Leadership Series Designed for our Times - The importance of Self-Care

Over the next few weeks we will be running our leadership series designed for our times.

The first in the series deals with the importance of self-care. Before we can truly lead we must take care of ourselves first, so this article aims to help you audit your state of mind, with some practical self-help tips to improve your wellbeing.

Our bodies signal to us when we are at our best and feel energised, and conversely when we are energy depleted. 

In order to get a better grasp of your state, and how to act on it so you are feeling energised more often, we recommend that you keep an energy diary for a week observing how you feel after certain events, rating these from 1 (lowest) to 10 (optimal) after you:

●     Wake in the morning

●     Eat a meal

●     Have a conversation with an individual or individuals

●     Consumed the news

●     Engaged with a social media platform

●     Have completed your tasks for the day and are preparing to sleep

Where you score 6 or below, you may wish to improve your score. If you score 6 or above you may want to improve further and/or remain at the top of your game. By adopting the actions below in your daily practice you are attending to your needs and securing a firm foundation to consistently lead others effectively:

Feeling negative when you wake in the morning 

Our state of mind can be altered in a positive way by our physiology. In other words, you can improve your mental state by going for a jog or taking other exercise, taking a brisk walk, or even by having some fun and jumping up and down to your favourite tunes!  

Furthermore, after your exercise, you should find a quiet space without interruption to practice diaphragmatic breathing.  This involves fully engaging the stomach, abdominal muscles, and diaphragm when breathing, which means actively pulling the diaphragm down with each inward breath, which helps the lungs fill more efficiently. By exhaling a long, thin breath and taking slow, deliberate breaths in this area liberates your body from restlessness with the result of quieting and relaxing your mind.

By making these actions a daily habit, like taking a shower, you will be cleansing and looking after your emotional health.

You tend to feel tired or bloated after eating

Maintaining a proper ratio between acid and alkaline foods in our diet is essential to maintaining good health. Where it is out of balance, and our energy is depleted, we experience problems such as stress, fatigue, depression and disease. Therefore, one of our highest priorities is to make sure there is enough alkalinity throughout your body. 

Simply by introducing alkaline forming foods into your diet such as almonds, avocados, lemons, radishes and green leafy vegetables and removing or reducing acid forming drinks such as coffee, tea, refined sugar and beer you can change your energy levels radically in a positive direction.  

Increasing your consumption of water (for example by using a measuring bottle) and ensuring you drink half your body weight in water each day (there are many free apps on line that help you with this), provides your body with the nutrients it needs. 

 Conversations with individuals, particularly where they are negative. 

Either you can attempt to limit your interaction with the individual, or if there is a necessity to interact consider ways to reframe conversations. 

For example where the individual may be suffering due to the lockdown, it is an opportunity to demonstrate empathy through making a mental note to yourself that you are simply understanding, appreciating, and relieving stress for the individual through listening, and providing assurance where possible.

If you are feeling overwhelmed (which can sometimes happen if you are exposed to many people in this state) options include recommending to the individual that they contact their Employee Assistance Programme provider (if you have one in place) or to recommend they schedule a discussion with their GP service for support. Furthermore, you could reach out to your HR team for other options and continued support. 

By appreciating and sending goodwill to others helps cleanse your mind of negative emotions such as anxiety, worry or anger.

Negative thoughts after watching the News

Should the news on the virus make you feel anxious we suggest scheduling this for at the most 30 minutes a day, removing any notifications thereafter.  Remember news channels make money from sensationalising and presenting in this way. You need not worry you will miss something vital, as if it is important you can be sure of being updated by a friend or loved one!

To gain perspective remember the older generation have lived through 2 World Wars, the Spanish Flu (with far greater loss of life - 900 million), the Great Depression and lived to tell the tale without the technology we have today. 

Social Media interruption

Social media companies target content to users through artificial intelligence that predicts your mood states. Unfortunately, it can also trigger or enhance your mood state whether that be loneliness, anxiety or another negative state. 

According to an ONS Study earlier this year, 2.6 million adults reported that they felt lonely often or always and 7.4 million adults reported that their wellbeing had been affected through feeling lonely in the last seven days. If you are aware you are turning to social media if you feel lonely consider calling or texting a friend, scheduling a meet up or if time permits to volunteer to a charity in the evening to help those in need.

With bottomless news feed there is no natural ending (consider as society we expect to finish a film, come to the end of a book, a theatre show etc), to allow an opportunity to detach naturally and change your emotional state. Therefore, If you can control and limit your social media to a set amount of 30 minutes (twice a day by setting an alarm), you will be ahead of most of the population. 

Consider taking time out from screen work two hours before bed. The blue light emitted from our gadgets suppresses the secretion of melatonin (a hormone that regulates sleep/wake cycles), which increases in the evening to induce sleep.

If your head is buzzing before you go to bed

A 10 minute meditation can help you to soothe your thoughts. If you can either sit cross-legged on a mat, stand up, or lie down and slowly breathe in and out (see section on waking in the morning), allowing your thoughts to enter your mind, but do not grasp onto them. Practise passing on gratitude as part of your meditation to all you interact with including your family, work colleagues, workers who provide a service in your town etc. After a few days of practicing in this way,your mind will feel calmer, devoid of negative thoughts, and prepared for sleep. 

As you begin to understand your energy cycle you can schedule activities which require intense or high amounts of energy accordingly. If you know that you tend to be in a low energy state at certain times of the day when you need to be your best self, practice one of these 6 steps to bring your energy levels up. Reflect at the end of the day how fulfilled you are out of 100. List some actions that improve your score until you have in place a daily practice to maintain your optimal score. 

About the Author: This article was put together by Sean Smythe. Sean has worked across a multitude of different sectors during his HR career developing subject management expertise in employment law and employee relations. Sean now focuses on coaching managers to breakthrough people challenges and create great people experiences, that ultimately lead to long term fulfilment at work. 

Please do leave your comments or thoughts as part of this blog, and we will where appropriate incorporate any ideas and/or requests into future articles in our leadership series.