Managing Mental Health While Working Remotely, with Kathleen Joseph, Licensed Mental Health Counselor
Do you ever feel like this pandemic will never end? Do you struggle to remove yourself from your work computer? Do you struggle with boundaries when you are working and living in the same place? Do you wish you could support your team better with their own mental health, but don't know how to do that remotely? If you said yes to any of these questions, then this episode is for you!
My guest today Kathleen Joseph, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, provides advice based on her experience working with clients who are new to remote work, and feeling even more burdened with the restrictions of the COVID pandemic.
Some of the topics covered include:
- How to identify signs in yourself and others in terms of declining mental health
- How to maintain a reasonable schedule and avoid overworking
- How to model good behaviors in mental health for your team
- As a leader how to normalize discussions around mental health so it is not stigmatized and seen as taboo
- How wellbeing has changed since the pandemic
And more!
To contact Kathleen, please visit her website www.kjanda.org
Resources mentioned:
- Da Vinci Schedule
- Self-Compassion Work by Dr. Kristen Neff
- Definition of Self-Compassion
- Self-Compassion Guided Meditations (which get us in the mindset of being kinder to ourselves)
- Self-Compassion Exercises (which get us practicing being kinder to ourselves)
- The Resilience Toolkit by Nkem Ndefo - https://theresiliencetoolkit.co/ - there is a fee associated with doing this with Nkem. This is an adaptation Nkem Ndefo’s Resilience Toolkit
- First, ask yourself “How stressed am I?” – this gets at how strong the stress response is
- You can rank this on a scale of 1-10 or low to high (we will come back to ranking)
- Then ask yourself, “How do I know?”. How do you know you are a “7 out of 10” or “highly” stressed, for example
- This is an important question because this gives us
- 1) insight into our experience, and
- 2) a better way of understanding our experience
- Now, ask yourself, “Is this adaptive for me in this moment?” (“Is this useful for me right now?)
- If yes – GOOD! Use it and keep going
- If no –
- Ask yourself this question: “What do I need?”
- “What practice(s) can I use?”
- Breathwork – sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system activation
- Orienting to your space (when feeling fearful)
- 4-7-8 breathing
- Finally, ask yourself: “How do I know that the practice worked?” If the practice works at reducing your feelings of stress, or at helping you to notice how stressed you are, keep practicing it.
- Breathwork Exercises
- 4-7-8 Breath - https://www.healthline.com/health/4-7-8-breathing#Other-techniques-to-help-you-sleep
- Mountain Breath by LifeForce Yoga - https://yogafordepression.com/stair-step-practice-to-energize/
- Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) Tapping - we didn't cover these but they also have the effect of reducing our stress response
- https://www.healthline.com/health/eft-tapping#bottom-line
- https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326434#how-to-do-eft-tapping (with pictures of meridian points to tap...the previous is article does not include images)
- More Somatic Exercises to Restore Feelings of Calm (Safety/Security)
- The use of Attunement, Ritual and Empowerment
- Relational Attunement - talking to a trusted someone about how you feel AND listening to a trusted someone who needs you
- The Use of Ritual - repeated, structured, and bodily engaged ways of reducing feelings of stress. This also has the added effect of organizing our lives when we use ritual to structure and plan our day.
- Reciting Empowerment Phrases
- These involve saying ritual phrases of empowerment.
- This is effective because it means that you are not helpless.
- This website lists some great ways of empowering oneself. I love that it provides so many effective options. These are all modalities that I use with my clients
- Orienting to the Space – natural response of animals to scan the environment to assess for safety
- A collection of somatic based exercises that promote feelings of safety and security
- Having the Check in Conversation with Workers
- Finally, here is a short video on how to check in on someone when you notice that they are not doing well. This can be an incredible tool for leaders, who may notice that someone on their team is not OK, but they are also struggling on how to broach the topic. Additional resources on how to have this check in conversation are featured as well:
