Ian Davies is the Co-Founder and Lead Trainer in Team Thinking Asia, a Yangon-based organization that runs training and development coaching for both private and public sector organizations. Ian joined the JobNet Wellbeing and Resilience Webinar on May 14th as one of our speakers.
During the webinar, Ian shares some tips for all levels of employees on how to manage our well-being, and work in a more ‘brain-friendly way to stay calm when stressed.
Ian mentions how one aspect of our brain looks for rewards, while the other aspect of our brain looks for threats. Rewards are things that make us feel good and happy. Those rewards can be simple things, such as food, shelter, basic things that keep us alive, status and promotion. The other aspect of our brain is constantly looking for threats, which could be things such as changes in the workplace, or an angry customer.
Ian explains that when your brain is in the ‘threat’ state, you become more worried, more anxious, and may experience negative effects on your work and performance.
How do we get our brains back into the reward state?
1. Improve Relationships
When we don't keep up good connections with people, our brains become unbalanced, and it starts to have negative impacts on our ability to think, be creative, and thus, impact our work.
What can you do at work to increase your relationship and interaction with people?
2. Increase Certainty
In the last 12 months, there has been a lack of certainty. As a leader or manager, it is important to increase the level of certainty for your team.
Leaders and managers can do this by:
As an individual, you can also do simple things to increase the sense of certain for you:
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Create a daily to-do list or schedule with simple items: wake up at a certain time, eat breakfast, work for a few hours, have a quick break
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Create an ‘if...then” plan: if something happens, I will do this. For example, if the power fails, then I will turn on my generator
3. Give More Control
Ian states that, when we are given a task within our capabilities, we feel responsible, and helps our brain feel more relaxed. Therefore, to increase employee wellbeing, managers can delegate some tasks to their junior team members to have more control of a project.
With the above mentioned methods, we can ‘trick’ our brain back into being in the rewards state, and help us be less worried, less anxious, and become calmer, and more productive at work.
Before ending his session, Ian recommends some simple ways we can create a healthy mind by ourselves.
- Sleep time: get into a healthy sleep pattern to get better sleep
- Physical time: incorporate exercise into your daily routine
- Focus time: focus time refers to your work, such as focusing on a spreadsheet or presentation, working with a client. While focus time is important, be sure that when taking a short break in between to not be on your phone
- Connecting time: Connecting time refers to the time you spend connecting with your friends and family, whether it’s a phone call, instant messaging, or even in person. It is important to incorporate that into your daily schedule to maintain and improve relationships
- Playtime: create playtime by spending time doing something you enjoy, whether it is reading, or engaging in a hobby
- Downtime: Downtime is where you do nothing, have no plans, and just daydream. It’s a relaxing time of day where you simply sit back and clear your mind.
- Time In: Time In is where you focus on your body and your brain, and try to cut down on the noise and thoughts in your head. A simple but effective way to practice Time In is through meditation.