispered in hushed tones in corridors in case over heard. Or spoken out loud as a rallying call to try harder and be stronger. It shouldn’t be this way. Resilience is crucial to a productive life but in social work it is in danger of being shouted down as a take over bid by mangers to make staff do more with less.
The claim I hear most is just that. Managers want to individualise the problem to the social worker, make them be more resilient, and therefore be able to give them more work. I don’t find this to be the case. At worst managers clutch at the straw offered by resilience as a way of keeping their teams well and intact. At best they see it as a real opportunity to develop a confident, satisfied workforce, comfortable with being at work.
Resilience isn’t a silver bullet to fix all of the problems in social work, or indeed to ensure everyone stays well – we all have our point at which resilience gives out. But, by enhancing people’s ability to cope with the rigours of life we do enhance their resilience and they have a better, but maybe not perfect, time of it at home and at work. You can’t separate the two. Stress created at work is carried home and stress created at home is carried to work. We need to embrace the challenge of being resilient everywhere and not artificially separate the two.
It’s about more than emotions. While emotional resilience is important it is underpinned by,and functions alongside, practical and physical resilience. These are what I describe as the three pillars of resilience:
Physical Practical Emotional
And I place them in that order deliberately because that’s how I see them operating.
Physical You must be sleeping well, eating well and being physically active. If you are going to focus on one thing first you must get your sleep right. You can read more HERE and HERE. Then you can work on nutrition and exercise. Without getting sleep right you are unlikely to have the motivation to get these other things on track. The social work office can be a minefield when it comes to eating well and I share some tips HERE. We also can’t overlook the reality of the connection between our gut and our brain MORE HERE. Finally you need to move some, or more, depending on how much you are moving already. Research has shown that regular exercise (in the study it was three 40 minute power walks a week for a year) causes growth in your hippocampus. This is part of your brain that is key in memory, emotional regulation and more. It can be referred to as the brake to your amygdala which is the part of your brain that is largely responsible for your fight or flight response to stress. You can read more HERE
Practical You are not going to be able to fit everything in to your time without being organised. Clinically organised I’d suggest! How you manage your diary, how you allocate your time and how you keep track of all of the things you do is crucial. Have a look through the PRODUCTIVITY section of this web site. Or the BEING ORGANISED section of our sister web site Self Care Shorts.
What you will find in the links above is that all of these things promote our ability to manage our emotional responses to what we are confronted with in all areas of our lives.
Small steps repeated over time lead to big changes.
None of these things in isolation will make a great deal of difference but add lots of small changes together and you will bring down what I refer to as ‘base line’ stress – the stress we carry with is all of the time. The good stress that motivates us. By bringing this level down through implementing strategies in relation to our physical well-being and our productivity we will have more headroom to ride the challenges without hitting our stress ceiling and becoming unwell. Long before we become unwell we become demotivated and prone to procrastination and that simply makes matters worse.
“Control it or it will control you”, as David Allen says.
2023 is set to be a great year don’t you think!There are some things that I need to absolutely focus on! There are some things I need to do better and there are some things I could do with doing a little less! Now though is a good time for me to embarking on a mission of self improvement. Things are settled. We’re in our new house and have managed to get done some of the things that needed doing and this will hopefully free up some time, some enthusiasm and some psychological capacity to achieve more. Here are the things I’m going to do and I’d urge you to do!
Get outside more
I love to run and cycle. I enjoy a good walk. Over the last couple of months I’ve started going to more gym classes so, while this is not a bad thing, it’s meant less outside time. And I love outside time! What are the benefits of being outside..
You will experience a great sense of well-being. Breathing in fresh air, embracing the space around you, feeling the cold upon your cheek. Even at this time of year getting wrapped up and going out for a walk will give you a boast.
And you’ll burn some calories! And let’s be honest we’re probably about to have too many of them in the next week or so! For those a little fitter get your running shoes on, on get your bike out and go out and get breathless and feel that cool refreshing air in your lung. Outdoor workouts are better than indoor ones. For example, running. Outdoors you are contending with different terrains or you are running against the wind… all better for you than the treadmill I feel!
This one is simple. Just experience what is currently happening to you. The water on your skin in the shower, the air passing into and out of your lungs, the taste of the food in your mouth, the song on the radio….. Do any of these things or any others to the exclusion of other thoughts and distractions. The benefits of simply taking some time out to be mindful of a particular thing will reap benefits. Before you know where you are at you might find yourself wanting to try meditation! You never know!
Get myself (more!) organised
Being organised gives you a great sense of control and fuels your well being. As I’m fond of saying – if you don’t control it then it will control you. Try applying the two minute rule or grab a copy of David Allen’s book ‘Getting Things Done’. I can tell you, hand on heart, at work and at home my life is so much better for getting myself organised. I can do it better though, especially at home, to make sure I make the most productive use of the time I have. For me time is the most precious commodity we have and we waste it at our peril.
Drink more water
This one should be easy to do surely! How hard can it be to go to the tap and fill a glass up and just drink it! I know!! So why don’t I do it! I even have my phone remind me to drink water every few hours and still I don’t drink enough! Water is refreshing, calorie free, and it’s absolutely crucial for you body to function effectively. So come on! Flush those kidneys and feel great. More on this here.
Drink less coffee and alcohol
I don’t know how this one is going to go for me! I love coffee! And I do like the odd tipple on an evening. I read somewhere drinking coffee borrows time from later in the day…. You will crash later and be less productive. And drinking alcohol borrows time from tomorrow as it will affect your sleep and therefore your feeling of well being the next day. Must try harder!
Read for 15 minutes a day
I read every day. Knowledge is life improving, how could it not be! Reading for 15 minutes a day at an average speed of a page a minute will get you through a 300 page book in 20 days. That will get you through at least 15 books a year. Not a bad start to enhancing your knowledge! And I bet if you get the habit you’ll read more! Add the next thing on the list in and you’ll be amassing information at a fair rate of knots!
Embrace audio books
Time is the most precious of commodities and I want to put as much of it as I can to good use. It takes me 40 minutes to drive to work and the same to get back home or 30 minutes to walk the dog. Sometimes I listen to music – that’s a good thing. Sometimes I listen to the news on Radio 4….. but now mostly I listen to audio books and they are great! I get mine through Audible. They download to my iphone and play through the car stereo seamlessly! The books are anything from 4 to 7 hours long and one lasts me through most of the month when interspersed with other things…. And that’s another 12 books in a year… done! Sorted!
Set small achievable goals
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! Several books I’ve read talk about setting achievable goals and some of the models I talk about in some workshops show that breaking down big tasks into smaller steps achieve progress. Problems or projects seem daunting when you just think of the end goal. But if you think of the many small steps and tackle them one at a time you stand more chance of achieving success! My goal for this year is weight loss – more about the steps I’m taking later. I’m read Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results by Stephen Guise where he talks about setting himself the target of doing one sit up a day… that was all! Just one! And he explores where that got him! Worth a read!
Sit quietly from time to time
This is a bit like ‘getting lost in a moment’ but slightly different. Getting lost in a moment can be about getting engrossed in an activity. But sometimes we need to just sit quietly. It could be, but doesn’t need to be, meditation. It could be sitting quietly while clearing your mind but, for me, more than this, sitting quietly can be a time for you to think things though in a calm, focussed way. In the rushing about of modern life our responses are, dare I say, reactionary rather than well thought through often. I’m going to sit and experience time just passing in a quiet state from time to time, maybe first thing on a morning…. Now that’s good use of time!
Once a month mix it up
Don’t get into a rut. For all the things above keep mixing it up. Been out running a lot this month? Then next month go out walking! Been spending quiet time on a morning? Then, for the next month do it on your lunch break… you get the idea. From an exercise point of view your body gets used to what you ask it to do so mixing it up challenges it to ‘re-think’. As for your mind, giving yourself space at different or being in the moment for different experiences will help you understand yourself and what works for you and what will, hopefully, lead you to a greater sense of well-being, a greater sense of inner-peace.
I’m going to try all of these things and I’ll let you know how I get on. Let me know what you get up to!
I’ve got into the habit when talking to people about self-care of finding myself often saying, “all we are doing here is playing psychological tricks on ourselves to get the best out of ourselves so ‘ourselves’ stop getting in the way”.
There’s a funny thing goes on in my head when I go for a run. Sometimes I head off and run a big loop but sometimes I run laps close to home. I have a route that is ‘near as damn it’ exactly a mile long and I have another route that is ‘as near as damn it’ one and a half miles long. If I want to run three miles I find it easier to run the longer route than the shorter one because I only have to do two loops and I’m done! On the shorter one I have to do 3 loops and that, psychologically, seems so much harder. Which is daft really because either way, it’s 3 miles! But it’s a very real thing. In fact, sometimes (like today) when I get to the end of the 3 miles on the 2-lap route, I think, well I might as do another lap because I usually have to! What’s that all about!
Everything we do has a psychological element to it that we can either let get in the way, make work for us, or use to trick us into convincing ourselves that something is a good idea.
Lockdown is difficult for a lot of us. Many people I sense are finding it hard to motivate themselves to do things they would usually just get on and do. Exercise is a good example of this. Lots of people seem to be finding it harder to motivate themselves to do what they know already is good for them.
How can we overcome that moment of inertia when, at the end of a busy day we know we should take some exercise but we just don’t feel like it.
Firstly, let’s give ourselves a break and in some ways identify the problem. When you are feeling stressed you don’t feel like exercising. This is a fact – well researched – well established. An American study from Yale University tested this out and found that levels of stress are a predictor for low physical activity. But it’s a double bind because exercise is a great stress buster. Indeed the same Yale University study showed that those who managed 30 minutes of exercise during the day experienced a reduction in stress.
There are lots of reasons why this might be and all have been researched. Which it is for you is probably down to your own uniqueness! For some the exercise simply takes their attention away from the thing that’s causing them stress and gives them a break from it so they can return to it refreshed.
For others it could the rush of feel good endorphins, the ‘runners high’ you might have heard of. It could be that our stress response, the fight or flight adrenaline and cortisol rush, readies us for physical activity, so in doing something physical we ‘burn off’ these chemicals and we return our body to a state of calm. We in effect ‘took flight’.
So, given exercise is good for us, how do we get past our inertia?
We need to plan for our future self – arrange what it is our future self needs to do. Then, trust our past self to have arranged things that are good for us. The just do them at the moment our past self planned them, safe in the knowledge that our future self will thank us for doing what we planned!
When we try to imagine our future we are strongly influenced by how we are feeling in the present moment. So if you try to imagine what something later in the week will be like when you are experiencing a tiring Thursday and you are just a tad grumpy and ‘down-in-the-mouth’ you are likely to think about the future event negatively. ‘That run will be hard work’, ‘Getting my gear on to do the online workout will be sooooo time consuming!’ And the same works the other way – if you are in a good place then you will think positively about the future. (See Daniel Gilbert’s book ‘Stumbling on Happiness’ for more – Professor Gilbert has spent his life studying the psychology of happiness – he knows his stuff!)
So, how do we make this psychological quirk work for us. Let’s keep going with the exercise example. When on a weekend are you feeling in a good place? I find I have a sweet spot that usually occurs early afternoon on a Sunday. I’m feeling rested and I’m not yet grumpy because it’s nearly time for work again. In this sweet spot I plan my exercise for the week because I’m feeling at the top of my game in terms of motivation. I still keep my planning realistic. I bring the future into the present so I can do something with it. I plan what I will do. I remind myself that about 20 minutes a day is sufficient and if I can do more great!
Then, my week starts. And, as we know, motivation wanes as the week goes on and stress rises. So when I spot at 5.30 on Wednesday evening that my diary says ‘3-mile run’ I trust my past self, when I was in a good place to have thought, ‘I’m going to need something to pick me up by Wednesday and I’ll feel great after a run. Clear headed, invigorated, and if I get some exercise I’ll probably sleep well’. Had I left my planning for exercise on Wednesday until I got home at 5.30 I would probably have said, ‘I can’t be bothered, stuff it, where’s the wine’. Familiar?
In that moment when you think, ‘I can’t be bothered with this running thing in my diary’, you have to trust your past self to have done the right thing for your future self and thought, when in a good place, he’s going to NEED a run by Wednesday. On Wednesday his future self will thank his past self for insisting he went for a run!
There is great power in planning. And there is great power in trusting what you have planned. David Allen (productivity guru of the highest order) says you can’t plan and do at the same time and this is why. The feelings of past self, present self, and future self will get all confused. Our ‘selves’ need to find a good positive moment and plan for our future selves so when we hit that ‘present’ moment we can be fully in that present moment knowing that this must be the best thing that can be done right now or why would I have planned it so!?
Plan. Then deliver on the plan. You’ll thank your past self in the future for knowing what will be good for you.
I think you know this already but maybe don’t acknowledge it or feel you can do anything about it? Motivation is finite. The further you get into the day the less of it you have at your disposal. The perfect time to top it up is lunch time! So here are the Lunch Break Rules!
Rule Number 1: Take a lunch break! Don’t feel guilty. I remember a poster in a senior manager’s office that said – Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t make it right, and just because no one is doing it doesn’t make it wrong. We need to overturn this ethos that you are somehow more worthy if you work through your lunch break. The reality is taking a break makes you more productive in the afternoon. You will get back the time ‘lost’ to the lunch break in increased productivity. A study at Bristol University showed that a lunch break (with some gentle exercise – see rule 4) boosted mood and motivation by 41% and improved peoples ability to deal with stress by 20%. Put some motivation in the bank. Oh…. and you are legally entitled to a break. Just saying!
Rule Number 2: Move away from your desk. There is strong evidence that simply taking time away from your desk and moving your thoughts onto something else replenishes your ability to stay on task when you return to work. In fact when you take your attention away from the external and take some time to be a little more internal through ‘switching off’ and thinking of nothing, maybe through meditation (or just by not thinking too much!), you engage your brain’s Default Mode Network. This is the part of your brain that gets to work when you stop engaging with the external world. Interestingly your brain is only 5 to 10% less active when you are not thinking about anything. That’s your DMN getting to work on what it needs to do at a sub-conscious level, consolidating things, making connections, and the like. You must have experienced something coming to mind, a solution to a problem maybe, when you weren’t even trying to solve it. So get away from work, get away from your desk.
Rule Number 3: Get outside. Being in the natural world is a great healer. If you work somewhere where you can spend some time in a green space then do it. We are hard wired from an evolutionary point of view to be in such spaces. They have a calming effect. And fresh air is good for you. Moving around is good for you. And that brings us to rule number 4…..
Get Outside
Rule Number 4: Take some gentle exercise. I’ve already mentioned the Bristol Study above that involved some gentle exercise. A different study looked at how sitting less and moving more helped peoples productivity. They showed that a lunch time walk reduced stress, reduced sickness in staff, and led to more mindful practice. A walk will suffice but him the gym or go for a run if you want! As the UK Chief Medical Officer says…. some is good… more is better!
So…. You must achieve Rule 1!And then… if you can achieve 1 or 2 of rules 2, 3, and 4 – we’re onto a winner!
Earlier this week I was talking to a group of final year students at the University where I work about self care. They are currently entering their final stages of their undergraduate degree, on placement, writing dissertations, and balancing all of that with family and personal life. I mentioned the importance of exercise and one student rightly observed, “how am I meant to fit exercise in when I have so much to do!?” This got me thinking over the following days, “How do you fit self-care in when you have many things demanding your time?” I began to ponder how much self care can you get away with?
This has dominated my thoughts for the last few days. The problem here is that if you encourage people to do just enough then they’ll do just enough. The Chief Medical Officer in the UK, writing about how much exercise is enough, rightly says, “some is good, more is better”. I’m reminded of the zen adage that you should spend 20 minutes in meditation every day unless you are too busy to do so. In which case you should spend an hour in meditation! That’s because, if you have a colossal amount to do then you need the gains from effective self care more than someone who doesn’t have much to do.
I spent the last few months of 2019 incredibly busy. I looked back through my diary in early January of 2020 and noticed that not a day had gone by between mid September and mid December where I hadn’t done some sort of work for at least a few hours every day, even weekends. My self-care did suffer. But, I maintained a level of self care that meant I remained productive. I had to! there was so much to do! So that got me thinking that maybe there is a minimal level you should engage in to ensure that you get through, remain well, and stay focussed and productive. Maybe there is a baseline that you shouldn’t drop below until you reach a point where you can do more. “Some is good, more is better”.
My journey to understand how exercise, nutrition, sleep and being organised improve productivity has led me to conclude that if you don’t get these things right consistently your mental and physical well-being will suffer. Not might. Will. So…. can just enough ever be enough?
Dr Ranjan Chatterjee (author of the The Four Pillar Plan – that explores well-being) refers to exercise as a gateway habit. If we can establish exercise as a routine then we will be able to establish routines in other places. Exercise can be uncomfortable and hard going but if we can apply ourselves to it then it helps us drive ourselves to manage other challenges that make us feel uncomfortable. It helps us manage our stress response. Exercise though is merely a subset of being ‘physically active’. We don’t need to be gym bunnies or marathon runners for physical activity to have a positive impact on our well being and productivity.
The Chief Medical Officer recommends 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week. That’s just over 20 minutes per day. Are you telling me you can’t achieve that? Park the car and walk the long way to the office – 5 to 10 minutes. Walk back to the car at the end of the day the same way – 5 to 10 minutes. Take a lunch break and walk outside for 15 minutes (and have something to eat away from the desk). That’s easily more than 20 minutes. Add in things like getting up from your desk and walking to a colleagues office to talk to them rather than phoning them and you’re upping your step count. If you want to do ‘more’ and improve your response, you can do more by doing less. You could aim for 75 minutes of vigorous activity, also recommended by the Chief Medical Officer in the UK. That’s just over half an hour twice a week, or just over 1 (that’s one, ‘1’, uno) gym session per week. You can achieve enough moderate exercise as I describe above to off-set the 15 minutes vigorous exercise you are short by doing maybe 30 minutes of gentle exercise over the week. So, a combination of vigorous and moderate exercise to hit the target.
The benefits are huge. Exercise ‘burns off’ the cortisol and adrenaline that are your bodies response to stress. Too much of these hormones in your body, over the long term, cause serious health problems. In fact excessive cortisol has been linked to depression. Exercise generates the production of serotonin, noradrenaline and dopamine which makes us feel good. Dopamine is the brains reward system and fuels motivation and drive. You will work more productively as a consequence. These levels are increased after just one bout of vigorous exercise and to a lesser extent after moderate exercise, but still elevated nevertheless.
But there’s something else… Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), is a protein that stimulates the production of new brain cells and strengthens existing ones. When you release BDNF it helps grow brand new brain cells and pathways. High levels of BDNF makes you learn faster and remember better. BDNF also increases your brain’s plasticity – it’s ability to adapt. When you face stressful situations BDNF protects brain cells and helps them come back stronger. Exercise naturally raises levels of BDNF in your body. Cardiovascular exercise is best and, while a one-off session does no harm, BDNF increases more effectively with regular engagement in exercise.
So, how much exercise is enough. What’s the minimum you can get away with? The answer is in what you have just read. 150 minutes of moderate exercise, or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise, per week. This level of exercise may well be sufficient to maintain your well-being in the short term but…. Some is good, more is better.
The other two elements of the self-care triangle, sleep and nutrition, I feel, are largely non negotiable. You need to eat. But you need to make sensible choices. An increasing body of research is showing that you are what you eat. Or at the very least your emotions are driven by what you eat. Your gut biome – the microbes in your gut, have a significant impact on your emotions and emotional reactions. A healthy diet, free from additives and excess sugar, and rooted in fresh produce is best. You can read more here. The office environment can also be a hellish experience of a steady supply of cake and biscuits and busy people tend to grab something to eat on the go and often make poor choices. Planning is everything. You can read more here and get some tips.
Then there’s no getting away from the need for 8 hours sleep. Ideally from about 10/10.30 to 6/6.30. You can read more here and here. But, what I know, because people tell me and I’ve expereinced it myself, is that the ‘churn’ of things to do keeps you awake or has you tossing and turning in the early hours. The secret here for me is having a trusted system – your diary, a spreadsheet, a to-do list – whatever works for you – that captures everything in your sphere of responsibility so that you can go to bed not worried about remembering what you need to do tomorrow. If it’s all in a system somewhere (and I wholeheartedly recommend David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology – it’s what I use) then research has shown that it helps alleviate some, if not all, of the stress associated with what is to do.
Even with such a system it can be difficult to get to sleep when it’s not what is to be done that’s troubling you but rather the emotional content of what you have been involved in or need to be involved in. Meditation helps. Meditation has been shown to improve general feelings of well-being, reduced feelings of anxiety and depressive symptoms, and reduced feelings of job strain in the workplace. Even one session was shown to have a short term impact. When I can’t sleep I try breathing exercises, or I do a body scan. A body scan if a great meditative technique. Start at your toes and tense them then relax them, concentrating on how it feels. And then continue relaxing each part of your body working your way up to your head. When I do this I don’t get as far as my head as I fall asleep. How you prepare for sleep is also important so have a look at the links above. Meditation also increases levels of BDNF (see above on exercise).
Being organised is crucial. A good week needs planning. A good month needs planning. If you plan what you are going to do in detail and write it down either in your calendar or in a journal then you are more likely to do it. I spend some time on a Sunday looking ahead to the following week and thinking about where I can fit exercise in. I spend some time preparing things to leave in the fridge to make food prep for taking lunch to work easy. My back up plan is always to have tins of soup in the cupboard. If I don’t have time to make something I grab a tin of soup chuck it in my bag and that’s lunch sorted (assuming of course you have access to a microwave at work!).
I’m not saying it’s always easy but I do feel there is always a way to maintain at least some level of engagement in things that keep you well and productive. As I often say self care is not a luxury. It has to be a priority. You can only invest in others for so long if you are not investing in yourself. And if you are not investing in yourself through positive habits then you risk not being available to the very people you are trying to support.
What’s your relationship like with exercise at the minute? What historically has exercise meant to you? What exercise did you do in the last week?
I used to find that how I felt about exercise was rooted in how I felt about it as a teenager. With my only reference point being PE at school. Cold cross country runs and feelings of inadequacy. The secret is not to compare yourself to others – do what you can and what you feel comfortable with. And crucially – find something you actually enjoy! There will be something out there!
You might well find that you already do more exercise than you think. Low level stuff like gardening, washing the car, walking the dog and pegging the washing out. These are all good things. They involve activity and they involve stretching – both great things. Maybe we need you to push it a little further and get a little breathless? The recommendation of 20 minutes per day still holds good – so we are not talking about hours in the gym or becoming a marathon runner – fine as those things are if they are right for you.
Exercise is a pleasurable activity… honest. Engaging in it releases
dopamine – the body’s feel good hormone. Dopamine deficiency is shown to have links to depression so the more of it you have coursing around your body the better. Exercise is also great at mitigating against the effects of stress by ‘using up’ cortisol and adrenaline that are produced by our fight or flight response. These chemicals prime you for physical action but when the stressful event is occurring with you sat at your desk you don’t burn them off. And too much of them has a negative effect on your health and overall well-being.
Exercise: Gives you faster processing Gives you faster reaction times Clears you head Makes you more effective at planning Gives you better short term memory performance Gives you more self control
A study by Bristol University found that a 20 minute walk at lunch time could enhance mood and motivation by 41% and could improve the ability to deal with stress by 20%. A Sit Less Move More program evaluated by Pulg-Ribera and colleagues in 2017 noted improvements in staff retention in the work place, less sickness, more mindful work, and a reduction in stress. Now that’s good stuff!
So…. Make a plan! What are you going to do and when are you going to do it? Start small and take incremental steps… start with a 10 minute walk and take it from there. Write down your plan… writing things down enhances the chances of them actually happening. Exercise with someone else – it helps motivation. Tell other people what you’re doing… there’s evidence if we ‘go public’ we’re more likely to do what you say. And most importantly find something you enjoy And Just Do It (as Nike would say!)
I have to tell you speak to your doctor if you have any health conditions or haven’t exercised for a long time! I’m not a doctor! Take advice if you feel you need to. This advice is given in good faith based on my own personal experience and reading. Take care.
So, what’s your relationship like with exercise!? On and off? Non existent? Gym bunny!? What exercise did you do last week? What are you planning this week? And why does it matter?
Exercise is the second element in the self care trinity(more here). We’ve already talked about the importance of sleep so let’s grapple with this component and figure out why it’s good for us… because it is…. honest!
There are obvious physical benefits to exercise like improving bone density, promoting muscle growth, keeping you supple, promoting healthy skin …and the list goes. But I’d like to concentrate here on the impact on our psychological and emotional well being. Is exercise a stress buster!?
You are sat at your desk and you have a million things to do, so many things you don’t know what to do next, and your boss pitches up and asks if you can fit in doing something else! How do you feel! Overwhelmed, angry, tearful? People feel a range of things in these situations and sometimes these emotions are not helpful. Some of these emotions activate our ‘fight or flight’ response. When we feel threatened in some way our body prepares us for action by flushing us full of cortisol and adrenaline so that we are ready to respond. This useful reaction harks back to our days as hunter gatherers where we would need to run away from big scary things like tigers! These chemicals prepare us for flight – a physical response…. or indeed ‘fight’ ….but maybe not in the tiger scenario!
But the modern world is not like that. For a lot of us we are sat at our desks when we feel threatened. Here we are threatened by the demands of the job, not an animal with hostile intent (unless that’s how you think about your boss! ;0)). But our bodies don’t know that. So, they sense the threat and prepare the response and you then…. continue to sit there. But your body is ready! Fully armed to fight or flee. In his book “When the Body Says No, The Cost of Hidden Stress”, Gabor Mate tells us that “stress affects and involves virtually every tissue in the body” (pg. 33) and acts on tissues in the immune system. When stress is chronic, that is long term, it leads to an overactive immune system that produces toxic chemicals in the body. He goes on to explain that for many who are in constant state of stress they normalise what stress feels like so are not conscious of feeling stressed despite their body still initiating the internal chemical stress response. He gives many examples in the book of current research that is making strong links between chronic stress and diseases like Alzheimers and MS.
So, what does this have to do with exercise? Well, exercise reduces, burns off if you like, cortisol and adrenaline. As I say, the fight or flight response has produced these chemicals to prepare you for physical action, so, physical action is required to use it up. Given the reality that stress is unavoidable in life, and in many ways short periods of stress can be useful as it give impetus and motivation, exercise needs to be an essential component of self care to mitigate against a bodily chemical response that, for most office based stressors, is not required in the way it once was.
Not only does exercise use up cortisol and adrenaline it produces dopamine. Dopamine is released during pleasurable activities like enjoying food and sex as well as physical exertion through exercise. Deficiency in dopamine has been linked to depression. You may well have heard the term ‘runners high’ which is that euphoric feeling you feel after a run. That’s where it comes from! Exercise also produces noradrenaline, which regulates mood, learning and memory, and produces serotonin, a lack of which has been linked to a range of health conditions.
Rest easy though… we are not talking about turning you into a marathon runner! One single session of exercise has been shown to improve mental performance, give faster mental processing, clear your head, make you more effective at planning, improve memory, and improve self control!
A study by Bristol University showed that exercise boosted mood and motivation by 41% and increased the ability to deal with stress by 20% …..and we’re only talking about a walk that leaves you a little out of breath – the perfect thing to do on your lunch break (have a look here to read about the importance of a lunch break)!
Researcher Pulg-Riberia and colleagues analysed a Sit Less Move More worked based programme and found that by simply engaging in some gentle exercise during the working day there was an improvement in staff retention, sickness levels, and a reduction in stress which led to more mindful work practice. What a huge benefit to employer and employee!
So, how are you going to go about this? Are you going to ‘go about’ it? I hope this little insight into some of the evidence suggest to you that you should….
Firstly, if you’ve not exercised in a while, or ever, get yourself checked out at you GP surgery and then make a plan! I love a plan! And here’s some tips! – Walk before you run! Literally and metaphorically! Start small. – Do what you love. If you try running and don’t like it – don’t do it! There are so many options… walking, yoga, resistance training, exercise classes, gardening, washing the car – they all count! Just do them at a pace that leaves you a little breathless – Write it in your calendar. There is so much evidence that shows if you write it down you are more likely to do it. – Prepare. Make sure you have what need. Make it easy for yourself. Put your kit out the night before, our your trainers by the door. – Exercise with someone. This is probably the best advice for people starting out. If you commit to do something with someone else you won’t want to let them down. So get yourself a walking buddy and get going!
The Department of Health (UK) recommend 150 minutes of moderate exercise like walking or swimming per week. That’s two and a half hours, or, half an hour a day over 5 days. So if you go for a half hour walk everyday in your lunch break (….have you got the point about taking a lunch break yet!?) you’ll have done what the government recommend! That’s it! You’re done! Go you!!
If you want to be more vigorous and go for a run they suggest only 75 minutes is required! That’s a couple of half hour plus a bit runs and you’re done! Easy!
You should also include some stretching(have a look here) and strength training. Strength training doesn’t need to be lifting weights but can be simply engaging in some exercises that use your body weight. Have a look here.
There is also a fabulous workout for weight loss program here and lots of other very useful articles – check it out!
Here it is! Your route map to self care. My self care model (lovingly drawn for me by one of our fabulous students Anna Short). It’s simple and straightforward but it’s what you need to get sorted. And over the next few days I’ll tackle each element of the triangle in turn and then we can get on to figuring out how to organise it all!
The three things in the triangle won’t come as any surprise to you. In fact most of what I have to tell you won’t come as a huge surprise. Looking after yourself is one of those things where we all know what to do but we don’t always do it. And we don’t always fully understand the impact on us and our productivity.
So… we’ll talk about sleep, we’ll talk about exercise, and we’ll talk about nutrition. This is not to turn you into tofu eating (although I like tofu), marathon running (although I’ve ran marathons), zen like (although I like some meditation) creatures, but rather to show you how these three things interact and have a massive impact on your productivity in your job and in your home life.
Current research tells us that lack of sleep has a significant impact on the risk of us developing things like cancer or alzheimers, never mind the impact of a poor nights sleep on the next day. Your brain and your gut are connected directly by the vagus nerve and scientists are showing how the quality of what is going on in your gut directly effects your mood. And exercise has been shown to be effective in reducing levels of stress. Also, they are are interlinked….
Hello everyone! Monday! First day of the working week for a lot of us and a lot to do I’d imagine? But I want you to make sure you do something for me today… and then every day. I want you to take a lunch break. I want you to take at last 20 minutes even if you don’t think you have the time. I want you to go for a walk and eat something.
A study at the University of Bristol showed that exercise can boost mood and motivation by 41%. Now that’s got to help you get through your afternoon work! They also found that exercise improved the ability to deal with stress by 20%. I suspect you need that to help you out. Yet research by BUPA showed that up to two thirds of workers feel they can’t take 20 minutes away from their desk at lunch (Davison 2015)
In 2017 Pulg-Ribera and some fellow researches looked at a ‘sit less, move
more’ programme in the work place and discovered that simply by getting up and moving about people reduced their stress levels. Imagine that! Exercise, even gentle in nature, ‘burns off’ the cortisol and adrenaline produced by our stress response. When you are at your desk and you are feeling overwhelmed your stress response kicks in ….only the problem is it’s designed to prepare us for fight of flight… and when no fight or flight is required we don’t use these chemicals for what they were intended. That gives us the problem of those chemicals hanging around. Some gentle exercise will help mitigate that response.
Afternoon performance is bad enough as it is even if you don’t miss out on your break. Daniel Pink tells us that judges hand down harsher sentences for the same crime on an afternoon, and a study in North Carolina showed that the chances of something going medically wrong in one of their medical centres was four times higher at 4 p.m. than any other time (Pink, 2018, ‘When’)
In his wonderful book ‘The Joy of Work’, Bruce Daisley (creator of the fabulous podcast Eat Sleep Work Repeat) recounts the story of Laura, a manager at the Museum of London who, during a heavy period of work, went without lunch, and reported as a consequence that her mood, energy, diet and attitude to her job all crashed.
It’s such a small thing to do but it’s so important. Take your lunch break and have that brisk walk before having something good to eat. …and by ‘good’ I mean healthy 😉 You will improve your mental performance, clear your head and enhance your performance in the afternoon. You absolutely need some distance from your work half way through the day to energise yourself!
Go on… you know you want to. You’ll thank me for it…. as will your clients and colleagues.
What a weekend I had last weekend! I actually never stopped! Yet, I woke up on Monday morning morning feeling refreshed and excited about how much I was going to get done! Why’s this! Why was I not shattered and daunted by the week ahead!
Well, for all it was busy, the weekend was choc full of things, all of which I consider as self care. There’s a meme kicking about that I see that says something like, “self care is not about chocolates and pamper days, it’s about creating a life that you don’t want to escape from”. This weekend has been awesome and tiring both at the same time – and I didn’t want to escape from it! Let me tell you about it.
It started Friday tea time with a 14 mile bike ride home from work. I just took my time, I wanted to be home, but I also wanted to delight in the scenery around me. So, I took a detour down to a little place off my route called Cox Green and I just spent a few moments there looking at the river and the beautiful vista. I then continued my way home. For me, exercise is mindfulness in motion. You can think of all sorts of things if you want to while you exercise. It’s just you. On your own thinking things through and mulling things over. Or it can be you thinking of nothing. Just you and your body doing this thing to the exclusion of everything else. I love the loneliness of a solo run or bike ride. Some quality time with yourself. Self Care checklist: Alone time, you time, exercise, getting outdoors tick!
Cox Green by Gordon James Brown
Saturday started with Parkrun, starting at Durham’s Maiden Castle and ending by the River Wear in the shadow of the glorious Cathedral. We’ve got quite a little team going on now for Parkrun and we’ve pretty much ran it every weekend this year. So my eldest son Jonathan picks me up and, in the car are usually the Whellan’s brothers and Oliver’s girlfriend Sarah (although she didn’t make it this week). The run and the scenery is great and is an absolute delight. Parkrun is 5k which is doable and not too tough. But for me the most important part of this is the camaraderie of the whole thing. We are all at different levels of fitness but all in it together. The banter in the car on the way there and on the way home is great. And it’s wonderful that these young pups tolerate this old guy tagging along!
The Sunday saw me running again with two of my colleagues from work. We were doing the Sunderland 10k. It was an absolute delight. A huge group of people all with one endeavour in mind. To test themselves against the distance in front of them! There was a great atmosphere as the gun went off and we started and it continued all the way around and into the finish funnel!
Parkrun!
Then, in the afternoon, tired and weary I had a gig to play. I’m a musician in between other things (!) and I was playing in the Union Rooms, a lovely bar near Central Station in Newcastle. Music is a gift to us all. I love playing on my own at home or in front of people in a bar. Music lifts the soul. Or ‘resets’ it, as I like to say. And it creates a wonderful connection between people. It was great to watch people chatting and enjoying themselves as I played, and from time to time joining in singing along to the tunes they recognised.
There’s a Stoic ‘saying’ that ‘the obstacle is the way’. When confronted with an obstacle don’t avoid it – go through it! Because it’s in doing so that we grow and develop. My tiring weekend left me re-energised because of how the things I did contributed to who I am – my idea of ‘self’ – and therefore to my self care. Connections made, existing connections enjoyed, exercise engaged in, getting outdoors, the healing properties of music – food for the soul – all meant that the busy weekend was a refreshing weekend.
