Chapter 5
Boosting your Mental Resilience
In This Chapter
Managing multiple, conflicting demands more productively
Developing effective strategies for working with difficult people
Maintaining peak productivity while looking after your well-being
We all go to work to do a good job, and I’m sure that you’re no exception. Unfortunately, the world of work can be challenging, which can make it difficult for you to perform at your best.
Change is the most common source of pressure at work. In the world of work, change is nothing new. In fact, you can argue that change is the only constant in life. What is different nowadays is that the pace of change is accelerating. Uncertainty and instability are the norm in today’s work environment.
Other sources of pressure you may encounter in the workplace include relationships with colleagues and peers, lack of clarity about job roles, work demands, degree of control over work and support from colleagues and superiors.
This chapter explores how you can overcome work challenges by using mindfulness to boost your mental resilience. You find out how mindfulness can help you deal with work challenges more productively, leaving you with more energy and a sense of well-being. You discover strategies to help you flourish in times of change, managing multiple, conflicting demands more effectively. You develop a more mindful approach to encounters with difficult colleagues and bosses.
Recognising the Need for Resilience at Work
Resilience is all about your capacity to handle difficulties, demands and high pressure without becoming stressed. It’s about not wasting energy on little things that really aren't important. It’s about performing well under pressure. It’s your ability to respond flexibly and adapt to changing circumstances (especially important in the present climate of constant change and uncertainty). Lastly, it’s about your ability to bounce back from defeat and disaster.
The more resilient you are, the more quickly you will be able to recover from a setback, make the best of the new situation, and become a ‘new and improved’ version of yourself. From a business perspective, it’s a no-brainer: A resilient workforce is a productive workforce. It’s healthy, energetic, durable and enthusiastic – good news for both you and your company.
The modern day stress epidemic
Unfortunately most of the world is now facing a stress epidemic.
Take, for example, Bob, a busy account manager that I (Juliet) know who works for a multinational company. As Bob’s workload increases he starts to think, ‘There’s so much to do and not enough time.’ This anxiety leads to him making poor decisions. As a result of his poor decisions, he starts to worry about his professional reputation, and the possibility of losing his job. Bob really wanted to shine at work, so he decides to work harder, putting in long hours. He becomes stressed, and makes more mistakes, so he starts taking work home. He gets stuck in a vicious cycle of worrying, working too hard and feeling stressed.
The end result? The harder he works, the more he gets wrong and the more stressed he feels. Does this scenario sound familiar?
Everyone, at some point in their working lives, experiences stress. Work-related stress can be defined as ‘an adverse reaction to excessive pressures or demands’. Workplace stress is common; indeed, in many countries workplace stress is the top cause of long-term workplace absence. It costs businesses billions. In the UK alone, in 2012 around 131 million days were lost to sickness absence.
More people than ever before say that they feel highly stressed. As many as 80 per cent of workers say they regularly experience stress at work, and up to 40 per cent say that their job is very or extremely stressful and is the number one stressor in their lives. Estimates suggest that around 50 per cent of staff say that they need help in finding out how to manage stress.
Research shows that workers with highly stressful jobs, but little real control over decision making, are 23 per cent more likely to have a heart attack than other employees. Prolonged periods of stress can lead to serious health problems, including cardiovascular illness and cancer.
Mindfulness has been scientifically proven to be highly effective in reducing stress, anxiety and depression. That’s why many companies are now training staff in mindfulness to aid resilience and improve well-being, and productivity.
Understanding fight or flight
So, if change is the norm, and stress is reaching epidemic proportions, how can you become more resilient? How can you bring joy and happiness back to your day, not to mention improved productivity and personal effectiveness?
To answer these questions, you first have to understand a little bit about how the human brain has evolved. Scientists think that in ancient times, when our ancestors were faced with a threat (such as attack by a wild animal); their brain triggered the release of powerful hormones into the bloodstream. These hormones boosted their heart rate, muscle tension and breathing and helped humans to sprint away from danger – the fight or flight response. Other hormones worked as natural pain killers, repaired damaged cells and acted as clotting agents. Together, the effect of these hormones helped humans to escape mortal danger and live to hunt another day. After the immediate threat had passed, our ancestors’ bodies probably returned to normal fairly quickly.
Your own brain’s reaction to modern-day pressures (such as a critical boss, a failed pitch, a missed promotion or a missed mortgage payment) is exactly the same as that of your ancestors. When you feel threatened, your brain releases an excessive amount of hormones, which are designed to help you escape from mortal danger.
Under normal circumstances, when you’re not under any great pressure, and you experience a threat, a temporary spike in your heart rate occurs as hormones are released. After the perceived ‘danger’ has passed, your body returns to normal. Unfortunately, many people now live their lives in a constant state of heightened arousal.
Each time you encounter a perceived threat, your heart rate peaks as hormones are released. Unlike our ancestors, however, many modern-day humans often remain under pressure for long periods, and their bodies never really return to normal. As a result of energy being diverted to fight or flight, the body doesn’t have sufficient energy to undertake its routine body maintenance, including the brain. Under normal circumstances, you grow new brain cells to replace the ones you naturally lose. This process continues right into old age. When in fight or flight for long periods, these brain cells are not replaced, slowly diminishing your mental capabilities.
Remaining in this heightened state of arousal (stress) over long periods can lead to major health issues such as a lowering of the auto-immune system, cardiovascular illnesses, digestive complaints, respiratory problems, psychological illnesses, migraines, pre-menstrual tension (PMT), cancer and even premature death.
So, the human ability to recognise and quickly react to perceived threats has helped us become highly successful as a species, but is now a danger to our very survival. Mindfulness can help you develop resilience life’s pressures, and new strategies for dealing with potential stressors in a more productive and less harmful manner, returning your body to a fit, healthy state.
Mindful Working to Enhance Resilience
Work is, and has always been, challenging. The digital age, constant change and the need for ever more efficient, cost effective ways of working has led to some unhealthy working practices.
Managing multiple, conflicting demands
Do you spend your working life juggling multiple tasks and conflicting demands? If so, you’re not alone. As people take on more senior roles, they’re increasingly expected to multi-task – work simultaneously on a range of different problems. For decades now, job descriptions have demanded the ability to multi-task.
The fact is that no one can really multi-task – the brain is not wired that way. The brain can only focus on one conscious task at a time. When you multi-task, in reality you’re switching between tasks, doing one task, then switching to the next and the next and so on.
The brain is an energy-hungry organ. Each time you switch tasks, you use some of your limited energy supply. Research shows that multi-tasking reduces accuracy and performance, which explains why frequent multi-taskers are less productive. A limit exists to the number of things that you can hold in your brain at any one time. New ideas take up more working memory than things you’re familiar with. Your memory starts to degrade each time you try to hold more than one idea or thought in your mind at a time, so you’re better off to focus on just one thing.
The only way to do two or more mental tasks quickly and accurately is to consciously do one at a time. The only exception to this rule is routine tasks that you’ve done many times before. As a result, they’ve become embedded deep within the more primitive areas of your brain. In order to manage multiple, conflicting demands more productively, you need to plan your approach mindfully.
Managing tasks mindfully
Mindfulness can help you to become more aware of your mental processes, and choose the most appropriate strategy to deal with the work tasks you’re facing.
Meet a client of mine (Juliet) – let’s call her Jan. It’s February and Jan has just been promoted to the post of chief editor for an alternative fashion magazine. Jan starts her day by working through her emails. She reads, replies to and deletes messages. A couple of the emails prompt her to do some work. Two hours later she still hasn’t started work on the editorial for this month’s magazine, and the deadline is the end of the day. Jan starts working on the editorial, but she finds it difficult to focus. After 30 minutes, she’s interrupted by Frank who is working on a feature for next month’s magazine. She helps Frank, and then refocuses her attention on her editorial. Because she feels pressed for time, she eats a sandwich at her desk for lunch while trying hard to finish her editorial. In the afternoon, she chairs an important meeting about a feature in the Christmas edition. She hasn’t had time to prepare and feels uncomfortable throughout the meeting. The meeting overruns. The time is now four o’clock and she still hasn’t completed her editorial. Jan tries to focus but just can’t think straight …
Have you had days like this? I certainly have! So what could Jan have done differently? Let’s rewind Jan’s day and look at how she could have made her life easier:
Jan entered the office. She knew that she’d face multiple, conflicting demands, so she decided to start her day mindfully with 10 minutes of mindfulness practice in her office before people came in. She started her day by prioritising all the things she had to do.
She identified that her editorial was the most important thing that day. In order to complete this task she knew she needed to use her higher brain, (See Chapter 1) which is very powerful, but also very energy hungry. This prompted her to undertake this task early on in the day while still feeling fresh. Frank popped in to ask for help, and she agreed to talk to him in the late afternoon. She completed her editorial by 11 a.m. and then started working through her emails. She felt herself becoming distracted by a couple of emails that demanded her attention. Jan decided to go out for lunch. On her walk to the sandwich shop, she spent five minutes mindfully walking. She sat on a park bench to eat her sandwich, and spent a few moments mindfully savouring its taste and texture. She returned to the office feeling refreshed, with a clear head. She then spent 30 minutes, as planned at the start of the day, preparing for her meeting. The meeting was a great success, and finished early. She completed the work connected with the emails, helped Frank and left the office early.
Mindfulness helped Jan to acknowledge and park all the things that were going round in her head. It also helped her to regain her focus at lunch time. By prioritising, she got more done in less time.
Here’s a quick mindfulness technique that you can use any time you want to regain your focus.
Using the three step focus break
This simple technique consists of doing three things for one minute each. Use Track 4 from the audio downloads available at www.dummies.com/go/mindfulnessatworkuk.
- Acknowledging your thoughts
- Focusing on the present moment sensation of breathing
- Acknowledging your bodily sensations
Step 1: Settle yourself into a comfortable, upright position with your feet firmly on the floor – avoid slouching if you can. Although you can do this exercise with your eyes open, most people find it easier with closed eyes. By closing your eyes, your brain has one less stimulus to deal with. Spend one minute recognising and acknowledging all the thoughts going round in your head. As thoughts arise, acknowledge them, and then let them go.
Step 2: Now narrow your attention to focus on the present moment sensation of breathing. Feeling the breath coming in and the breath going out. If you mind wanders, its fine – that’s just what minds do. Just kindly, gently escort your attention back to where it needs to be. Remember there is no need to control your breathing or alter it in any way. Its fine as it is all you are doing is using it as a kind or anchor to direct your attention to.
Step 3: Spend one minute recognising and acknowledging how your body feels, right here and now. Become aware of the actual physical sensations in your body, including both the pleasant and unpleasant feelings. If you do encounter any unpleasant sensations try if you can to just accept that they are there without trying to make them go away and without judging them, bad, or irritating. Doing so will evoke an emotion which will increase your tension and make things worse. Accepting that the sensations as they are in the present moment adds no further fuel to the fire, and as a result the sensations may diminish or change.
This technique can be compressed or extended and can be used anywhere at any time. Creating a short break helps you return to the present moment. Returning to the present moment enables you to put things into perspective, see the bigger picture, and make wiser choices and decide how to get the most from the rest of the day.
You may find this exercise difficult at first, but with a little practice it should become easier. Practising this technique helps you to develop new neuro-pathways in your brain, or strengthen existing ones. The stronger the neuropathways are, the easier it is to recall and repeat the exercise in future. See Chapter 1 for more information on neuroplasticity.
Here are a few tips to help you master the three-minute focus break:
- Don’t judge, rationalise or think about your thoughts, as doing so shifts you towards left-brain (logical) thinking. Just acknowledge that the thoughts are there and label them ‘mental processes’. You may initially find this process difficult but it becomes easier with practice.
- Don’t get cross if your mind wanders, as this wandering may start a rush of neurotransmitters signalling a response similar to ‘fight or flight’, which is not what you’re aiming to do! If you do find yourself getting annoyed, be nice to yourself by acknowledging that ‘it’s okay … it’s just what brains do’. This advice may sound trite, but recent neuroscientific research examining brain activity associated with self-kindness suggests that doing such things can reduce or neutralise the brain’s reaction to threat.
- When checking in with your body you might wish to ask yourself ‘How are my toes feeling now? Pause to observe then move up the body … How are my legs feeling now? … In some areas you may feel little or nothing; in others you may feel sensations such as tingling, stiffness, tension or heaviness. This part of the exercise is simply about checking in with the body in the here and now. It’s about seeing things as they are in this moment – not changing them in any way.
- As thoughts come into your mind, recognise that you’re having them, acknowledge them and then let them go. You may find it helpful to imagine the thoughts floating off on a cloud, drifting downriver, rolling away like the credits at the end of a film or being put in a box to deal with later. Experiment and discover which approach works for you.
Science provides explanations about how mindfulness exercises like the preceding one work within the brain.
- Paying attention to your breathing means that activity in the attention association area of the brain is increased. This means you are able to focus more attention on what’s going on, helping you to see things more clearly.
Sitting in an upright position means that you trigger positive neural circuitry, which makes you feel more positive.
- Focusing on the present-now experience means that brain activity starts to shift from habitual, automatic thinking to more creative, big picture thinking.
When you practise mindfulness sufficiently, your parasympathetic (relaxation) nervous system is activated, and later the sympathetic (arousal) nervous system is also activated, which can produce a mentally clear and alert state. As your amygdala (fear centre) activation decreases, you may feel your breathing rate, heart rate slowing down, and your blood pressure reduce.
Grouping tasks
Try to plan how you will tackle work tasks if you can at the start of the day. The tasks that you need to pay most attention to must be done when you’re fresh and mentally alert, so do them first. If you’re feeling tired or sluggish, take a five-minute walk if possible or get a quick breath of fresh air. If it’s late in the afternoon and you’re feeling tired, ask yourself whether getting certain tasks done today is critical. Maybe they can wait until tomorrow morning when you’re fresher.
Try to group your tasks into blocks of time, according to the different ways you use your brain to work on them. Remember, routine tasks involving little thought use less energy than tasks that involve decision making or the creation of a new concept. Schedule time to do the latter when you’re likely to be feeling fresh.
Starting the day by going through emails is a common mistake. Schedule emailing later on in the day in order to use your peak level of performance on the tasks that are most important.
Dealing with distractions
Avoiding everyday disruptions in the modern-day workplace can be challenging. Phones ring, emails and text messages ping and people unexpectedly appear at your desk.
Switching between tasks reduces your productivity and can increase the pressure you’re working under. Although many of us would say that these distractions are outside our control, in reality we can generally take steps to minimise them.
Ask yourself:
- Can I divert my phone for a short while today while I tackle the tasks that need most concentration?
- Can I switch off or silence my mobile phone for a while?
- Can I log off for a while so that incoming emails won’t distract me?
- Can I ask people not to disturb me for a while?
- Can I find somewhere quiet to work where I won’t be disturbed?
- Is being contactable 24/7 organisational culture or am I just imposing this dictum on myself?
Simple actions like logging off from your email account or silencing your phone can help you complete your most important work tasks more quickly. You’ll be surprised at the results.
Mindfully managing your emotions
When you’ve lots to do, the calmer and more focused you remain, the better. As emotions are regulated by the primitive brain, (see Chapter 1), remaining rational when in the grip of strong emotions is hard. Mindfulness can be used as a technique for working constructively with intense emotions such as fear and anger that often lead to misunderstandings and conflicts.
A simple mindfulness technique involves sitting with your eyes closed and focusing on your breathing. By concentrating on the rhythm of your breaths, you develop a sense of detachment, which stops your thoughts from spiralling further and further into depression or anxiety. In time you start to realise that thoughts come and go of their own accord, and that your conscious self is distinct from your thoughts. See Chapter 6 for tips on how to practise mindfulness of breath.
How your body affects your mind
When seeking to manage your emotions, you need to recognise that whenever you encounter a situation, your thoughts trigger a physiological reaction in your body. Bodily tensions and sensations have more of an impact on your thought and behaviour than you might think. The model below (see Figure 5-1) can help you understand what’s going on and stop yourself spiralling into over-thinking, anxiety and distraction.
Figure 5-1: The interplay between thoughts, emotions and physiology.
When you understand the link between thoughts, emotions and the body (physiology), you can start to develop more helpful strategies for recognising and managing your emotions.
Mindfulness can help you to better manage your emotions in three important ways:
- Mindfulness helps you to train your brain to treat thoughts as ‘mental processes’ rather than reality. This change can stop you responding on auto-pilot, triggering a physiological reaction in your body and sending you spiralling further and further into the unwanted emotion.
- Mindfulness helps you to live your life in the present moment. It reduces your tendency to try to anticipate the future (‘This could damage my reputation’) or link to past experiences (‘At my last company people were fired for less!’). Focusing on the present helps you to notice, manage and process emotions.
- Mindfulness helps you to accept emotions. Accept the fact that you’re human, and from time to time will be sad, anxious or angry – being so is natural and part of being human. You need to acknowledge the emotion, but not dwell on it, or add further fuel to the fire. Mindfulness encourages self-compassion and acceptance – being kind to oneself. By accepting things as they are, right here, right now, you don’t perpetuate unhelpful emotional reactions to circumstances.
Trying the ‘Managing emotions mindfully’ exercise
This exercise helps you slow down your mental chatter and reconnect with your body. When practised regularly, you’ll be quicker at detecting emotions as they arise and able to take steps to stop them escalating if they’re unhelpful.
Go to a quiet place for between 5 and 30 minutes (depending on how emotional you are and how much time you have!). Sit in a comfortable upright position with your feet firmly on the floor. Now follow these steps:
- Focus on air entering your lungs on the in-breath, and leaving your lungs on the out-breath. Observe how your chest feels and how your skin feels as you breathe.
- Observe any emotions you are experiencing. For example, anger, fear or worry. Just observe – don’t try to fix them or make them go away
- Acknowledge the noises that surround you. Sounds in the room, sounds outside the room, and sounds elsewhere in the building or outside. Possibly even sounds in your body. Use these sounds as an anchor for your attention. Again no need to fix them or make them go away – just notice they are there.
- Check how your body feels at this moment in time by carrying out a body scan. Start at your toes. Can you feel any sensations or stiffness? Continue the exercise by slowly moving up your body. If you do detect tension or discomfort, pause for a short while, and try releasing the tension progressively as you breathe out. Continue your body scan, exploring any bodily tensions or sensations until you’ve scanned from the tip of your toes to the crown of your head.
- Observe your emotions again. Kindly and gently direct your attention to your emotions. Notice how they are in the present moment. Are they the same as before or different? If so, what has changed? When you’re ready, open your eyes.
Your thoughts trigger both physiological and emotional responses to your experiences in life (see Figure 5-1 earlier in the chapter). These responses may be unhelpful, as you (often unconsciously) may draw the wrong conclusions and make things worse. The more tense your body is or the faster your heart is beating, the more likely you are to experience panic-induced defective negative thinking. Mindfulness practices like the one described above help you to stop this downward spiral, reducing mental churn and helping you see things more clearly. You discover that your present moment reality is often vastly different from your mental image of it. You train your brain to approach life with a kindly curiosity, rather than working in avoidance mode.
Dealing with difficult people
In your home and social life, you usually get to choose the people you wish to spend time with. In a work situation, that’s often not the case. You encounter both clients and colleagues who you may find difficult to deal with. Working with difficult people can trigger strong emotional reactions, which can take up a lot of your mental energy, robbing you of the mental resources you need to deal with your workload.
Mindfulness can help you to respond to these situations in a more resilient manner.
Asking ‘What’s really going on?’
The first thing to explore is what’s really going on. Why do you find this person so difficult or challenging? You need to recognise what responses have been triggered within you when you encounter this person. What are your thoughts … emotions … what has changed in your body … has your heart-rate or breathing increased? Are you feeling tension or even pain?
By recognising your own emotional state, and bodily tension you will be better equipped to deal with the situation. When approaching encounters with difficult people mindfully, you can reduce the pain and suffering for all concerned, and find ways to work together more productively.
You can’t always control the things that happen in your work day, but you can choose how you respond to them.
Understanding whose problem it is
The next thing to ask is ‘Whose problem is it?’
Consider Bob, the account manager described earlier in the chapter. Well, Bob’s boss saw his potential and in his appraisal set him challenging goals in an effort to prepare him for a possible promotion. Bob did not know his boss was preparing him for promotion. He thought that his boss had set him up to fail and that his appraisal goals were an attempt to get rid of him. As a result, he started to hate his boss.
What can you learn from this scenario? Bob’s failure to clarify why his boss had set him the goals made him jump to the wrong conclusions. His reaction to, and behaviour towards, his boss was making the situation worse.
When dealing with a person you find difficult, take a few moments to think about whose problem it is. Is it your problem? Or is it the other person who has a problem with you?
Thoughts are not necessarily facts! Drawing conclusions based on thoughts rather than facts is all too easy.
Bob’s colleague encourages him to take a more mindful approach in future. In preparation for meeting his boss, Bob took a few minutes to practice some mindfulness. When Bob next met his boss, he started with a clean slate. He admitted that he’s finding the goals he was set challenging. His boss laughed and said, ‘They’re supposed to be challenging. I set them to help you get ready for your next promotion!’
By practising mindfulness, Bob discovered that his thoughts are not all facts, and decided to start afresh with his boss. He knew he’d be tense upon entering the meeting, so he practised a little mindfulness to put himself in a more open frame of mind.
Bear these tips in mind:
- When preparing for a difficult encounter, practise mindfulness. Doing so stops your thoughts churning and releases any tension you’re holding.
- Start the encounter with an open mind, as if you’re meeting the person for the first time.
- If you feel your body tensing up during the meeting, or you start to become emotional, congratulate yourself on recognising that fact, and try to let go of the tension.
- After the meeting, spend a few moments reflecting on what, if anything was different about this encounter with the person.
The ‘difficult’ person may be creating the problem despite your best efforts to work productively with them. Treat this thought as a theory only; remember, this thought is not necessarily a fact! You cannot easily change the other person’s behaviour and attitude towards you, but you can choose your response and behaviour.
If, despite your best efforts, your working relationship doesn’t improve, just accept that you find this person difficult to work with and commit to making a conscious effort not to make things any worse. Use mindfulness to help you recognise and release any physical tension. Become conscious of your own emotional state. Recognise when thoughts start to spiral, and bring yourself back to the present moment. Mentally reward yourself for being more aware of what’s going on, and taking steps to make the best of it.
No magic bullet or cure-all exists. You’re not a machine; you’re human and as such you will from time to time experience unhelpful emotions which impact on your relationships. Living your whole life in a relaxed, emotionless manner is unnatural. But living in a constantly heightened state of arousal is unhealthy and unproductive. Practising mindfulness gradually trains your brain to come back to the present moment and see things as they really are. Then you can break out of life on auto-pilot and respond to life’s challenges (such as difficult people) wisely.
Mindful Ways to Maintain Peak Performance
Some people think that practising mindfulness will subdue you or make you less ambitious and driven. This is a myth. Some of the most productive people on this planet practise mindfulness because it helps them maintain peak performance for longer periods.
Some people joke that mindfulness is about doing nothing! MRI brain scans show that whilst practising mindfulness brain areas associated with attention become more active, rather than less.
Maintaining peak performance
Current thought on the psychology of performance suggests that in order to maintain peak performance you need to focus upon the factors that allow you to flourish and to achieve your aims. To do so, you need to practise mental skills to develop the power of your mind. Assuming that you’re clear about your aims at work, you need to be mentally and physically fit to perform at your best. Don’t worry; taking up marathon running or joining MENSA won’t be necessary! You just need to work out what ‘peak performance’ looks and feels like for you. The Yerkes–Dodson curve is a really useful model for assessing this.
Introducing the Yerkes–Dodson curve
From a productivity perspective, you need some pressure (arousal) in order to perform. Put crudely, you need a reason for getting out of bed every morning. When you experience too much pressure that you become stressed, your worry increases and you may even start to panic. As a result, your performance drops off. This situation is illustrated by the Yerkes–Dodson curve (see Figure 5-2).
Figure 5-2: The Yerkes–Dodson curve.
In order to maintain peak performance you need to recognise the point at which you slip down from Optimal and enter the ‘Zone of delusion’. The more you try to push through stress and anxiety to get the job done, the more your performance drops off. In this deluded state you think you are getting things done, but actually you are achieving very little due to mistakes and your mind wandering. The more you try to push on, the further you slip down the curve, and the more your performance reduces.
Mindfulness helps you to recognise the critical point when your performance is dropping off. Recognising this fast means that it’s possible to take a few quick actions to refresh yourself, and regain optimal performance. The further down the curve you descend, the more time and effort is required to regain your productivity. The earlier you notice, the less time it will take you to regain peak productivity.
Using mindfulness to enhance productivity
Although it may seem counter-intuitive to stop and ‘do nothing’ when you’re busy trying to meet a deadline, spending a few moments doing so can save you time and make you more productive. Regular mindfulness practice stops pressure and tension building up. Practice also helps you train your brain to deal with things that arise in a more productive manner – preventing them from unconsciously escalating or becoming something that they’re not.
The simple ‘Mindfulness for peak performance’ exercise below takes only moments, but can save you hours of time wasted through working in a distracted, pressured manner. You could do this in a few minutes, or extend it if you have more time. To go with it, there’s an audio track, Track 5, which you can download from www.dummies.com/go/mindfulnessatworkuk.
- Settle yourself in a chair. Sitting in a comfortable upright, dignified position with your feet firmly on the floor and your arms resting comfortably. Focus on the physical sensations of taking a few breaths. Close your eyes or hold them in soft focus.
- Acknowledge what’s going on in your mind (your thoughts) in a detached manner, rather like watching the closing credits of a film.
- Observe how your body is feeling in this present moment. Tune into any areas where you know you tend to hold tension. (For example your neck, shoulders, jaw or stomach). Approach them - exploring how they feel, like a scientist observing the subject of a research study. See whether you can release the tension and let it go. Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t.
- Ask yourself, ‘At this moment, what do I need to do to return to peak performance?’ Listen for a response. Maybe you need to actively release the tension from your body, take a quick walk (even if just to the coffee machine) or work on something different for a while.
Use this technique to check in with yourself on a regular basis. When practised regularly, you’ll quickly recognise the physical and mental signs telling you you’ve slipped from peak performance.
Being in the moment
Although you may think you are always in control, and fully aware of everything that goes on, in reality you are probably not. Your brain will decide what it thinks is important and focus on just that, missing the bigger picture. This is compounded by the fact that we spend very little time in the present. Your mind wanders back to old memories and experiences in an effort to help you make sense of what’s going on. It also spends a lot of time in the future, trying to anticipate what will happen next. As a result we are rarely in the present.
Mindfulness helps you to train your brain to be in the present moment. Stopping yourself from trying to anticipate the future and making decisions on auto-pilot makes your life easier and reduces self-induced tension.
An excellent way to improve your working life is to consciously make an effort to live more in the present moment. By being in the moment you make better decisions, see things more clearly and become more creative. You can enjoy precious everyday moments with your loved ones, and gain nourishment from the simplest of everyday things.
Being Kind to Yourself
The author Henry James said: ‘Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.’
Authentic leadership, resonant leadership and mindful leadership are new forms of leadership theory. They all emphasise the need to be kind to yourself, and with good reason. Research shows that people who make a conscious effort to be kind to themselves demonstrate greater well-being than those who judge themselves.
When something goes wrong, or you make a mistake, you may be far too quick pointing the finger of blame at yourself. As humans we tend to beat ourselves up for all failures, large or small, reducing our self-belief and self-esteem. You may unconsciously poison yourself with toxic self-criticism. In an attempt to anticipate the future, you may make up your own stories and then react to them as if they were reality. Doing so can lead you into a spiral of depression or anxiety.
By being kind to yourself, you can increase your personal resilience to the pressures of life by stopping your brain from jumping to conclusions and spiralling into stress and panic. In turn, you’ll increase your happiness and productivity.
If you, like many other people, struggle with self-kindness, try the ‘Cultivating kindness’ exercise. There’s an accompanying audio track, Track 6 at www.dummies.com/go/mindfulnessatworkuk. You may find it challenging at first, but it gets easier with practice. Follow these steps:
- Settle yourself into a comfortable, upright, dignified position, and focus your attention on your breathing for a minute or so.
- Send yourself some kindness. Imagine giving yourself a hug and accepting yourself exactly as you are – perfect in your human imperfection. Picture yourself surrounded by a warm glow of kindness.
- Send some kindness to a dear friend. Thank them for their friendship and support. Wish them well and imagine them surrounded by a warm glow of kindness.
- Send some kindness to a neutral person – someone you’ve never met. Wish them a happy life and send them kind thoughts. Imagine them surrounded by a warm glow of kindness.
- Send some kindness to a hostile person – someone who you may have argued with or who makes you feel uncomfortable. Wish them a happy life and send them kind thoughts. Imagine them surrounded by a warm glow of kindness.
Just imagining being kind releases oxytocin (a hormone associated with love) into your bloodstream. By thinking about being kind to people you find difficult, you can reduce the activation of your sympathetic nervous system (which responds to threat), and stop yourself responding on auto-pilot. You can then choose a better response to the situation.
Discovering the Neuroscience of Kindness and compassion
Fear can trigger a threat response in your brain. Your reaction is often disproportionate to the actual provocation. When in the grip of this strong emotion, your capacity for higher ‘rational brain’ thinking is diminished, and you’re likely to revert to rote behaviours stored in the more primitive areas of your brain.
When you’re kind to yourself, and accept yourself as human, prone to making mistakes from time to time, but doing your best, you’re far less likely to trigger your threat system unnecessarily. Self-kindness can help you to enjoy life more, improve your relationships, increase your self-esteem and make you feel happier. All these things are likely to contribute to improved performance at work.
According to psychologist Kristin Neff, self-kindness ‘means that we stop the constant self-judgement and disparaging internal commentary that most of us have come to see as normal’.
Try the ‘Experiencing self-kindness’ exercise. When you’re upset, give yourself a hug, place your hand on your heart or gently rock your body. Your body responds to the physical warmth and care (just imagining a hug works in a similar way, too.) Hugging yourself has soothing benefits. Research indicates that physical touch releases oxytocin in your brain – the hormone associated with love and bonding. Oxytocin provides a sense of security soothes distressing emotions and calms cardiovascular stress.
Switching off your threat system
Kindness and compassion have an interesting impact on the brain.
Recent research utilised a MRI brain scanner to explore the areas of the brain that are activated when a person feels threatened. A volunteer was placed in the scanner and shown images that they found personally threatening. The brain scanner showed the brain circuits associated with threat lighting up exactly as predicted. Suddenly something unexpected happened. The areas of the volunteer’s brain associated with threat reactivity stopped being activated. The disturbing images were still being shown, but were not having the expected impact on the volunteer’s brain.
After the volunteer was removed from the scanner, researchers asked her what had happened. She explained that after a while the images became too disturbing for her, so she practised a self-kindness exercise that she’d been taught.
Until this point, it was thought that nothing completely shut off the human brain’s threat system; that it was permanently on, scanning the horizon for threats and potential problems at all times. This research suggests that self-kindness can switch off the human threat system – a potentially useful discovery.
Rewiring your brain
The more you repeat a thought or activity, the more you strengthen the neural pathway associated with that specific thought or activity in your brain. The stronger the neural connection, the easier it is to repeat. Many thoughts and activities, when repeated often enough, become stored in the more primitive areas of your brain as ‘habits’ – things you do without thinking. Opinion is divided about how long it takes to form a habit. Estimates range from an average of 21 to 64 days.
By consciously making an effort to catch yourself when you’re being overly self-critical, and accepting things as they are, over time you can rewire your brain to become more kind to yourself. Mindfulness exercises always include elements of self-kindness.
The cultivation of self-kindness is something that many people struggle with, finding it easier to be kind to someone else than themselves. Self-kindness and acceptance are important elements of mindfulness. By learning to accept yourself, faults and all, an enormous, self-imposed burden is lifted and life becomes easier. Practising self-kindness significantly increases your resilience at work.
Last, but by no means least …
It goes without saying that the healthier and happier you are the more resilient you will be. Be kind to yourself! Eat well, drink enough water and don’t forget to get some exercise in.
Stop for lunch and spend a few moments in the present moment, fully appreciating the act of eating – the flavour, the texture, the taste – and how it feels to eat.
If you can, park a little further away to get a short walk each day. Take the stairs not the lift. At the very least get up and stretch at your desk every hour.
Your body will thank you for it, and your boss should appreciate the positive impact of your improved resilience.