De-stress

Stress is something that we all deal with everyday now. The stress of COVID and the unknown future, the stress of fitting work into our life, and life into our work. The stress of changing expectations and deadlines, it’s all changing.

As we all know, stress is in our mind, and in our body. Luckily there are proven ways to deal with stress:

  1. Change our mindset - a little stress can be good, if we use the benefits of the single minded focus that stress gives us. Indeed, it can be easier to move your mindset from stress to excitement, than telling ourselves to calm down in key moments.

  2. Support our body - Research tells us the best way to rid our body of stress is by being mindful, getting active, and / or taking to others. The latest research has found the key is our vagus nerve.

Mindful

Mindfulness benefits us all, especially executives. Mindfulness is about being in the moment, and can be practiced anywhere and anytime, benefiting any activity (e.g. listening in a meeting, driving your car, brushing your teeth, etc.) at the same time as paying attention to the moment. Meditation is a more formal practice of mindfulness, and deepens your awareness. This HBR research looked at the benefits of meditation on the C Suite.

And this research shows just 7 minutes a day positively impacts your relationships at work, as well as your stress levels.

In fact, a new leadership book has been written about The Mindful Leader, it’s full of great tips.

So many great benefits, in so little time. And so many options to help you be mindful - apps, websites, etc. Find a meditative or mindful practice and commit to it every day for a month.

Actions

Choose a mindful practice that works for you and commit to doing this every day. You may build up time and meditation if you would like to gain even more benefits, you may not.

A few examples of mindful practice which help decrease stress and improve relationships:

  1. 3/5/7 breath

  2. Notice your 5 senses (during any activity)

  3. Listen for the meaning beneath people’s words

  4. Any breath work, meditation practice which brings you into the moment