Hey everyone, we’re raising awareness about mental health this month and today we’re asking you to consider how you listen!
Do you listen to others to understand, or do you listen to others to judge? Check out the difference here!
Listening is the communication skill that links up with EMPATHY – which is what CMHA has featured in their mental health week campaign this year. The great news is that they’ve also published an article with a checklist that goes through steps to effective listening! Check it out here and brush up on your listening skills.
Hey everyone, we’ve been posting emergency planning information and resources for Emergency Preparedness Week, and we want to take time to talk stress.
Emergencies can be stressful to think about. Planning for emergencies might seem like a big chore, or it might seem like it’s an impossible job to be ready for anything, or it might make you feel scared or sad.
It’s important to know that having a plan is one of the best emergency response strategies you can have: it will help you stay calm if you’re ever faced with a real emergency. So, while emergency planning might seem like a challenge, it’s definitely worthwhile!
Hey there everyone and welcome to the ZEN ZONE, where we have taken time out each Friday in April to zoom in on stress management information, resources, and strategies.
Some of the questions we’ve looked at this month were:
As we’ve been exploring our own stress management strategies this month, we can check in on how things went.
Did you use The Stress Management Society’s 30 Day Challenge resources to find strategies that worked for you? Did you track the activities you did for physical, mental and emotional wellbeing? Which tips and tricks worked best for you? Did you learn something new about managing stress this month?
At the end of the day, we are all different – and our best stress management strategies will all be different too!
Making the Zen Zone part of our health and safety month this year has been about exploring new ways to look at stress, trying new ways to manage stress, and (hopefully!) feeling the difference that managing stress proactively can make in our daily lives. Let us know how it went in the comments!
Hey there everyone and welcome to the ZEN ZONE, where we take time out each Friday in April to zoom in on stress management information, resources, and strategies.
Last week we looked at how to respond to stress in the moment by using tactical breathing. This week, we’re asking another question: how does stress cause damage?
Knowing about the long-term effects of stress over time helps us understand the damage it can cause — check out the Stress Management Society video below that explains more about stress and pressure by imagining a bridge. You can use a color grid, like this one from the CMA website, to check in on where you are currently and see how often you leave the “Green” zone:
One of the stress management strategies from the Canadian Medical Association website is to pace yourself by understanding that we all have physical and emotional limits. It’s important to be intentional with what you’re setting out to achieve in order to support healthy limits. Consider trying out a planner, like this one offered through the Stress Management Society website.
There are many resources online that offer strategies you can use to manage stress – get curious, explore, and find a strategy that works for you. Check out the Mayo Clinic’s “The 4 A’s of Stress Relief” here and read about 5 tips to manage stress here.
Hey there everyone and welcome to the ZEN ZONE, where we take time out each Friday in April to zoom in on stress management information, resources, and strategies.
Last week we looked at sources of stress, and how wellness supports like focusing on slowing down the flow of information helps keep stress from being unhelpful. This week, we’re following up with another question: how can we best respond to stress in the moment?
A key component to responding to stress is to recognize how it affects the body physically — check out the BBC video below that explains more.
Hey there everyone and welcome to the ZEN ZONE, where we take time out each Friday in April to zoom in on stress management information, resources, and strategies.
Last week we looked at basic information about what stress is, and resources to integrate wellness supports into our daily lives. This week, we’re following up with another question: where does stress come from?
The short answer is, stress can come from different sources, and we all experience it differently. According to the Canadian Medical Association, this includes:
Physical conditions: fatigue, exhaustion, insomnia, pain, illness, substance use
Psychology and emotions: anxiety, depression, feelings of helplessness/lack of control
Personal circumstances: financial, relationship, family needs and/or disruptions
School and work: schedules, workload, complaints
We can see from the list above that sources of stress are common. The key is to stop stress from crossing from “helpful” into “unhelpful” — check out the CMHA video below about keeping stress in check.
You can also have a peek at the wellbeing suggestions for the 30 Day Challenge and add new ideas to your calendar for this week! One of the wellbeing suggestions is also a strategy from the Canadian Medical Association website: manage stress by increasing FOCUS, which means slowing down the flow of information. It can be helpful to identify times where you’re not consuming social media or news. If you’re interested in doing a digital detox, you can use this assessment at the start and at the end to see if things change for you!
Hey there everyone and welcome to the ZEN ZONE, where we take time out each Friday in April to zoom in on stress management information, resources, and strategies.
Hey everyone, we are launching our annual Health and Safety month today for April 2022! *And no, this is not an April Fools joke (though we posted a Friday Funny earlier – check it out here!)
Each year we take time in April to focus in on promoting health and safety for everyone we support, caregivers, and employees. We are going to be including a very special focus this year on stress management, which we thought would be helpful as we all continue to cope with COVID-19 in our communities.
You can expect to see weekly posts on Mondays covering different health and safety topics, from Healthy Habits to Home Safety. You can also expect to see weekly posts on Fridays zooming in on stress management strategies. We’ll be including information and sharing resources from our teams during the week, too.
Got a great safety resource or an interesting piece of health info? Don’t be shy – sharing is caring! Drop it in a comment below or send it over in an email!
