Edition 67 - Are We Okay?

Are we Okay?

With burnout in some professions at an all-time high, it’s important that we understand the impacts that schedules and commitments have on our emotional and mental health.

Have you ever had an emotional blowup at work or at home that seemingly came out of nowhere? Maybe something that you would have easily processed suddenly became a trigger for an intense display of emotion. What causes these to happen and how can we work to prevent them in the future?

I believe there are several factors that can create a tension that sets us up for an outburst.

• Too much on our plates – we’ve accepted too much responsibility, too many competing deadlines, or we have trouble delegating things
• Underlying situations at work or home form an underlying level of stress that reduces our ability to interact well to upsets
• Issues and situations that have not been dealt with properly and allowed to consume our mental and emotional capacity
• Physical health conditions or lack of proper physical care for ourselves that have lowered our physical stamina

Many factors can add to stress that impact our strength, stamina, and emotional health. Having a means or process to address these is the key to greater peace and contentment. To maintain our emotional state and mental health we can implement several actions and activities that will provide benefits and help us maintain an even keel.

1. Exercise – staying active consistently for 30 minutes a day can help elevate our serotonin levels and give a little perspective on issues.
2. Proper diet – eating healthy, well-balanced meals helps maintain proper nutrition. Stress eating can kill any benefit derived from exercise. Ever heard you can’t exercise your way from a bad diet?
3. Processing – this exercise or activity involves processing challenges from the day, acknowledging your feelings about them, releasing bitterness, and extending forgiveness where it’s needed. Journaling helps if you are a writer. Another way is to have an internal conversation while you are walking or even in prayer.
4. If you are truly overloaded or overwhelmed, having discussions with your manager or team, or even your spouse or significant other is vital. Letting them know how you are doing can remove some of the mental burden from you and provide them with the insight needed to help adjust. Sometimes, even a little encouragement and recognition goes a long way. Sometimes we get so busy that we forget to thank people and express our appreciation for them.

As a manager, it’s important that we have frequent check-ins with our reports and allow them the opportunity to express concerns about their workload and any challenges they might have in accomplishing their assigned responsibilities. Let them know they are appreciated and be specific with compliments.

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Steve Platia has been developing and leading high-performing teams, products, and processes in the renewable energy, manufacturing, and oil/gas industries for over 30 years. He can be reached at [email protected] or (918) 269-0472.

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