7/21/2023 Practical Skills You Can Actually Use to Take Better Care of Yourself at Work – Part 1Read NowAs a healthcare professional, one of the biggest challenges I face is, unsurprisingly, stress. Stress permeates American culture in other professions as well not just the healthcare profession. Our American culture is heavily built upon ideas surrounding high achievement, efficiency, meeting deadlines, achieving goals, and problem solving. We always seeming to look for newer and newer ways to increase productivity. These qualities are not inherently bad things. However, it is not unusual that this phenomenon creates high amounts of stress reactions for all those engaged in such activities and in all our workplaces, especially for high-achievers (those with many goals and aspirations). With the hopes of helping others improve emotional well-being, I have reflected on a few simple ideas and ways to improve mental health when it is strongly affected by stress in the workplace.
1. Set Limits and Say No This sounds simple and easy, but it is not. Many people are challenged with the normal pull to say yes. This is not because we usually want to say yes, but because we want to avoid disappointing someone or defuse a conflict before it begins. Saying yes works to do this, but only in the short-term. Setting limits and saying no, while incredibly hard for many people, is essential to allowing space to not experience work overload and to be able to actually focus on the task(s) at hand. Setting limits is difficult, however, allowing space and openness to go through some short-term stress produces greater long-term gains in the future. In other words, if you say no and simply allow the experience of anxiety to run it’s course, there is a chance your emotional well-being will improve in the long-term as a result. There is also a chance your self-confidence in your skills and abilities to say no could improve as well. 2. Pace Yourself The idea of your work being a marathon and not a sprint is incredibly beneficial to your emotional health. It does not mean you avoid or procrastinate, but it does mean you allow intervals of space in between solving problems and engaging in stressful and stress inducing activities. The story of the Tortoise and the Hare presents this idea perfectly. The hare sprinted and became tired and did not make it to the finish line because he chose to nap. The tortious chose slow, steady, and consistent movements and not only finished, but won the race. There is a reason this story has carried forward in our culture for so long. We can definitely continue to learn from it. 3. Reflect on Ways to Take Purposeful Actions Allowing space to think about the why behind the actions we engage in as well as the values and purposes behind them can be incredibly beneficial to our emotional health. If we tell the boss no to a project, it likely will create feelings of discomfort. However, when we think about the reasons why (maybe because we want to have more time with our family), we can return to our purpose and values that underlie the reason we chose the discomfort of saying no. Identifying and reflecting on values and reasons to take actions such as these can be profoundly helpful to making new and renewed steps to improving emotional and mental well-being. There are many more steps you can take to improve your emotional health and mental well-being at work. However, these three listed above can be a profoundly helpful (and challenging) to start moving toward new daily habits to care for your emotional well-being. There are more skills and ideas we can discuss further and will be written about in another post.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorCorbin Henningsen, LCSW is a licensed psychotherapist in the Oklahoma City and Edmond, OK areas. He enjoys helping people who struggle with depression, anxiety, and traumatic memories. He has worked as a therapist since 2016 and has operated a robust and growing private practice since 2020. He loves to help his clients through a down-to-earth approach that helps them make sense of their internal pain while taking reasonable steps toward values, meaning, and purpose. Archives
June 2024
|