A workshop led by Susan Heaton-Wright
As we emerge from our second lockdown and face restrictions into the spring, Susan Heaton Wright's generous offer to support our Women in Transport community with a workshop on resilience and looking after ourselves in challenging times, was very timely and very welcome.
Susan, who has studied neuroscience professional development, has a real understanding of how individuals' brains impact their behaviour. The aim of her workshop on 25 November was to facilitate a discussion, sharing information about the support we need, what we can do to help ourselves and how we can support others.
The simple definition of resilience is the ability to recover successfully from a difficult or bad situation. According to Susan, it can also be a gift: the ability to bounce back stronger, with the new skills we have acquired.
Some people are born resilient while others are not, but we can all increase our resilience and help ourselves.
Looking at how we might do this, Susan encouraged us to explore and share what causes stress and how this affects us individually.
This revealed a myriad of reactions including problems sleeping, feeling anxious and nervous, confused and irrational thoughts, decreased confidence and a worsening of physical issues such as eczema. Any one of these effects can have a profound impact on our wellbeing and performance.
Susan explained how these feelings start with the amygdala area of our brains triggering our primeval flight or fight response. While this was very useful back in the day when we had to fight for survival, now it mainly has the unhelpful effect of flooding our body with hormones that generate a whole range of unpleasant symptoms, such as shallow breathing, rapid heartbeat and feelings of anxiety and panic.
It is possible, Susan told us, to balance negative hormones such as cortisol and adrenalin with happiness hormones like endorphins and dopamine. And the very first step we can take is to focus on what we can rather than can't control.
Susan talked us through different aspects of wellbeing that, for many people, have been significantly impacted by the pandemic and then explored how we can help ourselves and others to deal with this.
Financial wellbeing
Financial wellbeing statistics courtesy of Aegon.
Financial wellbeing comes from knowing we have enough money to survive. From examples shared, the pandemic has brought a whole range of concerns such as reduced income, redundancy and additional costs incurred in providing resources for remote working.
It also seems that some managers are not aware of differing financial situations or do not relate to the financial impact on people who earn much less than themselves or who rely on a single income. Particular difficulties can be experienced by those working as freelancers or running their own businesses. Companies need to take this on board as people with financial worries are far more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression and sickness, resulting in absenteeism and reduced productivity.
Some companies do include financial wellbeing in their mental health wellbeing services but perhaps this needs to go further by making individual counselling available. Lots of helpful signposting and advice emerged from our discussion which included:
Advice on claiming tax relief when working from home (https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home)
A free service, set up my the government, offering lots of financial advice and tools. https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en
Support for taxpayers excluded from financial support www.excludeduk.org
Career wellbeing
Career wellbeing can be adversely impacted by problems such as lack of space and the distractions of working from home, particularly for people living in flat shares. Some employees lack adequate hardware and others find learning new and continuously changing technology a big challenge. Also, without social plans, people are inclined to work longer hours, particularly if they live alone.
Suggestions on addressing these difficulties included:
Questioning who really needs to be involved in online meetings and keeping them to a minimum.
Rather than working through your commute time, treat it as me-time – take a walk or read a book.
Really listen to other people and let your team introduce you to their children and pets at the end of online meetings.
Meet with members of your team in a mutually convenient area and do a socially distanced walk and talk. Or just walk while talking to a work colleague on your phone.
Don't book meetings back to back. Allow time for preparation and recharging your batteries between calls.
Emotional wellbeing
The fact that we are social animals was reflected in the chat. Having no contact with family and friends and their work colleagues is hitting people hard and they are also missing social events, having things to look forward to and travelling and exploring new places. With lockdown restrictions in force, there are no easy answers, but suggestions shared included:
Pick up the phone
If you are stressed take one step at a time.
Take long walks – get those endorphins moving to balance the effects of cortisol.
Host online activities – quizzes, games and meet ups with friends and family.
Make post lockdown plans – however far in advance.
Join the Women in Transport chat session to informally network with like minded professionals. https://www.womenintransport.com/events/online-networking-session21
Physical wellbeing
Again, lockdown and working from home is having some adverse physical effects with many of us spending too long sitting looking at screens. Some of our members have balanced sedentary activity by completing the couch to 5K run. Other suggestions included:
Without putting pressure on yourself engage in regular, gentle exercise and remember, it's not a competition
Go for walks to release those endorphins and balance cortisol
Free sleep and yoga app https://insighttimer.com
Learn to meditate with the Guided Meditation and Mindfulness - The Headspace App
Yoga with Adriena on YouTube comes highly recommended. She does a Wake Up 11 minutes sessions if you are short on time.https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=adriene+yoga
Mental wellbeing
And finally, everything culminates in our mental wellbeing. To help calm our troubled minds Susan took us through a great breathing exercise. Other suggestions included
Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) or tapping.
Laugh every day - try a laughter yoga session. There's lots to choose from online.
Self care – take time out to take care of your nutrition and get plenty of rest.
Enjoy the little things in life and start a gratitude diary.
Meditate
Volunteer or help in your community
Take up new skills, develop new hobbies
The whole event was incredibly uplifting and it was so good to share our experiences. A huge thank you to Susan for giving up her time to support our Women in Transport Community.
Here are some comments from our members:
“A fantastic webinar. The content really resonated with me.”
“It was a relief to know it wasn't just me and great to connect with others over similar challenges”
“Really enjoyed the session Susan and thank you for all the tips.”
“THANK YOU so much Susan, very helpful engaging and practical!”
“I've been doing Gratitude Exercise as mentioned by Susan for a couple of days. I'm feeling really positive and calm since then. Thank you so much”.
Women in Transport is a non-profit network with a mission of advancing women working in transport. Annual membership of Women in Transport is £60 per year providing access to professional development and networking opportunities. We very much welcome guest blogs from our members - a great way to share the incredible diversity of opportunity in transport, raise your profile and connect with our community.
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