Welcome to my blog
There is a lot of information around on the importance of looking after our health, like maintaining a healthy diet and plenty of exercise. This is all well and good if your aim is just to keep your body healthy. But what about your brain?
From chocolate to coffee and sleep, to sharper smarter thinking, join me for an article or three as I share insights, tips and ideas on what it takes to keep your brain operating at full speed, so you can wake up feeling refreshed, happier and healthier every day.
Welcome to my blog
There is a lot of information around on the importance of looking after our health, like maintaining a healthy diet and plenty of exercise. This is all well and good if your aim is just to keep your body healthy. But what about your brain?
From chocolate to coffee and sleep, to sharper smarter thinking, join me for an article or three as I share insights, tips and ideas on what it takes to keep your brain operating at full speed, so you can wake up feeling refreshed, happier and healthier every day.
How to Maintain Trust in a Virtual World
When you’re in the presence of someone you like, consider like you and you believe they like you back, levels of oxytocin rise in the body. This leads to the establishment of trust. For any workplace trust is critical to its success, not just in regard to customer service, but for every relationship between all employees at all levels. Authenticity and vulnerability are key.
If you enjoy a good working relationship with your boss and your colleagues you are more likely to enjoy your work, take more care in how you do it, contribute more, collaborate more effectively with other members of a team and stay longer in the role. Sounds a good place to work, right?
The payoff for the business is lower rates of sick leave, stress leave, mental health issues, absenteeism, presenteeism and staff turnover. This has to be good for any business owner or leader.
How to Enjoy Greater Happiness During the Global Pandemic
In times of adversity it’s easy to get weighed down by negative thoughts and feelings. But does that mean we can’t still experience happiness? Happiness is just one of our emotions and we can lift our spirits to enjoy greater hope and optimism by choosing to be happier using one strategy that is simple to use, costs nothing and is always freely available.
It’s called nature.
Too stressed to think? How to regain your clarity of thought
A little bit of stress is helpful to enable you to step up to a challenge, to sharpen your focus and improve your ability to remember details about the situation you’re dealing with. This is useful when studying for an exam, about to take your driving test or getting ready to deliver a presentation to your boss.
But too much ongoing stress triggering the stress response leading to fight-flight or freeze then fails to switch off. Thinking becomes more muddled, emotions fray and sleep disturbed.
And it can lead to mental illness.
How to Avoid the Next Pandemic of Poor Mental Wellbeing
It’s R U OK? Day on September 10th, an important date that reminds us of the importance of looking out for each other, especially in the realm of mental wellbeing.
And it’s even more critical today because of the global pandemic which has resulted in a rapid increase in the level of psychological distress, anxiety and depression being reported.
With 45% of the adult Australian population experiencing some form of mental health problem at some point in their lives, it’s essential to look for ways of lowering the risk, managing mental distress more effectively and the reducing the cost of poor mental health to the individual, their families and the economy.
Early intervention is key.
How to reduce your risk of burnout when working from home
The pandemic arrived, putting the skids on everything that up until then had been running quite smoothly. Suddenly I was working harder than I had ever worked before, spending countless hours chained to the desk creating, writing and presenting. My working hours were spreading across the weekend, the days were blurring into one. I was eating far too many corn chips and my trousers getting uncomfortable tight. I was even having the occasional glass of wine having given up alcohol three years ago.
Why It’s Important to Distinguish Between Burnout and Depression
Confusion reigns and the symptoms of each are very similar, but there is a difference and the reason this is important, is because the management of each differs.
Depression. It’s a leading cause of disability globally. One in five adult Australians is at risk of developing a mental health disorder in any given 12 months. In corporate Australia the statistics are even worse with one study reporting one in three workers from across a range of industries is suffering from some form of mental illness. Of these 36% were diagnosed with depression, 33% had anxiety and 31% were suffering from unsustainable work stress.
Burnout was reclassified by the World Health Organisation in 2019 as an occupational syndrome resulting from exposure to chronic unmitigated work stress resulting in extreme physical and emotional exhaustion, cynicism and reduced performance.
It is estimated that 5-7% of the working population are affected.