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Mental health is quite similar to physical health in that it's not stable, it's not the same
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every day. It fluctuates from day to day. So on some days you may be feeling
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super positive and high in energy and some other days you may be feeling less positive and
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maybe a bit lower in energy and that's normal. But if you're feeling that day and day out
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you're feeling very negative about yourself, others in the world, then I would suggest seeking
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professional help. Now, if you don't feel comfortable with that just yet, you might find it
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useful to take a look at some self-development books or online courses and that might help you
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over time to become more comfortable with expressing how you feel to a human person who can
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then help you develop further and manage your mental health more effectively
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A very effective way to escape negative thoughts is a change change of scenery So if you usually sitting at home in the same room day in day out a very effective way to change how you feel and how you think is to just go outside
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go for a quick walk around the block. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. Five minutes
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maybe more than enough for you. And by changing your scenery like that, your mind will feed you
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different types of thoughts that might help you feel different as well
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Now, if you don't have any time to go outside, there's a very simple but super effective exercise that you can do
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without leaving the room that you're in. And it has three components
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So the first one is that you basically reverse engineer your body posture
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to what it would be if you're feeling happy and empowered. And it works. So why don't you do it with me right now? So if you think about, you know
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how would somebody stand or sit who feels happy and empowered and completely, you know
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aligned with themselves. So what this person would be doing is they'd sit with a very straight
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back, shoulders back away from your ears and the chest slightly puffed up
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What that does is that it sends signals to your nervous system that you feeling strong and empowered It also quite relaxing because your shoulders are down You also want to make sure that you breathing deeply into your abdominal area Now the second aspect of this
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exercise is that with your eyes, you're slightly looking up. Research has found that when people feel down
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their eyes actually tend to look down. And what you can do to counteract that is to look up and notice how you feel
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Now, the third aspect of this exercise is that you just tell yourself really positive thoughts
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So a positive affirmation and as simple and as silly as it may sound, but I am happy
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If you verbally or mentally affirm, I am happy. Look up with your shoulders back, your chest puffed up
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You've got to feel more empowered. One thing that I do every day to manage my own mental state, apart from the things that I've
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already shared with you, is do a meditation that's called the twin hearts meditation
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Now, there are, of course, so many meditations out there, but what made me choose this
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particular meditation is that there is scientific evidence that it works in just 20 minutes
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per day And the advantage that I have seen in my own life is that I a lot more relaxed I get angry much less and it has an impact on my whole family So that the twin hearts meditation Some of the ways in which
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leaders can be more mindful of their staff's wellness is to first of all lead by example
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And what I mean by that is you want to be sharing your own struggles and learnings with your staff. And what that will allow them, what that will do is that they will feel will create, it will help create psychological safety for them to also share their struggles and their wins and therefore support each other
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A second thing that you can do as a leader to support your staff is to have dedicated meetups or sessions to where people can come together and actually, you know, in a formalized setting, share their struggles and their wins
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And maybe they're going to come up with company-wide initiatives to also support other people as well
