Do you sometimes feel as if your mind is racing but you’re not getting anything done? Do you feel drained? Do you have difficulties maintaining a positive attitude? In this new article, I’m sharing two very important tips on how to take care of your inner landscape.

I was watching a video conference recently and listened to a handful of Fortune 500 top executives talk about the challenges of the pandemic. I wanted to share a few ideas that resonated with me: listening, empathy, and focusing on what is actually working.

What we’ve learned so far from the pandemic would be a book in itself.  However, as individuals, there are a few lessons we can apply now, not only to mentally endure the pandemic but to come out the other side an even better person.

Do not let the engine go into the red

If this was true before the pandemic – with many people experiencing burnout – it is even more prevalent today. We know burnout is caused by stress, which in and of itself is not a bad thing, as it is what makes you get up and go in the morning. It’s how we react to it that can quickly take us from a feeling in the flow and self-confident to a position of helplessness, fear, burnout, or worse.

Not dealing with stress is like driving too fast in first gear with the engine in the red.  Not only won’t you go very far, but you will overheat the engine and possibly break your car. The same can be true with driving yourself too hard while living with unmanaged stress: you create too much pressure on your mind and body and this can very quickly affect your perspective: finding yourself with unhealthy thoughts and unpleasant feelings.

I want to share how the mind contributes to fear and unhappiness when left to its own device, and what we can do to reduce our main source of stress and prevent the engine from going into the red.

The Wandering Mind

The human mind has a tendency to wander, and according to a 2010 study from Harvard researcher Dan Gilbert, a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. How much does the average person’s mind wander? According to the study, 47% of the time.

What is a wandering mind?  Is it simply daydreaming? Thinking about the past, the future?  Having an imaginary conversation with the boss?  Explaining to your partner why you should get a dog?  It’s all of the above and more. Anytime you are thinking about something unrelated to what you are doing or experiencing at the moment, your mind is wandering.

A wandering mind in and of itself would not be as bad if it were only affecting productivity. But unfortunately, a wandering mind creates unhappiness, negativity, and by extension, unhealthy stress.

Most humans have a negativity bias: the tendency to think about and get prepared for the worst possible scenarios. Add to this the current negative news cycle with the media going for the sensational rather than the rational and the number of uncertainties we currently live with. This is a wandering mind’s field day.

It’s a bit like a feedback or negative loop where the thoughts generate negative feelings and the negative feelings reinforce the negative thoughts. And, your brain is always monitoring your thoughts. As soon as the feelings are involved, the brain sends the signal to manufacture cortisol, adrenaline, and to be prepared for threats. The long-term effect of this is detrimental to your physical and mental health. When you are experiencing the feedback loop, your engine is in the red and you don’t want to be there for too long.

We cannot always stop the wandering mind but we can do practices that will allow us to control what we pay attention to and how we focus so we can make the habit of spacing out less of a burden, helping to take the needle out of the red zone.

Here are two preventive techniques you can use. 

Practice Focused Attention Training:

Focused attention training is a practice that can help you reduce the frequency and the length of time your mind wanders. Though you can do it anytime, a formal mindfulness meditation practice where you focus your attention on your breath, or your body, or a candle flame can really help you to hone your ability to pay attention on purpose.

The technique itself helps you to become in charge of your attention as it activates the direct experience network, the opposite of the wandering mind. Just 10 minutes of breath awareness once a day will help you to become more aware of your mind’s activity.

In addition to honing your ability focus, you employ a non-judgmental attitude during the practice, one which reduces your reactivity to drama and helps you keep a distance from the negativity bias. You can think of a focused attention practice like a workout.

It’s just like going to the gym to build the muscles you need to climb your next big rock.

Each time you meditate in the comfort of your home, you learn to pay attention to your attention and you develop a more observational attitude, both skills that will help you on the next climb – or next work project – easing your wandering mind and negativity bias.

A daily 10-minute breath awareness practice will also help you build your focus muscle which will lessen the number of times you become distracted during work shortening the amount of time your mind is wandering.

Watching your words:

Another preventive technique has to do with not indulging negativity and making a commitment to change your attitude.

Firmly set the intention that you will not berate yourself up or speak badly about yourself to others or even to yourself. Refrain from judging yourself and cultivate bringing out the best in yourself and in others.

When you catch yourself in a negative narrative, stop. Instead, look for what is working, and appreciate the good qualities or successes you’ve achieved. If others are involved, see if you can create a better story for them, giving them the benefit of the doubt. Imagining they are doing the best they can too, as they are navigating this amazing amount of uncertainty.

Want to know more about resiliency?

If you want to learn about other tools you can use to handle the inordinate amount of stress we are all exposed to, take a look at the resilience brief on the value of cultivating resiliency.

According to Psychology Today, resilience is “that ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever. Rather than letting failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise from the ashes.”

One way to establish more resilience is through the adoption and practice of mindfulness. Research shows that mindfulness helps to create more resiliency as well as to maintain a positive stance, both of which are essential during these unprecedented challenging times.

In this white paper, you’ll find evidence-based research and cited articles that demonstrate how the adoption of mindfulness in the workplace helps people increase equilibrium, reduce stress, and enhance well-being, as well as develop skills essential to mental health and productivity.

In a recent article on Entrepreneur.com, Malachi Thompson states that mindfulness is “finally starting to receive recognition for its effectiveness in creating a peak performance mindset. Widely used by elite athletes, it is increasingly being adopted by C-suite managers as a contemplative skill to increase resilience, reduce stress, and regain clarity and focus.” 

The time is now for a new approach so you and your organization can flourish.

Introduction:

In this unprecedented global crisis, business experts have repeatedly said that new skills and new mindsets are needed to adapt to the “new normal”.  And this requires resilience – an ability to manage stress while navigating the current reality with hopefulness, compassion, and clear thinking.

“Research into resilient employees found that what makes them stand out is the ability to manage stress by actively engaging in self-care and nurturing themselves after a stressful incident…  Recent studies have supported the role of mindfulness training on psychological resilience.” Training Journal, Oct. 2019

Today, stress levels are as high as they’ve ever been, and mindfulness has been identified as one of the best antidotes for stress – and there are no negative side effects.

Mindfulness in the workplace has increased in popularity over the years. It is a secular practice comprised of several techniques aimed at helping the practitioner develop essential skills including increased mental focus, increased emotional intelligence, ability to remain calm under pressure, increased empathy, and increased creativity.

Nathan Klarer, CEO of Bridgecrest Medical, explains why mindfulness works at work:

“Mindfulness is the practice of observing the body’s physical and mental state. Recognizing your state and making intentional responses to situations is an invaluable skill. A leadership team that uses this skill is better able to assess the competitive landscape, make necessary business change, and set effective goals.”

Background:

Employee burnout was a serious issue even before the pandemic, one which costs companies money and lost productivity. It also can have a devastating effect on an employee’s health. But today, with the looming uncertainties due to the COVID 19, along with the confinement, the monetary losses, and additional responsibilities, the chances of burning out or experiencing chronic stress are off the charts. Organizations are facing an employee burnout crisis.

A 2018 Gallup study of nearly 7,500 full-time employees found that “23% of employees reported feeling burned out at work very often or always… the hard organizational cost of burnout is substantial: Burned-out employees are 63% more likely to take a sick day and 2.6 times as likely to be actively seeking a different job.“

Some employees such as those in healthcare, retail, and grocery stores, are having to work longer and harder just to keep up.  Some are facing higher levels of stress than normal, including those who are afraid of getting sick or losing their job.

And we can only imagine that burnout has increased with the varying circumstances and their impacts on workers including telecommuting, increased responsibilities, homeschooling while working, unemployment of spouse or partner, sickness, or being a caregiver for someone who is sick.

Finally, employees can become bored or disengaged while working from home, as they miss human contact, or their supervisor is not as supportive as they could be, or they are not getting enough challenging work.

Being in the Flow

There is a middle ground between being stressed out and not feeling stressed at all. It’s called being in the flow. In his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says that being in the flow happens when you are being challenged enough to stay engaged, but not so much that you burn out.

While the reality is more complex, being in the flow is a path. It’s when you are engaged in an activity where you just want to keep on going and going and going. Any slight deviation – such as too many uncertainties or too many distractions can quickly move the needle from being in the flow to feeling anxious and overwhelmed. Also, a lack of challenge may drive people to boredom and disengagement.

COVID-19 has the potential to throw off the balance in either direction.

The good news is that the practice of mindfulness, along with the right amount of challenge, can help people get back into the zone and experience flow.

A recent article from Harvard Business Review suggests there is a growing clamor is for more responsible and caring C-suites. “Perhaps, just perhaps, our future will be shaped by a kind of reverse Darwinism: survival of the kindest and most benevolent, rather than the most ferocious and self-obsessed.”

For most companies, the full effect of the pandemic is still to be experienced. Leadership will have to go through the heartbreaking decisions of laying off some of their staff, knowing how hard it likely will be for them to find a new position during the worst recession of our lifetime.

Leaders will need to rise above the fray and offer hope and genuine concern to those they are letting go. It is by authentically showing appreciation and empathy that leaders have the power to transform one of the worst moments in someone’s life into one they might remember as a rich human interaction, giving them dignity, hope, and courage.

Leaders know that about 90% of communication is non-verbal. Moods and emotions are contagious, so a leader must be able to be emotionally aware, manage their mood, and maintain an upbeat, positive attitude.

Leaders need to be resilient not only for themselves but also for others, including the team members who have kept their jobs and are now filling the gaps and are scrambling to complete the additional tasks left by the people that had to be let go.

A naïve leader will start working longer hours and set the pace, creating a lot of busyness, little productivity, and an environment where people are likely to burnout.  A more experienced leader will show empathy and strive to create an environment where the team members can do their best while respecting the fine balance between life and work.

Learn more about the power of mindfulness and the art of resilience.

Another challenge accentuated by the pandemic is an increase in an already increasing world of information overload.  It has become increasingly difficult to concentrate on the tasks at hand.  Distractions not only include those from the external environment such as the kids at home or the chatter on social media, but those internal ones, from our own mind, regurgitating the news, attempting to find solutions to problems that do not exist, inventing and trying out all kinds of scenarios, and imagined conversations with people who are not in the room.

This causes a distracted and wandering mind. Where does your concentration go? You might be reminiscing about the way life used to be? Or processing the new information on the novel virus, or wishing you had made other choices? Information overload causes stress and stress reduces one’s ability to focus.

If your mind is wandering more often, you are not alone. A 2010 study from Dan Gilbert and Matthew A. Killingsworth, shows that people’s minds wander 47% of the time, almost half the time.  Mind-wandering means that instead of paying attention to the task at hand, your mind starts an inner narrative which can take different forms, such as thinking about your next task or meeting, daydreaming about your vacation, having an interior dialogue with people who are not in the room, making plans for dinner, and so on…

Besides the staggering amount of time the mind wanders off task, it is important to know that a wandering mind has a penchant for negativity. Dan Gilbert’s conclusion is that “a human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.”

The Antidote to a Wandering Mind

A recent article from Harvard Business Review on how to increase focus during the pandemic, lists practical ways to deal with distraction. It suggests that one’s greatest challenge is one’s ability to control their thoughts. This is where mindfulness comes in.

“Practicing attention management is about maintaining control of where your attention goes, and recognizing when it’s being stolen, either by external distractions or internal errant thoughts, rumination, or anxiety…”

Focused attention practice, one of the several techniques used in mindfulness, has been scientifically studied. It has been shown to increase the ability to observe and control one’s thoughts. Just as exercising helps one to stay in good physical shape, numerous case studies and research have shown that a formal daily mindfulness practice trains the brain, builds focus, and increases awareness.

Mindfulness isn’t a training to stop the mind from wandering. Instead, it’s a practice that trains one’s ability to maintain their focus longer. and increases one’s self-awareness so they are able to realize when their mind has started to wander, so they can bring it back to attention.

When a mind wanders regularly, it becomes habituated to being distracted. But with mindfulness, you become more self-aware. You begin to notice that it has wandered, so you easily bring it back to the task at hand. By doing this, again and again, you create a new intentional habit, breaking the habit of distraction. Mindfulness helps with all of that.