Managing HR stress and building resilience

It was wonderful to have Tash Pieterse come and end the HR Advisors Conference in Auckland – she brought a breath of fresh air, calm and clarity to a busy two days. You see Tash actually came and presented at our very first HR Advisors Conference back in 2014 – about how to use social media as an HR tool. Since then, Tash has grown her HR career into senior roles, and then trained as a life and mindset coach.

 

She came to talk about how to be your best at work and in life, a big part of this being how you manage your own stress and build your resilience. Stress in HR can be a little different from other types of roles. In HR we get to see employees who are having horrible times in their lives, managers who aren’t coping, people who aren’t performing. We have to help our organisations restructure and dismiss people. We see everything that is wrong with our company culture – but often can’t change it quickly for the better. HR teams are often under resourced so having to deal with way too many queries to handle.

The biggest impact this has is on the individuals, like you, who show up everyday trying to do the best by their employees. That takes energy, which means you need to take care of that energy so you can continue to show up as your best, for yourself, your team and your stakeholders.

We thought what better way to end the conference than to focus on how you can better look after yourself so you can be more resilient and handle daily stress with a little more ease. Tash had a couple of fantastic suggestions about this.

Tash’s first tip was that you need to manage your relationship with stress.

She explained that stress can often be good and at times comes in handy – but it needs to be good stress – a stress that you can tap into and move out of easily (i.e. I like creating things with a bit of a deadline) vs a stress that you are being consumed by and can’t get out of easily.

We also can’t stay in stress states for long periods of time, as it can snowball and it may not be until years later that we start to feel the effects of stress on our minds and bodies.

So what can you do?

1. Understanding your Stress Signals

Think about what are your stress signals? What do you notice when you realise you are starting to feel stressed?

Tash shared that for her, she starts to get snippy with people, she gets extremely exhausted even though she’s had a full nights sleep, she gets irritated by everything, and she starts disliking things she normally really enjoy.

When you are aware of your stress signals you are able to recognise a lot quicker when you need to pull back and do more of what makes you feel good and relaxed. Your stress signals will be different to those around you, so Tash suggested doing this as an activity with your team so you aware of each other’s stress signals and can help each other realise when things are going a bit south.

2. Reducing Perceived Stress

Tash also asked:

• What things are you attaching to that are adding stress to your life?

Stress is actually a perception that we create. Unfortunately, our brains haven’t evolved as quickly as the world has evolved. When you perceive your emails as stressful, your body responds in exactly the same way as it would if you were running away from a Tiger. So much of what we experience day to day is not worthy of the stress we put on it. Our work, emails, and particularly the choices we make or what people will think of us if we do X, Y, or Z.

She gave some examples of going to the gym when actually you hate the gym, training 7 days a week even though you’re exhausted and don’t sleep well, having all of your notifications turned on with sounds that you react to. Anything that puts you out of feeling calm and relaxed puts you into fight or flight. So, what’s doing that for you? Are you aware of them?

You control what things cause you stress – you can choose what things you allow to wind you up – so what do you need or want to remove from your every day that is causing you more stress than you need right now?

Tash then talked through some simple things you can do to start reducing stress in your everyday life and then look at how you can also bring more mindfulness into your workday as well.

1. End of Day List – before leaving the office write down all of the thoughts, to-dos, ideas, stressful stuff you have in your head in your notebook or post-it before you leave the office. We have a serious problem taking our work home with us – and honestly, we don’t get paid enough for that! So write down what you need to get out of your head so you can leave it at work and leave the office with a clear mind

Note: This will take practice and it’s up to you how much you enforce this for yourself! Be vigilant! Does work need to take up more space in your brain after you’ve left?

2. Move & Create Space – You’ve been sitting ALL DAY! Bar the few times you went to the loo (I hope heaps from plenty of water) and getting up for lunch – so it’s really important that you get your body to move and create some space in your joints after work. You will be surprised at how much this helps your energy shift to a more neutral or positive state. This is particularly important if you’ve had a stressful and busy day. If you can do this outside (if the weather permits) that’s amazing – or do whatever feels good – i.e. gym, dance class, yoga, squash, badminton, etc.

3. Reduce Tech & Switch Off  – At least 30-60mins before bed, switch off your phone, put it on flight mode or on downtime (this is a setting on iPhones) and give yourself some space from your laptop or your phone.

1. • Our bodies are designed to follow the rhythms of nature so when the sun goes down – our body wants to natural settle down and get ready for sleep – and when we’re glued to technology and the artificial light it creates it tricks our minds into thinking it’s still day time – this is why people often think they get their “second wind” – it’s not supposed to happen – your body gives you a second wind, because you didn’t go to sleep when it thought you would – so it needs to give you more energy to keep you safe (in case something happens). Our bodies aren’t designed to work in this cycle forever. So over time you’ll start to notice the impacts.
   • Reducing tech and switching off will allow your body to make melatonin and help you to fall asleep. If 30mins feels drastic – start with 10mins and increase it as it becomes easier – trust me, you’ll notice the difference!
   • My phone goes onto downtime at 8:30pm every night and I’m asleep by 9:30pm – I’m a nana.

4. Write & Release – Journaling may sound girly to you but it is so powerful. Just like writing your to-do’s out before you leave the office – releasing all of the thoughts in your head before you go to sleep will help you fall asleep quicker because your brain won’t be preoccupied with what happened at 8am this morning or start to think about that event that happened in 1999.

1. • Our brain needs time to rest, just like our bodies do, so it’s important to prime it for that rest and relaxation.
   • The prompts I use when I write is: I am grateful for… I am letting go of… I am welcoming in…

If you’d like a starter guide to powerful journaling, you can download my journaling guide here: https://mailchi.mp/2a5042867bc0/powerful-journaling

5. Meditate / Sit Quietly  – If meditation doesn’t resonate with you – that’s okay! You can simply sit quietly just before you go to sleep, take 3 deep breaths that you feel right down in your belly, hold for 3 seconds, then breathe out for 3 seconds. Deep breathing allows our bodies to return back to homeostasis (rest and digest) which tells our body it’s safe and it can work on nurturing and repair. When you’re in stress mode – you’re in fight or flight so your body isn’t focused on creating melatonin and definitely isn’t thinking about digestion.

Thank you to Tash for coming and sharing her journey, and her tips for identifying and dealing with stress. If you’d like to get in touch with Tash to find out more, you can visit www.tashtasticnz.com – to sign up for tips, tricks, and plenty more!

If you’d like to see what the September HR Advisors Conference is covering – just click here.