Steps to impove wellbeing with Kristin

Hi, I am Kristin and a clinician at Masters Psychology.

We all have busy lives and often have multiple roles we play each with its own needs and expectations of us. It can become easy to forget ourselves, go through the motions and become overwhelmed. Here are a few ideas that I find helpful and are recommended for general wellbeing in different areas of our lives, firstly, lets briefly discuss wellbeing and resilience.

What is wellbeing? Wellbeing is a state of happiness, life satisfaction and the presence of positive feelings and the absence of negative emotions. It is suggested there are five distinct areas of wellbeing in life: Positive emotions; Engagement (i.e., being completely focused and losing track of time – flow experiences – in what we love); Positive relationships (having close interpersonal relationships in our life); Meaning (having a sense of purpose in our life) and Accomplishment (having ambitions, goals and experiencing mastery in these). These form the Acronym PERMA and apply to both our internal and external environments. These areas of PERMA wellbeing can be utilised across different domains of life – Physical, Professional, Psychological and Emotional

What is resilience? Resilience is the term used to describe the process and outcome of being able to successfully adapt to difficult or challenging life experiences (stress) through mental, emotional, and behavioural flexibility. Resilience and wellbeing are connected and improving our resilience is a way to improve our wellbeing and vice versa. By purposely and strategically engaging in a range of activities/strategies to enhance resilience across different domains of life, our wellbeing will also improve over time and improvement in one domain will influence other domains.

There are many ideas for building resilience and wellbeing, here are just few:

Steps to improving Wellbeing in 4 domains of life.

Physical

• Slow paced breathing. Breathing slowly and deeply triggers our parasympathetic nervous system and reduces tension, anger, and anxiety.

• Physical exercise.

• Good Nutrition – the connection to good gut health and wellbeing is strong.

• Change physical stance.Our body is connected to our emotions. Changing our physiology can change how we feel i.e., Use your power pose and smile.

Professional

• Daily TO DO Lists; prioritize tasks and delegate appropriately – to enhance a sense of control and certainty.

• Take key breaks.

• Have a switch off ritual – work life balance is important.

• Increase connection with colleagues to enhance connection and relatedness.

• Enhance your workstation. Plants, pictures (as appropriate) to enhance a sense of belonging and importance.

Psychological

• Mindfulness practice. Mindfulness has many researched benefits and there are many ways to be mindful. Whether you are training your brain, using micro-mindfulness techniques, or more focused meditation.

• Daily Gratitude. Gratitude is an elevating emotion. It highlights the good, it can change our perspective as well as connect us with others when we share gratitude.

• Savouring a moment (using all our senses). Savouring is about taking time to engage all of our senses and being present, helping us to increase the duration and intensity of the good things in life.

• Be aware of the impact our thoughts have on our mood and behaviour and challenging unhelpful perspectives and responding differently.

Emotional

• Journalling. Expressing ourselves in the written form helps us make sense of our emotions and thoughts and find meaning and outcomes.

• To Do Lists.

• Random acts of kindness.

• Increasing connection to others.