Boost Energy, Focus & Creativity with Mindfulness

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Jeff Archer

Tel: 020 8995 1302

Email: jeff@the-tonic.com

Madgex Enlists The Tonic to Launch Mindfulness Workshops

Madgex has launched a series of Mindfulness Workshops for its staff.

The workshops which are designed and run by wellness company, The Tonic, provide participants with the opportunity to understand what mindful living is and how it will benefit them both in and out of the workplace.

Workshop participants are introduced to some practical techniques including mindful meditation. They explore how to manage their mental and physical state with breathing techniques and various levels of meditation and, by the end of the programme, they will be able to employ mindfulness as a simple skill to regenerate their energy, reduce stress and anxiety, increase enjoyment of life, develop an enquiring mind, and understand how to add greater creativity, quality and value to everything they do. 

As part of the process, The Tonic will follow up with mindful reminders to help everyone make time each day for mindful living and to help them establish it as a regular habit.

Hanna Smith, HR Director of Madgex said, ‘We already provide a range of other health & wellbeing activities for staff to participate in. This year we decided to add mindfulness to our program because of its many benefits. In today’s world and certainly working in a technical business, things happen so fast you can often forget to take note of what’s going on around you or be busy thinking what’s the next thing to do. Living like this is not sustainable long-term, so educating those that wanted about mindfulness can help everyone cope with the everyday work/ family life.

Our ethos has always been, look after the whole person, not just the work person, and mindfulness is an excellent tool to help you appreciate that.  We’ve worked with Jeff from The Tonic before and really like the way his workshops can fit into our culture. He has a very personable style that has been receptive to our staff and the feedback has been wonderful.’

Mindfulness is on the rise as a recognised technique for business leaders and organisations. Research has linked meditation to boosts in focus and productivity, and mindfulness practice has also been associated with emotional stability and improved sleep, reduced stress and anxiety, and improved mental clarity.

Tonic Director, Jeff Archer said, ‘The purpose of the programme is to help everyone add balance and also engage at a deeper level with everyday life in an attempt to maximise creativity, focus, and quality of experience.’

About The Tonic

The Tonic team specialises in helping businesses raise the performance of their people through wellbeing days, lifestyle coaching and wellness initiatives for training, development and leadership programmes.

If you’d like more information about this topic or to discuss corporate health and wellbeing with Jeff Archer, please call him on 020 8995 1302, email jeff@the-tonic.com or get more information at visit www.the-tonic.com

Image by Flickr: Moyan Brenn

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Preparation for Peak Performance

This is a piece I wrote for Women's Running Magazine.

Primarily it's about race day nerves and how to calm them, channel any big event anxiety and use it to your advantage but the strategy really boils down to three basic elements which are integral to achieving best performance in any sporting event, business project or presentation:

• Planning
• Preparation
• Practice

Spend a little time getting these right and your event, whatever it may be, will take care of itself.

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Inspiring Wellness Success Stories 8

'Small steps and consistency' are the secrets of wellbeing success for the latest case study in our series.  Applying this approach he feels 'much stronger, more stress resistant, more awake, feel better, have more fun'

What's also good to know is that wellbeing, though not necessarily always the sole focus of a leadership programme, can make the event memorable and leave a long- lasting impression.

'Honestly, yours and your team's sessions was the one lasting, still lasting. I appreciate your efforts.'  

That's always great for us to hear.  Here are the details of this chap's progress:

The date of the wellbeing programme you attended

• Autumn of 2011

The lifestyle changes you made during and following the programme

• I got back to training, stick to minimum 3 times per week for the last year and a half. Finished a half marathon in 1.46 (previous best was 7 years ago at 1.55 when I stopped training)
• I have lost 10 pounds
• Key experience: I do not train a lot but I train very focused
• I think of what I eat and make sure I eat in between meals. Small fruit, nuts, drink water.  

The secrets of your success with wellbeing

• Small steps, consistency.  Start with one day, add two days, it takes time, no need to rush to 5 days training per week.
• I eat well, very well, but I take a look at the menu and make sure my choices are balanced

What advice that you received made the greatest impact on you?

• First, I joined the sessions in the park and enjoyed it (as pictured). This was key.
• Second, persistence, it is not a one time thing.  Your team gave 100%. A privilege
• Third, the food advice worked. Theory and practise

The biggest benefits of making your lifestyle changes?

• Kick ass at work, you should see the others after a 12 hour day :)
• Jokes aside, I am much stronger, more stress resistant, more awake, feel better, have more fun

Anything that got in the way of success with wellbeing

• Sometimes hard to find training time, but then I check my mindset and I can always find 20 minutes

When wellbeing is working for you, what are the key elements that make the difference?  

• in addition to above, always a good breakfast

Read the previous instalment of our wellness success stories

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Inspiring Wellness Success Stories 6

More than 5 years on and the wellness programme benefits are still going strong.  

The latest instalment of our success stories demonstrates the lasting impact that can be achieved with a corporate wellness programme.  This participant reports how tackling wellness at a crucial time of life has led to feeling healthier, an improved ability to deal with stress and a sure fire way to keep the fun in life for the future.

Here's how he did it.
The date of the wellness programme you attended:
September 2007

The lifestyle changes you made during the programme:
None during the program, though the information provided resonated well with me then and has remained with me since.

The lifestyle changes you made following programme: 
Better / more effective prioritization of what is important and what is urgent.

The secrets of your success with wellness:
Think longer term, if you only think of the day to day activities then you do not find the time to do the things that matter in the long run - like your family, your health, etc. Thinking longer term helps you put things in their proper perspective.

What advice that you received made the greatest impact on you? 
I took part in the program when I was 45 yrs old, I am 50 now and those 5 yrs are when a lot of things - potentially bad - start to happen. If you don't get control of things, balance work and life, start eating healthier, exercise regularly, etc by the time you are 50 then I would guess life gets a lot less fun thereafter.

The biggest benefits of making your lifestyle changes:
Healthier, improved relationships with my colleagues and my family members, less reactive and more proactive, stress happens - but I react to it in a more calm, cool and collected way now.

Anything that got in the way of success with wellness: 
Nothing for me, but everything - if you let it.

When wellness is working for you, what are the key elements that make the difference?    
I am a morning person so I rise early and exercise at least 30 mins every day w/o exception. I am also early to bed, you have to have this balance if you rise early otherwise sleep deprivation catches up to you. Find out how much sleep you need to perform well and make sure that you get it nightly with as few exceptions as possible.

Read the previous instalment of our Inspiring Success Stories.

Image by  [ r ♥ c e y t ♥ y ] {I br♥ke for bokeh} Flickr

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6 Top Tips for preventing employee burnout

There's a lot in the press at the moment about staff burning out, feeling overwhelmed or suffering from lack of engagement.  It's not surprising, with budget cuts, staff cuts, restructuring and a general sense of uncertainty in many sectors, there's pressure for employees to know more, do more and achieve more than ever before.  

Many workers often feel they have so much to do that they need more hours in the day? If you're one of them, don't worry, you're not alone. According to a one study, a vast number of people are using modern technology and multi-tasking to cram 31 hours of activity into 24 hours.

Doesn't sound wise does it? All these gadgets and labour saving devices that were designed to save us time and enrich our lives have actually created a personal disaster area for many people as they've become so wrapped up in checking emails, calling friends and family, updating social networking sites and checking in with work on their 'smartphone' (surely it's how we use it that makes us smart, not the phone?) at the weekends. Is this you? 

I'm all for progress but not when it's not managed properly and ultimately it's our responsibility to be vigilant with how we let technology rule our lives. Especially when the biggest excuse for not staying fit, eating well and taking good care of ourselves is lack of time. Do we really not have time or are we allowing all these other distractions to hijack the valuable time we do have?

Why not try a new approach?

Rather than seeing how much you can pack into each 24-hour period, think about how efficiently you can get things done. Ask yourself, do you need your email switched on all the time, pinging away with new messages distracting you from whatever task you're trying to complete? Do you need to check your phone every 5-minutes to see if you've missed a call or SMS? Do you need to be involved in every work meeting going or social event - online or offline - that's taking place?

Technology is brilliant for managing your schedule but if we're not careful it can eat time. This is often time that we would have spent being active or taking exercise, planning, shopping and preparing great meals, taking some time to relax and unwind or to spend quality time with the people close to us. 

Multitasking and continually trying to pack more in can actually be counter productive as the quality of what we're doing suffers. Constantly multitasking can also lead in the short term to frustration that nothing is getting done to the best of your abilities and, in the long run, to burnout either mentally or physically.

So here are some tips on how to show your technology who's boss. By following these rules, you'll be able to achieve what you need to AS WELL as have time for the richer things in life like looking after yourself.

1. Check your email a limited number of times each day. If you're brave go for once in the morning and once in the afternoon. To begin with you may need to check every 90 or 120-minutes.  Set aside a chunk of time to deal with the messages and then turn it off again. I find that dealing with emails at 9.30-10.15am, 2.00-2.30pm and 4.00-4.45pm works well.

2. Decide in advance how long tasks will take and allocate them only this time. If you approach a job with the attitude that it'll take as long as it takes, you could be there for hours and you'll get easily distracted along the way. If you decide in advance how long something will take then focus on it without distraction, you'll complete it quickly and efficiently, often well within the time limit and you can move on to the next thing on your list. 

3. Pay attention to the rhythms of your day.  Each day block out 90-120 minutes at the time you know you'll be at your best to perform the most important tasks of the day.  If you're a morning person this will likely be between 0800 and 1100.  If you prefer the second half of the day it will be some time between 1600 and 2000.  Everyone is different but we all have slots throughout the day when we're sharper than at other times. Plan to make the best use of these slots and leave less important tasks for the times in-between.

4. Schedule regular moments through the day to check your To Do list.  Many people set out their tasks first thing on Monday morning and review how they got on last thing on Friday afternoon.  A lot can happen in a week and, left unchallenged, minor interruptions can become major distractions.  Check your progress regularly throughout each day so that you can stay on track at all times.  You'll also be quicker at prioritising tasks and delegating where necessary, the more often you check your progress against where you need to be for each working day.

5. Manage your phone time by using your voicemail. It's amazing how many people call others when they're a bit bored or have some time to kill but not much to say. I particularly remember one afternoon a few years ago when I received calls from someone who was stuck on a train (bored), someone who was delayed at an airport (bored) and someone out for a walk on their day off and not sure of the best choice to make for their lunchtime sandwich (bored). I love a chat when the time is right but if you're busy and you answer all of these calls you could lose hours in a day. 

Let some of these calls go to voicemail and 9 times out of 10 the caller won't even leave a message but will leave you alone and call someone else to kill time instead. If something is urgent they'll leave a message and you can get back to them right away. If it's really urgent, they'll keep calling until you pick up.

A final thought as I'm writing.  It occurs to me, following some recent research we've done with executives we've worked with over the last few years, there's one further tip that holds all the others together.

6. Establish some seriously good reasons to make sure you always work efficiently and effectively.  My geography teacher used to tell us of 'Fitzgerald's law of traffic' (he being Mr Fitzgerald) which is that traffic will always expand to block up additional road space provided for it.  This law can be adapted widely I feel (I've seen it's relevance with bookshelves, household storage, office space to name a few working examples) and is never more relevant when we think about work.  

Those that work effectively do so because they want to get results and get on with the next challenge whether the next challenge be another work project, spending time with their family, training for the London Marathon, mastering the electric guitar or writing the latest fiction blockbuster.  Incidentally, these are all projects currently being tackled by individuals that we've worked with recently.  So the last thing to consider is maybe not what can you remove from your schedule, but what can you include, that's fun, rewarding and life-affirming, that limits the time and space that work can creep into, and will make you more efficient in everything else you do.  In short, beat burnout with balance.

Give these tips a try and you never know, you might just get a bit of your life back. 

Photograph by niallkennedy (Flickr)

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