Welcome back to Book Break!
This week, as you may know, is Mental Health Awareness Week.
The theme for this year is stress.
To help with this theme, I've got a fantastic book to talk to you about
called A Beginner's Guide to Being Mental by Natasha Devon.
This one is a literal A-Z from anxiety to zero f***s given.
The reason I wrote this book is because people still don't really understand a lot
of the terminology and the illnesses and the
conditions and what they are.
So this is essentially my attempt to get everyone on the same page — literally.
So in this episode of Book Break I'm going to read Natasha's chapter on S is
for Self-Care.
And then I'm going to try out some of her tips
And hopefully I'll never be too stressed in the workplace again.
What Natasha makes clear in her book is that stress is just an inevitable part
of our daily working lives.
It's something we can all relate to, it's something we all have to deal with,
but even though it's not inherently bad, we do all have our limits.
And a really good way of looking at it that Natasha talks about in her book
is that we all have a stress container, and everyone's containers are different sizes.
And that might be due to your personality, or due to things that have happened to you
before in your life.
And when every little source of stress in your life is adding,
so whether that's - you wake up and the house is messy
or you have a nightmare commute on your way to work
or you get to work and you have a ton of emails to deal with,
at some point it's going to overflow.
So some people can handle loads and loads of stress
before their container is full, and some people might have a slightly smaller
one that fills up a bit faster, but either way, everyone does have their limit.
And once our stress container is full, it's then really hard for us to see clearly,
it's really hard for us to do our work, we just feel stressed and anxious,
we might be in fight or flight mode, so what we need is a tap on the containers
so that we can release some of that stress, and stop it from ever overflowing.
So, that's kind of the basics of the stress container metaphor
that Natasha talks about.
But you've got to be really careful what you use as your tap,
because some of the really common ones might not actually be that good for you.
So it's pretty common to get home from a difficult day at work,
and think that you want a glass of wine, that's definitely something that I do,
or you might indulge in some unhealthy foods!
And again, there's nothing inherently bad about having your wine, or having your treats,
if that's the decision that you've consciously made to have.
The problem is when we start defaulting to these, let's be honest, not very healthy habits
as the only way we know how to release stress.
When we start using unhealthy things on a long term basis,
the problem is we end up just adding more stress back to our stress bucket.
And you can see what a mess that made!
So, what is the answer?
Luckily, Natasha has given us some great self-care tips
to stop our stress containers from bubbling over.
The first, as you've no doubt heard before, is exercise.
But when you've got a busy work schedule, I know you might feel too exhausted to hit
the gym at the end of the day.
So, how about waking up just twenty minutes earlier
and going for a run before work?
Or, you could simply skip the tube and walk into the office instead.
And, instead of eating your lunch at your desk,
as we're all guilty of doing, take some time away from your screen, get
some fresh air, and go for a stroll.
Or you could even look for a local lunchtime yoga class.
And on those days when you really are just too busy to get away,
there are some exercises you can do at your desk.
Another great way of releasing stress is to channel your creativity.
Reading and writing are my favourite ways of being creative,
but music and the arts can be a really good way of expressing yourself
on those times when words - dare I say this when I work for a publisher - sometimes don't
quite cut it.
At work, it can be as simple as taking a few minutes with your earphones in to listen to
your favourite song.
Or you might look for an after-work art class a few nights a week.
And, you can actually make your work itself more creative
by hosting brainstorms with your colleagues, and experimenting with tackling old problems
in a new way.
Now you've probably been waiting for me to mention mindfulness,
which is one of the most famous forms of self-care.
All mindfulness actually means is a state in which you're not
dwelling on the past, or worrying about the future,
you are just living in the present.
And luckily, mindfulness is really easy, and productive, to achieve in the workplace.
Take a few minutes during the day, especially if you feel your stress levels
rising, to take stock of your surroundings.
Notice the feel of your body in the chair, the feel of your feet on the ground.
Notice the sounds of the office,
and notice your breathing in and out, without trying to control it.
You don't have to do deep yoga breaths.
Just be.
And of course, one of the best things you can do for your stress levels is to get enough
sleep.
So switch off your phone nice and early.
Reading is a much better late-night activity, and Instagram will still be there in the morning,
and aim to get about 7-8 hours of sleep every night.
Probably the thing that I find most effective for emptying my stress bucket
is getting out of the house, even when I really don't feel like it.
Say it's my only day off that week, your instinct is to kind of hunker down,
with your duvet, watch an entire series of something on Netflix.
And there's nothing wrong with that at all, if that's what's going to relax you.
But for me I sometimes find that that can add to my anxiety,
because I'm just sort of sat there with my thoughts,
and I'm someone who has quite a lot of nervous energy.
So I like to get out and go for a walk.
Find somewhere green.
Go and spend some time with nature, with trees, with grass.
And that fresh air and exercise is, you know, one of the top things you can do
to create endorphins and empty your stress container.
You are a more effective employee, you're more effective for your business,
if you take regular breaks.
That's your processing time, that's when you're going to get your most
innovative ideas.
We've all had our most brilliant ideas at 2 o'clock in the morning.
There's a reason for that: that's when your brain is working stuff out.
So I think bosses need to drive the message home that they know that this is going to
make their employers more professional, not less.
So what self-care routines do you have in your day?
Do leave a comment below with what you find the most helpful, because then we can all
find these really great tips and tricks for us all to try out.
And next week on Book Break, we're going to be talking about
the books behind Benedict Cumberbatch's new role, Patrick Melrose.
So do hit that subscribe button to make sure that you don't miss out on that.
See you next time!