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Transcript

AIM High: Wellness in the workplace · Two in Twenty

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, welcome to another episode of Aim High.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: It is the podcast for marketers in the wealth and investment management industry, talking all things industry, product, and practical and personal tips.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Twink Field, and I'm your host.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: And today we're talking about the impact of wellness on efficiency in the workplace.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's an area that is growing in understanding as well as sort of openness in conversation in the workplace.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm delighted today to be talking to Janice Benning, who is a resilience coach and a training director of a company called Neuro Vitality.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: She is an expert in this area, and I'm just delighted to be having a one-on-one with her today.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: Hello and good morning.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: It is great to be here with Janice Benning, who is such an expert on all areas to do with well-being.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: So it's such a privilege to have a one-on-one.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Often we're in a sort of dynamic of three, but uh we're gonna uh chat to Janice directly um on this subject, which has such depth and is such a buzzword, really, that's going around right now.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I think to kick off, the best thing to do would be, Janice, if you'd just give a little bit of your background and your passion for this area.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um I am absolutely passionate about this.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: I have a number of different hats.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I work with a group of doctors, um, and we've just recently written a book.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it's looking at how you get people better from stress and anxiety-related illnesses.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I sort of do that.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: I work in Harley Street helping people recover from stress and anxiety-related illness.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: But my total passion is prevention rather than cure.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I so I go into big companies to talk about mental health first aid, trained mental health first aiders.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: I talk about resilience, well-being, and really prevention's the thing.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, all of this information should be in every school.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: All children should be having good sort of access to this because it makes such a difference.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: And why do you think it is it's only really sort of been under the spotlight now?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: Why are we kind of getting it to it more recently?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: And it's always been there, but maybe it's it's easier to have the conversation now?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's starting to be easier.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we're actually at the very, very beginning of a very long journey.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look at different cultural groups, certain groups will talk about this more openly than others, and different industries talk about it more openly than others.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it depends, you know, across the board, it depends on whereabouts you're at.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it we're moving, but it we've got a long way to go yet.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I still go into big companies, and I'm sometimes shocked at the lack of knowledge and the lack of awareness and understanding.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I presume quite a lot of that is a sort of cultural thing, you know, sort of what sort of sits within the culture of a business and their openness to uh share, to create that environment where people feel supported and nurtured and and that it is a sort of something that that people feel able to do by sort of putting their hands up when they need support or or where they identify things that could be better to help help the broader team.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think people often won't say anything because there's still a stigma attached to it.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and how many people are actually gonna put their hand up and say, Do you know what, I'm suffering with a mental health issue right now, or I'm not feeling on top of my game, because that could then impact their future employment, um, their their possibilities of moving forwards in the in the organization, those kind of things.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if they're feeling that's the case, now I'm not gonna tell you, you know, I wouldn't stick my head above the parapet and say anything if I thought it was gonna be in effect used against me.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, or at some point be held against me in some way.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that if you can get the conversation going with senior management in particular, and get them actually opening up and maybe talking about their mental health, the companies that I've seen doing this really, really well and getting the conversation really happening, that's where it starts.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it starts with somebody fairly senior saying, Do you know what?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: This has happened to me, and maybe sharing their story.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then that tends to open the floodgates for other people to actually be able to talk about it.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess, you know, in terms of making sure that we all know what we mean by wellness, you know, that sort of just encapsulates quite a few areas.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: We we kind of go quite quickly to sort of mental health, of course, because that is such a key part of it.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: But sort of how broad does it run?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: It it's all of it.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as far as I'm concerned, it's somebody who has good well-being, has good mental and physical health.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: You're not cut off at the neck.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, what what happens in your body impacts your your mind, and what happens in your mind impacts your body.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we're we're part of one organism.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's really about having good balance, really good resilience, being able to cope effectively when the going gets tough, recognizing that life chucks us curved balls, you know, it's not all easy, but then being able to recover from those nice and quickly.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And somebody who's got good mental and physical health tends to do that.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really having that sort of bounce-back ability and the ability to cope when when things aren't how you want them to be.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's interesting, isn't it?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because I mean, you you see time and again, I guess, the the um that those that have kind of well-being programs within their businesses and they invest in this, they see the benefit, the performance, the response from their team, the um the engagement with their employees.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: And and so it kind of makes you question why why wouldn't businesses be doing this?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: Why wouldn't they be engaging and thinking about wellness more broadly?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: What do you why do you think some businesses are dragging their feet?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good question.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: As far as I'm concerned, wellness should be at the center of everything.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, because if you do have a group of people that are functioning effectively, they're working at the top of their game.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Physiologically, you cannot work at the top of your game if what happens when you're stressed is your higher brain gets hijacked, so your higher brain stops working effectively.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't think clearly, you will make mistakes, you won't be operating effectively.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not rocket science, this is science, it's common sense stuff.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: It should be absolutely at the center of all of them.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a healthy workforce, you know, then actually they're going to be working better.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it just makes total sense to be looking at it.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, certainly, I mean, one of the reasons why we got to know each other is because here at White Marble, we wanted to put a wellness program together for the team.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: We're, you know, any relatively small team of 25.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: But I but I think it's it's interesting you talk about having the conversation is if you have the right environment where people feel like they can put their hand up and just say, not necessarily that I'm struggling right now, but actually there's a lot of stress going on, and you know, we've been growing busily, and um, we want to make sure that everybody is kind of on the journey with us for the long term, and that means ensuring that they are physically well, that they are mentally well, that actually you treat them like you'd want your family, you'd want your everybody to, if you care, which I think you know, businesses haven't always naturally had a brand of being a caring, supportive, nurturing places, but that is definitely the sort of the direction of travel.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: And and where I think companies are going to be able to attract top talent is because they feel like they are looked after.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think if you it's attract and sustain and maintain.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: So you you're likely to keep hold of those people if you have that policy actually in-house.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: It makes total sense.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I like what you're doing.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: You are actually ahead of the game on this.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there really is a you're making a big difference.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it I think lots of companies are just very, very much at the start of this journey and and you're already moving quite quickly into it, which is great.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, but yeah, fingers crossed.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: We've got funny enough.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: I was even thinking about financial wellness.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: You've got a sort of advisor coming in talking about people just in terms of taking away the stress of, you know, am I doing the right thing with my savings and things like that.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I I think all of the, there are funny, there are many different things that that stress people in different ways.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and what stresses you won't necessarily stress me, and vice versa.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: So and we all have different things that there are our sort of triggers and our the buttons that get pressed.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you may have somebody with with, for example, lots of stresses at work, and then one extra stress happens outside of work and outside of the workplace that tips them over the edge.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: You've all got something called an allostatic load, social stress load.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's fine when the stress load is nice and low, we can cope quite effectively with all sorts of things.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: But as the stress load builds, if we don't have strategies to actually take it back down again and we don't understand how to do that, our coping ability goes down.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: So you you end up with somebody that's just got this tiny amount of coping ability, and then it's the straw that breaks the camel's back, and that's where you've got trouble.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's maintaining a nice balance ideally across the board.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: And are there differences in how men and women cope with their stress and other sort of nuances like that that sort of do, or you know, are there clear coping mechanisms that we can talk to that maybe speak better to women than men?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: There absolutely are.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: So men tend to go, it's women will tend to go down um the discussion route and will tend to go and get a diagnosis.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: So women tend to have a much higher diagnosis rate of mental ill health, um, depression and anxiety in particular.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And for men it tends to be much lower.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: But men have a much higher maladaptive coping strategy rate.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: So they will tend to turn to alcohol or turn to gambling or turn to drugs or turn to something else that's a maladaptive coping strategy.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look at the suicide rates, men in comparison with women, it's considerably higher for men.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, and and the top rate is between 40 and 49.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, at that age age point, it's the highest risk time.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: So, what do we do about this?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: How do we intervene and that's what we're doing?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: We start having the discussions.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it tends it's the elephant in the room, isn't it?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I will, if I met you in the lift and I knew you'd been off with the flu, the first thing I'd say to you is, How are you?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to see you back.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's really good that you're here.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: How you, how are things?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'd absolutely have that conversation without any hesitation.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: If I thought you'd been off with a mental health issue, I'd be much more reticent about what I get, or most people would be much more reticent about what they could and couldn't say and whether they should address it at all.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: So often we simply don't discuss it.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that every organization should be having those conversations and we should be talking about, you know, what are your warning signs of stress?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: How do you know when actually it's moved beyond being something relatively minor into something that's actually now a problem?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And early warning signs, you know, my personal one is I start to lose my sense of humour and I get a bit techy.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, as soon as I've stopped finding things amusing, then actually I know there's something going on and I need to do something to rebalance.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there's a corporate responsibility, but there's also an individual responsibility.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I have responsibility to keep myself as well as I possibly can.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: So how do I do that?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think ideally in companies, you should be having the conversation very honestly.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what happens to you when you're stressed?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what is your warning sign?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Go on, twink.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: What happens to you?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: I could have to think about that.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure the guys upstairs will be able to tell you maybe better than I could.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: And that's part of the the kind of knowledge of yourself as much as that's part of the learning, yeah.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I was working with a lovely group the other week, and the CEO was sitting in the middle of two direct reports, and he said, I'm pretty relaxed, don't really do stress.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of think I'm pretty chilled.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And they both people on either side went, You have got to be joking.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Do not realize what you do is and they listed a stack of things that he did that he genuinely wasn't aware of.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I think if we start to have very honest conversations, then I then know what your warning signs are.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if I spot it, I can say, okay, how are things?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Can I help?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And just that, yeah, you know, approach.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: I talked about the three A's.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: So basically approach somebody, start the conversation, assess, you know, is there actually a real problem here?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Is there something we can do about it?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And assist where you can.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And managers in particular should be trained in this so they've got good awareness.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not about you don't need to be a doctor or a therapist.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is not about diagnosing.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is about spotting a change in behavior that is suggesting that somebody's not coping so well.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then start to have the conversation with them about what's going on, how are things?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: How can we help?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: I think there is a lot more conversation going on generally around coaching for managers and coaching people just more generally, the mentoring aspect, as well as um giving people more of the skills, if they are to help the next generation or their team, then then they need to be given some of the tools and structures themselves so that they feel more confident to be able to have that conversation or um can lead the way in some of these, some of these initiatives.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's about creating a healthy culture.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and that means healthy across the board.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's providing people with the education so they can get good sleep, so they do know what happens if you eat the wrong foods and how that impacts your microbiomes.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so I think that it needs to be done on a number of different levels.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be looking at this on a number of different levels.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: So having good coping strategies, so resilience techniques, and there are loads of simple things, like for example, that lots of people don't know about, um simply changing your breathing.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if, for example, you slow your breathing rate down to approximately eight breaths a minute for 10 minutes, you reboot your central nervous system.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that's something you can do in the office if you're feeling stressed to reboot nice and quickly.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we should have that sort of education piece with some practical tools.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think we also need to talk about what are the warning signs so people really understand how that's working.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to have about physical health, mental health, and really across the board those different types of education in there.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: So people then also have the knowledge about what to do if it starts to move in a direction that's not particularly useful.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you then get the right kind of support in?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Managers should all know where to flag up for further support because you're not there to diagnose, you know, you're not a doctor or a therapist, yeah, but you're just spotting changes that you're concerned about.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if you spot them, is it the EAP that you flag up to somebody, or is are there mental health first data already in your organization that they could go and have a chat with in confidence?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how what are the things that are available within your particular organization that will support somebody?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: And goodness knows that we're gonna need it, you know, based on the sort of the sort of light touch research that I sort of got my hands on in terms of you know, three out of four of us are sort of feeling stressed by the work that we do.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, we're gonna need to have more um support and obvious routes in which to um channel that or share that or sort of get help.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and your industry is one of the worst.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: In terms of progressive, it doesn't surprise me.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm afraid.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, business in the community research from them showed that 66% of financial sector employees had experienced a mental health issue directly as a result of work.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's really concerning.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that puts you way up there in terms of the negative statistics.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, 32% have been formally diagnosed with a mental health issue.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you look at how managers manage, managers are often the second most cited cause of stress in the workplace.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the first one is is excess work, you know, consistent 24-7.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think that's right.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's a sort of um imbalance, isn't there, between actually really it's about the energy that you put into something, not necessarily the time that you give up.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think there's what people are actually measuring your effort or your commitment around this needs to change.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um I see that time and time again.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I'm in a slightly fortuitous position now where I get to control our environment a bit more.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it is undoubtedly there's a lot of relentless pressure, particularly if we think of our audience as marketers.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we've come from a world where we had ownership for some key areas of creativity and communication that has now expanded enormously because of the need to really understand your customer better through greater digital techniques, through greater technology embedding better technology, uh, through the compliance and regulatory environment that we're now operating in or need to be much more careful of or cognizant of.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, there's there's we've we've had many conversations on these podcasts around um the the need to understand ESG better, to sort of look at diversity inclusion within our brand, within our cultures.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: There is so much more that marketers are now having to get their hands around and to have ownership and accountability for.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: And and so it doesn't necessarily surprise me that you know we see a lot of our clients under, you know, quite a lot of stress to address quite a lot of new initiatives, I guess, that are all combining together.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's that you end up with just too many things, you know, too many stresses.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And at that point, something's got to give, and it's gonna be your physical health or your mental health.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it's making sure that it doesn't.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And having the strategies in place early so that that that is not what happens.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: So talk to me about resilience.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: How do we, how do we, how do I grow my resilience?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very good question.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um what we need to all be doing is you you can resilience is very much something that you can learn.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's a a set of techniques that you can absolutely learn.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can increase your resilience by learning things like being able to self-regulate effectively.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: So simple things like the breathing exercise I was just mentioning.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, pushing yourself into your stretch zone, but not spending too much time in your panic zone.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so you push yourself when you try new things, and you what you're doing then is you're expanding your window of resilience, but you're not pushing so far that you're way, way, way outside your comfort zone and you're really struggling because that's producing too much of the stress chemicals chemicals into your system, which will stop you operating effectively.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: So push it a bit, um, that's gonna help.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: So simple things like that actually do make a big difference.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And in terms of you know improving resilience, making sure you sleep well, looking after your day, all of the common sense things that we know about, but actually there's so much really good science behind it all now.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: And learning how to manage your mind so that you don't have that internal voice that beats you up and tells you off and says you didn't do a good enough job and you're rubbish.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that as soon as we start to think really negatively, we again release stress chemicals into our system.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're doing that, you're compromising your wellbeing, you're doing it yourself without even realizing often that's what you're doing.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's learning strategies to manage your body, strategies to manage your mind, strategies to manage your work.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how do you actually structure your work so that that you're working smarter, not longer?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: When we're really stressed, we end up working longer because our higher brain is not working effectively.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: So if you get it back into balance, take short breaks, those kind of things actually do make a difference because you rebalance your central nervous system and get your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system working as it needs to be working.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I guess that self-regulation um is a bit like any muscle, you ought to practice it.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: You want to sort of do that, work yourself out a bit and and sort of keep on working at it and kind of flex that muscle.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely, and without any question.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, if I had to ask people 50 years ago whether they went to the gym, you know, you'd people would look at you as if you were mad.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think where we're moving to is that we're now beginning to understand that actually you need to be managing your mind as well and exercising that.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so you need to be exercising the the whole system, not just parts of it, in order to keep really well and on top of your game.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do want to be working tougher, smarter, better, then actually this stuff is really important.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess also figuring out what to your point, you know, your internal dialogue, um, making sure that you stick the facts rather than sort of run with opinion and the kind of formation.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: How many of us end up starring our own disaster movies?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, most of us do, and we're back in the past thinking about all the stuff that's gone wrong, and then we project it into the future thinking about all the things that are going to go wrong in the future.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we're not actually spending time in the present moment, which is where things like, for example, practicing mindfulness is really useful because it starts to bring you back into the present moment and it and enables you to recognize when you're not and where you've gone to without judging it, just recognizing that's what your system's doing.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: So your system will often wind you up.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: So if, for example, you're running lots of stress chemicals, the way you think it becomes negative.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: It can't not, it's just how your system works.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: So start to take control of that.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: You can stop it from happening.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: And this is something that I definitely um feel familiar with, which is um do you is it a normal trait to not necessarily look back at what you've achieved and always look at what the key things are yet to still be attained and to look at what's ahead rather than go, well, that was pretty cool.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: We managed to do X and Y and Z last year.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: Let's just take a moment, let's take a breather and just celebrate, you know, an achievement or a milestone or or what have you.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: I don't I my sense is we still don't do enough of that internally.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: We're sort of still looking ahead, still running.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: So what we then will do is is push and drive beyond what are our reasonable limits.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it tends to be then that we we just drive ourselves forwards and don't stop.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: We we just keep on going.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's problematic too.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's fine to be high achieving, but the issue is that we can push beyond what's actually okay for us.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we use words like, I must, I've got to, I need to, I have to get this done.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Really, where's the rule?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, do you actually have to?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And do you maybe need a break first?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: So you re-engage your higher brain and are doing it from a very logical, rational, quick thinking, smart thinking place.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're pushing on, then again, your higher brain's not working as well as it needs to.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: You won't be doing it as effectively as you want to.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: Does the team dynamic come into that?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that you can actually catch each other, you can sort of balance each other out, you can sort of, and I'm that's exactly to your point of just recognizing each other when you can kind of see that sort of escalation going on, you help each other just to take a moment, walk around the block or take a breather.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: So that, you know, that's um in the team dynamic to be able to do that and that potentially the the values of the company and the business and the culture.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: So good values absolutely need to be in there.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: And again, statistically, if you look at it, then if you feel that one person has got your back, you are statistically much less likely to go off sick from work, you're much more likely to be resilient, you're much more likely to bounce back quickly when the going gets tough.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: So having somebody at work that you can talk to is really important.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean constantly go over and over and over and whinge and complain and moan.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean offload and talk about a problem and then leave it and start to be solution focused.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: So really resilient people are solution focused.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: They recognize the problems, they don't skirt around them, but they're very practical and pragmatic about now what we're going to do is in order to move it forward, so we're going to do X.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: So they look at the problem and then they look at the solution, all the potential solutions.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think simple things as well, like having a laugh.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if we actually laugh together, as soon as we start to genuinely laugh, and I don't mean laughing hysterically, I mean genuinely laughing, fairly laughing, when we're doing that, then we immediately start to reboot our central nervous system again.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you get back into using the parasympathetic nervous system.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it's quite hard to be really stressed and to properly laugh at the same time.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a lovely way of diffusing things.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you can have a good team dynamic where you can laugh together.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Simple stuff makes a big difference.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think things like, you know, within the workplace, simple things like good manners, you know, I I like it if somebody says thank you very much, Janice.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it makes me feel a bit better.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if somebody says it shows appreciation and says, Thank you very much for staying late last night, really made a difference.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, then I'm much more likely to do it for you again.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: All of those things just sort of smooth the wheels and and you make it much easier.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, there's respect that sort of sits at the heart of that as well.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: If people are giving their time and compromising, getting home early, etc., then I think it does deserve thanks and respect.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: And and also that way, you know, if you are respectful to them, then they will have their own self-respect too.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think it is a chain chain reaction.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: It absolutely is, yeah.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think, you know, are you the person where the room lights up when you walk in, or are you the person where the room lights up when you walk out?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's very hard to be in a room full of people who are depressed or are really struggling.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: That the the overall mood goes down.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: So what's the overall mood of your team and what can you do as a team to keep it as good as it can be?
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, whilst recognizing, yes, the going gets tough from time to time, but how do we support each other in that?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, understanding the ebb and flow of the dilemma.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think I'm conscious that it's sort of early February and cold with a lot of dark nights and dark mornings getting in and out of work?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think there is truth in this sort of well, the winter blues and and and is that is there a sort of does that impact us alongside, I just think of you know the Brexit conversation that keeps going on and on?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: There is there's an element of that hanging over us and sort of being a kind of cloak that we're all being slightly weighed down by alongside all the other stresses, or is that you know, for some again to your earlier point, for some people that will be impacting them and others that'll shrug off that code?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And and again, different things will stress different people.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: But when you look at things, so there are two sort of issues there.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think if you look at the winter blues, you know, the idea of Blue Monday is a total illusion.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's actually that was a pure marketing tool and it worked beautifully because we've really bought into it, but but there's no such thing.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: So there's there's no real evidence for that one.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: But there is absolute evidence for for sad syndrome.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: So in order to feel good, we need vitamin D.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: We need vitamin D so that we can uh utilize serotonin effectively, which should feel good chemical.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if we're not getting enough vitamin D, which we get from sunlight and daylight, and often in our hemisphere, we don't have enough of it.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: So some if you're not getting out in the morning, getting some fresh air, getting some daylight, then it's actually very hard to keep that chemical balance where it needs to be.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it's purely chemical again.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: So those kind of things will impact some people more than others, and it means that you've not got enough serotonin in your system, so you've not got enough of your feel-good chemical, which is often why by the time it gets to sort of February, March, we feel really flagging, you know, it's tough.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we're desperate for some sunshine because the system needs it.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, sad syndrome is not an illusion.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's very real for a very large number of people, actually.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And a good excuse for a winter sun holiday.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Or skiing, go and get some bright lights and some exercise.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, stuff like exercise helps to moderate your mood.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Stuff like good food and eating high fibre diet, you know, and reducing the your sugar intake again promotes good mood.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: It has an impact as a gut-brain uh axis.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: So what we're feeding ourselves actually either supports or compromises our well-being.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it's important to look at what are you doing that's supporting your well-being and what are you doing that's potentially compromising it, and to take some action.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: So, to that point about taking action, there's some great tips there as an individual level and sort of looking after yourself and um trying to ensure you, you know, give yourself the best chance to be in a good mood.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um and to feel good, yes.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: And to kind of be having the kind of life that you want that absolutely all feeds into the same thing.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: Are there some other tips or or thoughts?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, not only, I guess, kind of coping strategies at an individual level, which I think we've covered quite a few, but but more broadly for marketers infusing their businesses um with um cognizance around this and sort of trying to help put initiatives into place or or spark the conversation?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think you need to be sparking the conversation on lots of different levels, and companies that are doing this really well are coming at it from lots of different angles.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: So they're putting together um well-being packages, that you know, people can tick the list of the different potential things that they might like to be involved in.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe gym membership or maybe making sure that you've got I think it needs to come on lots of levels.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: So things like having support networks at EAP, those kind of things are also important.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, making sure you've got a good educational piece in there that so that people can actually understand how they look after themselves more effectively.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, ideally this should all be taught in schools, but it it currently isn't enough.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to be putting the educational piece in there, and then managers and the corporation need to be starting the conversation around mental and physical health, and what's what's the corporation responsibility or corporate responsibility, and what's the individual responsibility?
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: And where do those two things come together and how do we support ourselves to make it a good working environment?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: Terrific.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, James, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts all across measure.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think um I've learned a heap and um uh got more ideas now to sort of embed into our own wellness programme.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: So, thank you so very much for your time today.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's been brilliant talking to you.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's really nice to talk to you too.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.