Avoiding Burnout: Mental Health for HR
Tense, anxious and stressed? We have all been there. You take a day off for some rest and relaxation, only to find you are tense, anxious and just as stressed (if not more) than when you are at your desk. It can soon feel that managing your mental health is something else to do and yet another thing you can ‘fail at.’ But what if you knew that mental health and wellbeing is not something that you have to do at all? What if you knew that wellbeing is innate within you and it’s lying just beneath your habitual thinking? We each live in the feeling of our thinking. When a mind is constantly predicting and problem solving in attempt to keep us ‘good enough’ and productive, we feel the effects in our whole body. Working at top speed may have become your safe familiar habit, making you unconsciously addicted to a silent and unseen addiction that many people don’t even know they have! An unhealthy relationship with thought. Overcoming stress & burnout It is helpful to realise that stress and burnout are messengers from your wellbeing alerting you to the fact you have innocently lost yourself in one fixed version ‘you and your life.’ The one in which working harder and faster and longer is the only option. The stress feeling you experience in your nervous system can be seen as a helpful indicator, pointing out that you have forgotten that you do have options and choices.
Top tips • Spot the ways in which your well-
Mary Franklin
being is trying to communicate your needs to you. • Ask yourself: What do I know deep down about my current stressful situation? • Am I able to see this situation from a different perspective? • Is this situation THE reality or MY reality? In my work I describe how the psychological system works rather than prescribing coping strategies. When you connect with your inner coach and learn to spot your inner critic you discover your own, individualised way through and out of burnout and stress. Author: Mary Franklin-Smith is a creative Arts psychotherapist and founder of Light of Mind, which offers therapy; supervision along with wellbeing workshops and seminars to help people and groups understand how the logic of the psyche is working in our favour and can lead towards finding wellbeing within. Recommended podcasts: • Caffeine for the soul
As HR professionals - the unsung heroes of the pandemic – you are dealing with a myriad of challenges in the rapidly changing world of work. Without the correct support and psychological understanding this could put you more at risk of burnout than ever before. Yet the CIPD’s annual Health and Wellbeing survey found that wellbeing and mental health are beginning to slip down the business agenda. This is why it’s so important to take care of YOU - nobody can pour from an empty cup. As a mental health professional, I am increasingly asked to advise on strategies to reduce and prevent burnout. But all too often other people’s top tips such as self-care routines, yoga and meditation can feel unrealistic, or unappealing, given the amount of things you already have to fit into your busy day!
• Super soul – Oprah Winfrey • Changeable - Amy Johnson • Eckhart Tolle – Essential Teachings
CIPD members can access free wellbeing resources including helpline services here .
REGIONAL INSIGHTS
Autumn 2022
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