Mental Health Awareness Week. Workplace Activities & Checklist.
23rd - 29th September 2019 is Mental Health Awareness Week in New Zealand, an opportunity to prioritise mental health and to implement positive wellbeing practices in the workplace.
What is Wellbeing?
Put simply, it’s when we are feeling as though we are fulfilling our own personal potential and being our best selves. We are flourishing, feeling connected with others, able to turn our ‘calm’ on during moments of stress and highly productive at work.
The opposite of this is languishing when we are feeling stressed out, disconnected from others and that dreaded feeling that we are not our best self.
We humans are energetic beings with four energy tanks to draw from. It is normal to have rhythms of ‘ups and downs’ but it’s when we stay in the dips for extended periods that our overall wellbeing is compromised i.e. risking burnout, outbursts at work, negativity and overwhelm take over creating a ‘victim mindset’.
Self-awareness is key for maintaining wellbeing. Being self-aware needs to be a conscious daily ritual, just like showering.
‘Bad’ days and weeks happen, where we haven’t been at our best for various reasons out of our control. Being consciously aware of these and taking control back by deciding what to will prioritise the following day or week, helps to re-energise and successfully prevent that space of languishing and get some flourishing back in our days!
Wellbeing improvements can be as simple as focusing on one of our four energy tanks each day of the week. During Mental Health Awareness Week, we encourage you and your team to take these actions to prioritise one energy tank per day, finishing off with a celebration day on Friday.
We’ve also created a free printable activity checklist you can download and distribute to your team this week.
Monday: Spiritual Wellbeing (Taha Wairua)
Spiritual wellbeing is about being consciously aware and staying connected to our values, morals and sense of purpose. What gets you out of bed each day?
Action #1: Set your intention for the day. What do you want to feel like or be like today?
Action: #2: Write your values on post-it notes and put them on your bathroom mirror for the week ahead.
Tuesday: Mental & Emotional Wellbeing (Taha Hinengaro)
Mental and emotional wellbeing is about our thinking processes, communication, acknowledging and expressing our thoughts.
Action #1: Plan your top three priorities for the day before opening your inbox on your emails. The brain dislikes prioritising because it takes a lot of energy to do so. If you open your inbox before prioritising your day you are effectively using up more energy to plan your day afterwards.
Action #2: Clear your conscious clutter before meetings today. Write down everything that is swimming around in your conscious mind. This is called a ‘brain dump’ - clearing all that ‘stuff’ out of your mind onto paper. This effectively closes these thoughts, like windows on your computer screen, enabling you to be more present in the meeting and make clearer, more effective decisions.
Wednesday: Social Wellbeing (Taha Whānau)
Social wellbeing relates to our relationships and feelings of belonging, togetherness and feeling valued in the workplace.
Action #1: Everyone commits to acknowledging three people today. Perhaps it is giving positive feedback or acknowledgement for something they have done. Or thanking them for helping you with something or expressing gratefulness for what they bring to the team. It can even be as simple and random as leaving a note for the cleaner!
Action #2: Make tonight a dinner table night, putting phones away and throwing a couple of random questions into the mix like:
“If you could be Prime Minister for a day what would you do?”
“What is one thing you think there needs to be more of in the world?”
Thursday: Physical Wellbeing (Taha Tinana)
Looking after our physical wellbeing involves ways to care for our physical body with sleep, movement, hydration and recharge (i.e. rest!).
Action #1: Recharge your brain. We recharge our phones but not very often do we recharge our brains. Set a bell/alarm in the office for 2pm today. When the bell goes off, everyone stands up, turns their backs to their screens and phones and take 5 deep breaths - 5 seconds in and 5 seconds out.
Action #2: Have a 2 Litre water competition in the workplace today. The first person to drink 2 Litres gets a coffee voucher or a bottle of wine. Have fun with it and be creative.
Friday: Celebrate – Fun Day Friday!
The brain thrives off a sense of completion and this increases our serotonin levels. It is important that we acknowledge and celebrate our achievements more often!
Action #1: Write down three things you achieved this week which you feel good about.
Action #2: Everyone shares a ‘win’ to begin any meetings today. Go around the table quickly and everyone shares one thing they feel pleased with or something they think went well this week.
Bonus Activities for Mental Health Awareness Week!
Walk and Talk Meeting: Change up one of your meetings by walking around the block as you talk and see how different the conversation is. This is especially beneficial for problem solving meetings as the walking takes our conscious mind out of the game so our unconscious mind can provide the solution.
Decide what you will do to celebrate your week of prioritising wellbeing as a team. Book an office massage therapist to come in, have a morning tea shout or wine at 4pm, etc. Better yet, make these things happen regularly.
Remember to download and print the activity sheet for Mental Health Awareness Week here.
Share your experience with us by using the hashtag #bestoftodaywellbeing or send us an email.