Having clear boundaries does not mean that your personal life and work-life won’t overlap. But setting boundaries indicates that you have identified that there is time in your day dedicated to working and time devoted to other aspects of your life, including rest and recovery. We need this delineation between work and personal life to help us safeguard our energy and protect us from burnout and exhaustion.

The news and news feeds have been central parts of our lives for the past two years. While we certainly need the information the news can provide us with, too much of it can be overwhelming. Today, we explore why the news can be harmful and suggest ways to engage with the information around us thoughtfully.

Meetings are essential, but they can be frustrating for everyone when they are not focused and effective. Today we review some tips for running effective meetings. Check out the post to learn more.

Did you know that what you eat can help you think? Today we look at food choices that can help boost your brainpower and heighten your concentration and focus - the good news? Dark chocolate is on the list! Check out today's post to learn more and perhaps add new items to your grocery list.

As we continue to ease into life with fewer public health mandates, we thought reviewing some tools from previous posts would be helpful. Today we revisit the importance of taking a break, the power of gratitude and how scheduling time to worry can help you feel less overwhelmed.

The last few months have been somewhat of a crazy ride! You may be feeling a bit unsettled or experiencing a sense of, “What just happened?” Today, we review a couple of tools to help you calm your worries and feel grounded. Check out the post to learn more!

Meditation is really good for us - but many people find it challenging to do. If this is you, or if you are looking for other ways to experience the benefits of meditation, check out this post for alternative activities that provide benefits that are similar to meditation.

Today we learn more about stress, stressors, and completing the stress response. Completing the stress response is an important step, but many of us never do it, and when we do, we are less likely to feel emotionally exhausted and burnt out. It is straightforward to do - check out the post to learn more.

Introversion and extroversion are standard terms but are often misunderstood. We often attribute them to how outgoing someone is when it is all about where they draw their energy from and how they recover. Check out today’s post to learn more about yourself and how to support your colleagues!

Knowing ourselves - what we need and how we react to situations can be immeasurably helpful, especially when responding and managing stressful situations. Today we explore ways to understand who we become when we are stressed and how we can stay calm in the face of stress.

Joking aside, the fatigue you may be experiencing is real, and there are good reasons for it. First of all, it is dark out most of the time, and it is cold! These two factors alone may make you feel like you want to hibernate.  In addition, the last 22 months have demanded a lot of us - there has been much to process, and we are adapting to it.

Today, we offer resource options that you may find helpful as you seek to understand your fatigue and address it. 

Wednesday, January 26, is Bell Let’s Talk Day.  The Let’s Talk awareness campaign focuses on creating conversations about mental health to reduce stigma and promote awareness and understanding.  We know addressing mental health can be challenging, as noted by Deborah Grason Riegel, author, and professor.  “Talking about mental health can feel tricky at best and terrifying at worst. And it becomes a vicious cycle — the less people talk about it at work (even when they know they and others are struggling), the more the stigma grows. To break this cycle, you have to address the issue proactively, strategically, and thoughtfully. After all, the way we talk to others who are dealing with anxiety (and to ourselves) has a major impact on how we feel.”  

With some help from the Canadian Mental Health Association, let’s review a few terms related to mental health.

Today, we acknowledge that January can be a challenging month to avoid the dark. It is cold out, we get little daylight (we may go to the office and return in the dark), and hibernation feels like a great option. Sometimes the light switch can be hard to find - this we know - even when we know where it is and how to turn it on. So today, we are going to present two tools that can bring a bit of light to your life by enhancing your well-being and increasing your connection to positive emotions. They are quick, easy, and scientifically proven to be effective.

According to Dr. Alice Boyes, author of The Healthy Mind Toolkit and The Anxiety Toolkit, one of the ways to combat the uncertainty of heading back to the office is to be intentional about maintaining the good habits you had while working from home and the routine you had when you were in the office. Returning to work again will require that you re-establish your habits from square one. The practice of getting dressed and picking out “work” clothes for the day may be an example of one such process. To learn more, check out this post.

Today we talk about how to take the first steps back into the office.  If you are feeling trepidation about the first day, remember, this is normal and you are not alone.  Take it one step at a time, one day at a time.  Drawing on experts from the Mental Health Commission of Canada and Forbes, we’ve created two short “how-to” lists to help you on your way - one for you and one to help you support others.

Our exit from onsite work in 2020 was swift.  Re-entry is coming slowly.  We can see it coming a mile away and can contemplate and anticipate it.  This is anxiety-provoking for most of us. We have too much time to consider all the unknowns. You may be feeling excited or unsettled or a host of other emotions. Check out the post for more insight and to gain an understanding about anxiety and returning to work.

There is constant “noise” all around us, and that noise is making it harder for us to listen - to ourselves, to each other, and the subtle and understated sounds in our day. We spend 60% of our time listening, but we retain only 25% of what we hear. Yet if we fail to attend to the people we are engaged with, we fail to understand, and without understanding, we cannot connect, solve problems or overcome misunderstandings.

Most of us say yes all the time - often with good intentions but not necessarily a lot of thought. Sometimes the yes comes quickly out of obligation or the anticipation of fun or simply FOMO (the fear of missing out). However, based on a TED article by Ryan Holiday, every yes comes with an “opportunity cost.” Saying yes to a weekend meeting or event may mean saying no to a walk in the park, or family time, or a bike ride, or your own private, quiet time. Staying up late to watch one more episode of your favorite show means saying no to a night of good sleep and a productive day.

“. . . Time is a finite resource. Energy is a different story. Defined in physics as the capacity to work, energy comes from our four main wellsprings in human beings: the body, emotions, mind, and spirit. In each, energy can be systematically expanded and regularly renewed by establishing specific rituals - behaviors that are intentionally practiced and scheduled. . .” (Harvard Business Review (HBR), Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time)

In other words, if we don’t recharge our batteries or refuel our tanks, we cannot make use of the time we have. But how do we know if we are managing our energy well or not? And how do we make adjustments if we are suffering from an energy deficit? To learn more, check out this post!

There is nothing funny about the end of Daylight Savings Time. The time of year when we roll our clocks back, and it feels like half of our light disappears. Today, drawing mainly on an article from verywellmind, we review the causes, symptoms, and treatments of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). SAD is a mood disorder that impacts as many as 15% of Canadians and accounts for roughly 10% of depression cases. It occurs at the same time each year, generally during the fall and winter when we have less daylight.