There are many ways to help yourself and co-workers through stressful times. And just like what we're instructed to do when our airplane hits rough weather during a flight and the oxygen masks drop down: take care of yourself first and then you're better equipped to help others around you. If you aren't regularly taking proper care of your "whole person" well-being, you simply can't bring your best to your work, family and friends, and any activities that are important to you if you are stressed to the max and running on fumes. Remember: we may not be able to control everything that comes our way, but we do have the power to control how we choose to respond to it. Not doing so is another form of self-created stress. 

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When we spend time doing complex, intensive tasks for hours on end without giving our brain and mind time to take a break, we experience cognitive fatigue. If we choose to keep running the same habit of just keep plowing ahead and not building in a habit of short breaks throughout the day, we are engaging in more self-created stress. When we take short breaks during the day to relax our mind and recharge our brain, just investing a few minutes can help us to refocus and move forward onto the next task or meeting from a more centered aligned mind and body.

 

In this section of the Toolkit, we offer tips and practices to help you strengthen yourself before any major stress-inducing event occurs, as well as during one. This gives us the opportunity for us to lead by positive example in whatever field of influence we have: at work, home, or school, with our family and friends, and in our social worlds. However, we recommend that before you engage in new exercise programs, dietary changes, and calming meditative practices you get the approval of your licensed health care professional first. Root causes of stress in our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health must be addressed, and not just soothing our symptoms by self-diagnosing on the internet and trying random things to only feel better in the moment.

 

There are no quick fixes, no picking and choosing what doesn’t challenge your comfort zone. Lasting transformational change begins within, no matter if it’s a person or an organization. Treat your entire self with the honor and respect it is worthy of, and this will help build the vigor and resilience you need in our increasingly increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) times.

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