The Long Road Ahead: Thriving Through Fatigue
The Pandemic is not a financial recession: it is a fast-paced economic transformation. We’re transforming our companies into low-touch, high-safety businesses and we’re doing it a light speed.
We’re hyper-engaged digitally, yet highly stressed emotionally.
The most stressed part of the workforce is now young families, working mothers, and single employees working at home – and despite the online yoga classes and bread-baking videos, people are just tired.
Fatigue Management is what wins or loses wars.
- Reduce workload by clarifying goals.
- Create cadence and recovery cycles in the business.
- CEO-level focus is needed
- Take time off to rest, walk, and exercise every day. Stand up and walk around.
- Turn off the TV and stop watching Twitter.
- Take it slow. Don’t carry to heavy a load: you’ll get more done if you pace yourself over time.
- If you’re a manager, help show people what “not to do.” Help people find focus, and don’t waste their time.
- Turn off your Zoom camera and shorten meetings to 15 minutes if you can. Stop every meeting early.
- Tell your team to take a week off. And don’t email while they’re gone. Things will be fine when they come back, and work will resume better than ever.
- Be patient with your colleagues, peers, and yourself. People always want to do the best – right now it may just take a little more time.
- Have some empathy for leadership. They are tired too. Ask them how they’re doing and let them know you care.
Building Resilience
Martin E.P. Seligman FROM THE APRIL 2011 ISSUE
https://hbr.org/2011/04/building-resilience
Penn Resiliency Program, under the direction of Karen Reivich and Jane Gillham, of the University of Pennsylvania, for young adults and children.
A team led by the University of Michigan professor Christopher Peterson, author of the Values in Action signature strengths survey, created the test, called the Global Assessment Tool (GAT). It is a 20-minute questionnaire that focuses on strengths rather than weaknesses and is designed to measure four things: emotional, family, social, and spiritual fitness. All four have been credited with reducing depression and anxiety. According to research, they are the keys to PERMA.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51067861_Building_resilience
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more on mindfulness in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=mindfulness
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-12-26-teaching-is-as-stressful-as-an-er-these-calming-strategies-can-help
researchers from Penn State say can be as stress-inducing as an emergency room. Teachers enter such an an environment every day, which sometimes feels like life-or-death.
nonprofit program Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE)
half of the students in schools across America have experienced some form of trauma, violence or chronic stress.
After collecting data on those educators’ well-being, observations of classrooms and student behavioral reports over the course of a year, we found that teachers who received emotional regulation training were more emotionally supportive, demonstrated greater sensitivity to student needs, and provided more positive and productive classroom environments. Furthermore, when assessing teachers’ stress levels, those teachers noted considerably less distress, and an improved ability to manage their emotions.
In the face of stressful situations, I instead used techniques like deep breathing and mindful walking to calm my body and mind, gaining that heightened self-awareness to thoughtfully respond to the issue at hand.
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more on stress in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=stress
