How do you take care of yourself when you’re taking care of everything and everyone else?
This is the question weighing down so many leaders and employees right now. Everyone is working from home, trying to manage their workload, and minimize home distractions.
For many businesses, not having a physical office to go to has taken a toll on employees. Many people have families and may not have the physical space in their homes to accommodate a workspace. The separation of work and home has essentially been eliminated. Employees no longer have the luxury of having time and space for themselves while working from home.
What Leaders Can Do to Promote Self-Care for Employees
Our culture tends to glorify busyness, but we have to learn how to slow down. What leaders should be doing right now is promoting a culture of self-care because it’s critical to an employee’s overall well-being. Employees need more than mental health days. They need to feel like they have the time, space, and support of leadership to practice self-care and prioritize their mental health.
Plus, businesses thrive when employees feel calm, fulfilled, and purposeful at work. And that happens when the practice of self-care is encouraged and implemented. When employees can incorporate self-care into their daily routines, they feel less stressed, which increases their overall happiness, balance, and productivity.
How Employees Can Incorporate Self-Care into their Routines
Taking care of yourself and your mental health is key to living a balanced life and keeping stress at an all-time low. Here are a few ways you can start to incorporate self-care into your daily routine to keep your mind at ease:
Journal - Writing down what you’re feeling can significantly impact your outlook and how you view the world. You can journal while you’re drinking your coffee or tea in the morning. All you need to do is write down any thoughts or feelings that are on your mind. Journaling is a practice of getting down what you’re feeling on paper.
Meditate - Meditating has been known to help boost concentration, memory, and mood while decreasing anxiety and reset your attitude. Plus, there are plenty of apps and resources today, like Headspace, that make the practice of meditation accessible.
Practice mindfulness - Being mindful helps to bring you back to the present moment. It reminds you to slow down, take a breath, and be present with your life and what’s happening at that moment. Many of us are used to functioning on autopilot, so mindfulness is a great way to help us get out of that mindset and make us more aware.
Create boundaries - It’s important to check-in and see what is no longer serving you. Are there people, activities, or responsibilities that you can let go of? We should learn how to give our time, energy, and emotional capital to things that matter. Our time, energy, and emotion are valuable and should be shared with intention. Creating healthy boundaries allows us to have a better outlook and healthy self-esteem.
Self-care is a practice, and it takes time to implement. Having the support of leadership, when it comes to self-care, will help employees prioritize taking care of themselves.
And leaders need to take care of themselves too. We’re all human, and we’re all feeling the pressures of day-to-day life right now. But when we focus on putting ourselves first, we’ll come back to work focused, refreshed, and productive. And that will help business in the long-term.
Want to learn how to create a culture of self-care for your team? Let us know - we can help.