Forget Blue Monday: Top tips to boost wellbeing for 2015

Monday 19th January is 'Blue Monday' - supposedly the most depressing day of the year.  Well, let's not dwell on that.  We prefer to be optimistic.

So for all those in need of some inspiration, motivation and practical advice to sharpen up their health, wellbeing and performance for 2015, here are 9 top wellness tips that will benefit any organisation.  Feel free to share these with your colleagues and if you'd like any help with designing a fantastic wellbeing programme for your business we'd be happy to help.

Be clear on individual objectives and specific deadlines
Most people have vague ideas about what they’d like to achieve with their wellbeing. Providing staff with regular coaching and advice will really help them firm up these vague ideas, get to the heart of why they want to make changes, inject motivation, add accountability, and ensure they put together an effective plan to achieve lasting success.

For dramatic results, be consistent
Remind everyone that even a small amount of daily activity will create a positive mind-set, and that completing just a couple of exercise sessions each week will add up to 100 workouts a year. That’s enough to keep anyone feeling positive about their fitness routine, and achieve great results.

Fuel yourself regularly
Grazing throughout the day on well-chosen meals and snacks stabilises energy levels and is the most effective strategy for weight management. Encourage the habit of healthy choices, little and often.

Make a plan and follow it
Help individuals establish what a specific healthy eating plan looks like for their routine and their objectives, and then provide the resources they need to follow this plan. Simple information on how to plan recipes, prepare a selection of meals, and shop effectively can save staff time, anxiety and money.

Take regular breaks throughout the day
Many people run through their day at a million miles an hour only to find that by the end of it they feel exhausted and have spent valuable time in the wrong areas. Regular review moments ensure attention is focused on appropriate priorities and create time to refuel, recharge and ensure consistent energy. Prioritising time for yourself can minimise stress and maximise effectiveness in all areas.

Set boundaries
Every individual needs to establish what work-life balance means for them so they can plan their schedule and set their priorities. Without an idea of what you’re aiming for with your time management and life balance, you risk a lack of focus and tasks taking longer than they need to. Be proactive in this area. Decide how much time you want each week for yourself, your family, exercise, sleep, hobbies, socialising etc and also be very clear on how much time you feel is optimum for you to spend working. Without a plan work may encroach onto other areas and leave you frustrated. Knowing your boundaries also helps you operate most effectively during your work time and ensures you plan and delegate efficiently.

Take charge of technology
Technology can make our lives easier or it can take over our routine and eat time. It’s up to each individual to design an approach to making the best use of their phone, email and the internet. And remember, there is an off switch!

Prioritise sleep and recovery
Our mind and body need recovery time so rather than stealing time from sleep to pack more into each day, prioritise your rest and recovery. You’ll become more efficient at using time wisely when you’re well rested rather than tasks taking longer than necessary because you feel fatigued.

Make fitness a resolution for the year, not just for January
For busy workers it’s far better to be realistic and complete 1 or 2 quality workouts per week, every week, than to aim to exercise 4-5 times a week and then end up squeezing activity in when you’re distracted, wasting energy on ineffective training time, or feeling that you’ve let yourself down if you don’t manage to fit in everything you planned. Bear this in mind when thinking about New Year resolutions and plan to feel great for the entire year, not just for the first two weeks of January! 

Read more on this article...

Wellness & Personal Performance Made Easy: Part 3

Here is part 3 in the series of articles I wrote for HR Zone...

In the final instalment of our series, we highlight further strategies and behaviours that lead to exceptional results with personal health, wellness, energy and performance. As with our previous tips, these are all simple ideas that, when implemented with consistency, will lead to dramatic and positive results.

Take charge of technology

Technology is one of the greatest sleep robbers around at the moment. While it can be tempting to finish off a document or send a final email, and even if it’s for something we enjoy like checking that last social media update or having a look at a few more holiday websites, the danger is that screen time eats time and before you know it, you’re late getting to sleep and your mind is buzzing. You have to create some boundaries around your screen time and some guidelines for how you use your email. Be proactive in this regard because how we rule our technology (or how technology rules us as it sometimes feels) is usually simply a result of habits forming loosely over time and being left unchallenged. Things like staying up late to clear emails – this may have been a good idea one night but if it ends up being every night then the balance probably isn’t how you’d like it to be.

Clear out the clutter

Your sleep environment should be a haven of calm. Make sure your room is tidy and dark enough to sleep well in. Clear away all clothes, books, magazines, work-related items and remove all exercise kit from your bedroom as well as ridding it of television, technology and associated cables, chargers and wires. 

Eat your way to a great night’s sleep

Most people are aware of items that disrupt the smooth functioning of our mind and body – these include caffeine and sugary and fatty foods – but it’s not just close to bedtime when we should be wary of consuming these products. The more you disrupt your body’s calm environment throughout the day, the harder it can be to relax for good sleep at bedtime, so aim to keep a stable physical environment as regularly as you can.

Foods that help the body stay calm and focused through the day, and in turn aid good sleep, include protein such as nuts, fish, and turkey, and calcium in the form of kale or spinach. Tryptophan is a great sleep aid and can be found in hummus. Magnesium and potassium are useful inclusions in your routine as they help to relax muscles and you can find both of these in bananas. Porridge is a good choice to start the day and can also be a great sleep aid when consumed for supper. Always focus on unrefined carbohydrates such as brown bread, pasta and rice. Finally, although alcohol may help you fall asleep, it can disrupt the quality of your sleep so use in moderation and don’t come to rely on it.

Make lists and use them

Your ideas for weekly healthy eating should form the basis of your shopping list. It doesn’t matter who actually does the shopping in your house or your office, but make stocking up on what you need a priority. If healthy options are close by, you can follow your plan without too much thinking and get on with your busy day. If you get stuck without these options you’ll end up wasting valuable time thinking about alternatives and interrupting what you’re doing to grab whatever’s available near by. And whatever’s near by might not always be that great.

Carry healthy options at all times

Great portable choices include oatcakes, rice crackers, fruit, dried fruit and nuts. Within each of these categories there’s plenty of variety so you won’t get bored.

Establish your ideal exercise time

There’s no perfect time of the day to exercise other than the time that suits you and will ensure your exercise actually gets done! Consider the options and choose what works best for you. Many people prefer to exercise early as a way to set them up for a productive day. Some would rather get active during the day as a way to create two productive half days, rather than one long day during which energy levels can dwindle. Others like to get active towards the end of the day as a way to draw a line beneath work and move onto their evening. 

Exercise as a sleep aid

Exercise is a great way to keep your mind and body calm during the day and this will aid good sleep at night. Trying to fit in exercise should not become stressful as that can ultimately lead to interrupted sleep, so think about how some level of moderate activity best fits into every day, to ensure you feel calm and balanced, and aim to complete a more challenging workout every two to three days. 

Ideal wellbeing is an ongoing priority

Ultimately, perfecting your ideal wellness routine is an ongoing process and one best shaped by regular reviews of your actions and behavior in relation to your specific, personal wellbeing objectives. This way, you’ll always know which of these the tips in our series, or other wellness advice you’ll come across, will be most useful for you at every stage of your life.

Read part 2 of the series here

And part 1 here

Read more on this article...

Free Toolkit To Boost Health & Energy In Your Organisation

To make it easy to keep your staff healthy, happy, engaged and motivated, sign up for our free wellness toolkit.  

The toolkit includes access to everything you need to inspire colleagues to get active, eat well, sleep better, build personal resilience and achieve a balanced lifestyle.  

The toolkit contains:

• Regular wellbeing tips: practical advice for your colleagues and strategic input for your business

• A regularly updated catalogue of fact sheets on key wellbeing topics

• Real world reviews of wellness initiatives in action to help you refine your ideal programme

• A complimentary wellbeing audit for your business - the simplest way to pinpoint how to take the wellbeing of your staff to the next level

• Preferential rates on our wellbeing workshops leading to results like these: 'More energy, less stress, get fit and eat well'

• Preferential rates on our wellbeing days and events generating feedback like this: 'How to run an amazing wellbeing event'

To receive your free company wellness toolkit all you need to do is email us at info@the-tonic.com and write 'wellness toolkit' in the subject line.

Read more on this article...

Six Steps to Build Cast Iron Resilience

This article we wrote first appeared recently on the HR Zone Website.

Personal resilience – simply expressed as our ability to deal with everyday challenges and maintain a positive state of resourcefulness – is influenced by two factors: how we feel physically and how we feel mentally.

The issue for many people is that their approach to maintaining a resilient state is reactive rather than proactive. We’re happy to bowl along quite happily from day to day under ‘normal’ working conditions – normal usually implying busy for most people these days – but when the pressure ramps up, we begin to feel the strain. 

Not only do we find ourselves underprepared for our periods of peak challenge, when we experience extra pressure, we resort to ‘emergency measures’ that often make the situation worse and actually make performing to the best of our abilities more difficult. 

We steal time from sleep to pack more into our schedule, load up on caffeine to get us through each busy day, grab sugary snacks to keep our energy levels up and dedicate more hours to the job to wade through our ‘to do’ list at the cost of our family, hobbies, exercise time and social life.

While these coping strategies might see us through challenging periods, there’s a danger that we may need to take time to recover from pushing ourselves in this way, but most workers don’t have the luxury of quiet periods during which they can recharge their batteries. Add up all these ‘recovery’ periods where we might end up operating at half pace or less, and that's a lot of potentially productive time wasted over the course of a working year. 

An additional danger lies in the fact that the coping strategies we adopt to see us through busy periods often turn into our everyday behavior patterns. Before you know it, people find they’re working a 12-hour day fuelled by caffeine, skipping meals and exercise and sleeping poorly as the norm rather than as the response to a ‘one off’ period of peak demand.

The key to developing personal resilience, mental and physical, for the short, medium and long-term, lies with planning and routine. A little bit of time spent designing strategies for success in this area will pay dividends every single day. You’ll breeze through the demands of everyday working life and rise to the challenge of even the most overwhelming of circumstances. 

The Resilient Body

1) Why exercise is your friend

When work gets busy, time gets squeezed and all too often exercise slots disappear.  But when the pressure is on, physical activity is one of the best ways to deal with the stress that can build up within us.  Not only does it help to keep you calm, it provides you with valuable time to clear the head, organize your thoughts, deliver oxygen to the brain and come up with creative solutions.  Make sure you always:

• Focus on short, regular bursts of activity
• Plan your time for exercise and protect these slots
• Associate exercise with success, not as something that takes time away from you being successful. Knowing you make better decisions when your mind and body are alert will ensure you get active and get the best possible results at work

2) Eat for energy, not for comfort

The link is clear between how we fuel ourselves and how we are able to perform.  Priority issues for most people are energy levels and mood management, so the simplest way to achieve a healthy eating routine that boosts resilience is to ask yourself – and answer honestly – ‘is what I’m about to eat or drink going to provide me with positive energy and good mood for the day, or rob me of energy and good mood for the day?’

• If you’re unsure about what works for you and what doesn’t, keep a diary for a few days
• Experiment with a variety of meal and snack options so you can establish the food routine that leads you towards your best performance state
• Stick with your successful food routine when things get really busy. If you begin veering towards increasing amounts of caffeine, sugar, fat and alcohol you’ll dramatically impair your ability to perform, just when you need to be at your most resourceful

3) Sleep well, perform well

A good night’s sleep is directly linked to the two points above. If you manage your energy levels with good food choices, and offset any stress with exercise, you’ll be far more likely to rest and recover well through the night. Beyond this you need to:

• Establish your optimum quantity of sleep and set your bed time and waking time accordingly
• Endeavour to disrupt your sleep routine as little as possible through the week and weekend
• Design a pre-sleep routine that will lead you gently towards the moment when you fall asleep quickly and experience a guaranteed night of quality sleep

Sleep is vital for efficient performance and effective recovery so should always be a priority in your quest for resilience, never an afterthought.

The Resilient Mind

When it comes to achieving the most resilient state of mind, the rules are pretty similar as those for managing your energy levels – you need to think of all your daily activities in terms of whether or not tasks drain your energy, or provide you with energy and motivation. The bottom line is usually that the tasks that help us feel as though we’re making progress will energise us, while those that are repetitive or seemingly pointless will drain our energy.

Some examples are obvious – making sales, winning business, making successful decisions are all motivating and fuel our resilient state. Admin, expenses and jobs we’ve done a thousand times before can slowly but surely suck the life out of your resilient state. But what about some of the elements of day-to-day office life that could go either way? How to we approach these?

4) Make meetings count

One of the elements of office life that people say drains their energy is meetings, however, this needn’t be the case.

• Have a clear agenda for every meeting, a schedule, and someone in charge of sticking to the agenda and the schedule
• Establish in advance what each meeting needs to achieve. People need to bring ideas and opinions to meetings rather than simply trying to organise their thoughts during the meeting
• Summarise clear action points and deadlines for these actions to be completed. Too many people spend their time running from meeting to meeting collecting a list of things to do that they never get around to actioning.  Add some accountability and urgency. You’re looking for results, not more meetings to discuss what didn’t get done

5) Take charge of your email

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier but there’s nothing like an ever-growing inbox to steadily grind down your resilience.  There are some simple strategies that help in this situation:

• Set specific times to check and respond to email. Turn it off in between these times
• Assess each block of email time for efficiency and continually refine your plan for how you can manage your email most effectively
• Lead by example. Consider everyone who will receive the messages you send out and how they might respond. Avoid unnecessary clogging up of others’ inboxes and ask yourself how you would respond to the emails you’re sending
• For some email traffic, ask yourself if there’s an alternative, particularly if the person you’re emailing sits not far away from you. Although effective at times, email can be limiting. Sometimes you’ll progress things far quicker by talking than emailing. Which brings us to our last point…

6) Communication: it’s not what you know, but who you know

A major challenge for many people is…other people.  Like them or not though, we have to work with them. Some of the most resilience-testing moments occur in business when the pressure is on and we’re relying on teamwork, but there’s a lack of understanding between colleagues.  This is generally due to relationships being built on weak foundations meaning the team isn’t as solid as it needs to be when things get squeezed.

• Invest in relationships. It pays to be proactive. People will be there for you when you need them if you were there for them in the past
• Get to know people, not job titles. A faceless colleague might help you out of a tight spot if you’re lucky.  A friend in the office who you know well and spend time with definitely will, without question
• Be honest, authentic and congruent, and others will be too

Resilience is a vital skill: practice every day

Ultimately many people know what they should be doing to maintain a resilient state, but they often think they don’t have time.  So while it is true to say that you probably don’t have time to think about all of the above in great detail every single day, you do have time to spend a few moments each day reviewing your approach and making changes where necessary.  This takes no time at all and before you know it you’ll be equipped with the habits you need to be effective, successful and resilient all day, every day.

Read more on this article...

Simple Strategies for Healthy Blood Pressure

There are two reasons for tackling this topic today. 

Firstly, it’s the beginning of Men’s Health Week and high blood pressure can be an issue for men in all sectors of business.  Read our blog on Men’s Health Week here.

Secondly, as we mentioned in our press release last week, we come across an awful lot of executives at all levels, male and female, who have high blood pressure.  Some already know about it and some don’t. 

So, starting today, we’ll be highlighting a few simple daily behaviours that will employees with high blood pressure bring the numbers back down to healthy levels, and will ensure that everyone else can maintain a healthy, efficient circulatory system for now and long into the future. 

Every business should ensure their people are equipped with this knowledge so they can take responsibility and make informed lifestyle choices.

We’re kicking off with simple food choices that anyone can make, that will help regulate blood pressure.

Get your 5-a-day

You’ve heard it many times and here’s just another reason to make it happen.  A calm internal environment will keep your system running smoothly and reduce the likelihood of physical stress which can in turn aggravate mental stress, both of which will increase blood pressure. 

Fruit and vegetables supply us with vitamins, minerals and nutrients that will improve the strength, immunity and efficiency of the body.  Eating plenty of fresh stuff also leaves less of an appetite for the meals and snacks that rob us of energy, increase stress and aggravate blood pressure.

And forget aiming for 5-a-day as that often means you end up with 2 or 3.  Plan for at least 8 and you’ll make sure you end up with 5 without doubt.  I’m sure that sounds like a challenge for some, but here are some suggestions of how to make it happen.

Breakfast

Porridge with bananas, blueberries & strawberries or omelette with tomato and peppers

Morning snack

Orange and walnuts or carrots, cucumber and hummus

Lunch

Wrap with turkey, spinach and peppers or fish with rocket, tomatoes, avocado and pineapple

Afternoon snack

Apple and oatcakes or banana and rice cakes

Evening meal

Chicken with noodles, onion, peppers and garlic or fish with rice and steamed broccoli and green beans

How to make it work...

Obviously, each person’s food routine needs to be appropriate for their schedule, tastes, objectives and ideas have to be practical, but following these guidelines will help keep blood pressure optimum as well as improving the chances of a productive week with high energy and great sleep.  Even the busiest of employees should be able to try some of the suggestions over the coming days.

Image by Flickr: comedy_nose

Read more on this article...

Press Release: Busy Workers Risk 'Premature Ageing'

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date: 4^th June 2013

Contact: Jeff Archer

Tel: 020 8995 1302

Email: jeff@the-tonic.com

Busy Workers Risk ‘Premature Ageing’

80% of executives record a body age 10-20 years older than their actual age

Modern working life is taking such a toll on the health of busy executives that the majority fail to achieve ‘normal’ results during targeted health assessments.  One sample found that 80% had a 'body age' between 10 and 20 years older than their true age.  

In a wider study, 37% had blood pressure readings indicating hypertension and 52% had a body fat percentage above the recommended healthy range.  

These statistics were gathered during leadership programmes attended by participants from a variety of global businesses.  Data was collected by wellness and resilience companies The Tonic and Fit2Lead.  

Tonic Director Jeff Archer explained, ‘We provide these lifestyle assessments to business leaders and executives to help them better understand how to manage their health and energy for improved day-to-day performance.  Positioning wellness and resilience as integral components of successful leadership provides participants with the ideal opportunity to assess the effectiveness of their current lifestyle routines and get motivated about priority areas for change.’

This format has proved to be an enormous success.  One participant commented that, 'the stress relief and energising effects are by far the biggest benefits for me’ while another felt that, following the programme, their ‘energy levels are more under control as are my productivity and ability to achieve more’. ’ Other participants reported that ‘finding out my body age was a real wake up call’ and ‘this provided me with the reality check I needed to start to make changes’.

Fit2Lead Director Adrian Smith added, ‘More and more companies are recognising the importance of resilience, ‘the bounce back factor’, in today’s complex and challenging business environments. The body age analysis has been a brilliant way for executives to learn more about the extent to which the rigours of modern working life affect the body, and it provides the ideal starting point for developing a resilience action plan to achieve a more positive balance.

To find out more about corporate wellbeing and resilience programmes contact Jeff Archer at The Tonic on 020 8995 1302/ jeff@the-tonic.com  

Image by Flickr:  TheeErin

Read more on this article...