As the holiday season approaches, people working at charities, non-profits, social or human service organizations and in helping professions find themselves navigating a unique set of challenges. It can be a time of year that shines a light on the stark contrast of quality of life between people of different backgrounds, circumstances, financial means, and physical and mental health. While the spirit of giving and helping others is at the core of their work, the demands of the season can take a toll on mental well-being. In order to combat the negative impacts to helpers during the holiday season, it’s important to explore the specific stressors faced by those in helping professions during the holidays and provide tailored strategies to promote mental health and balance.
Recognize the Weight of the Season
The holiday season often brings an increased demand for services, fundraisers, and community engagement. Acknowledge the added pressure and recognize that it’s okay to prioritize your mental health amid the heightened responsibilities. This doesn’t mean you have failed your clients or are falling short of your commitments and dedication the people you serve.
Set Realistic Expectations for Your Organization
Just as individuals set personal expectations, organizations can also benefit from realistic planning. Communicate openly about workload expectations during the holiday season, ensuring that everyone is on the same page. Focusing on achievable goals will help alleviate unnecessary stress and promote mental wellness among your staff and volunteers.
Encourage Collective Self-Care
In helping professions, a culture of empathy often prevails, but it’s crucial to extend that empathy to yourself and your colleagues. Encourage and model collective self-care within your organization. Consider organizing wellness activities, such as group walks or mindfulness sessions, to foster a supportive environment.
Create Boundaries for Your Team
Helping professionals are often passionate about their work, but it’s essential to establish clear boundaries to prevent burnout. Encourage your team to take breaks, utilize time-off policies, and avoid overextending themselves. A well-rested and balanced team is more effective in fulfilling its mission.
Foster Connection within Your Organization
The holiday season is an excellent time to strengthen the bonds within your team. Organize events or activities that promote camaraderie and connection. Feeling supported by colleagues can significantly impact one’s mental well-being, especially during busy times.
Integrate Mindfulness into the Workplace
Incorporate mindfulness practices into the workplace to help manage stress. Whether it’s a brief meditation session before meetings or creating a designated quiet space for reflection, mindfulness can enhance focus and resilience, allowing individuals to better navigate the demands of the season.
Celebrate Achievements and Impact
Reflect on the positive impact your organization has had throughout the year. Celebrate the achievements, no matter how small, and remind your team of the meaningful difference they’ve made. Focusing on the positive aspects of the work can contribute to a sense of purpose and fulfillment. And it will help energize your team as they move into the new year ahead.
If you work in a helping profession, the holiday season presents both challenges and opportunities for connection and impact. By recognizing the stressors, setting realistic expectations, promoting and encouraging self-care, establishing boundaries, fostering connection, integrating mindfulness, and celebrating achievements, individuals and organizations can navigate the season with resilience and maintain their commitment to making a positive difference in the world. Remember, taking care of yourselves enables you to better care for others.
This is the second in a series of blogs about practicing self-care in times of high stress, such as what we’re experiencing now with COVID-19. You can read Part 1 here.
Many people—especially those in helping professions—find it hard to practice self-care even if they understand its importance. There are a number of reasons for this. It is difficult to pause and make time for self-care practices when consumed by tasks at home, work, with family, etc. Helpers might feel guilty about taking time for self-care for fear that they are somehow letting down their families, coworkers or clients by pausing, even momentarily, to care for themselves. With these obstacles in play, it’s important to take some actions to make self-care a bit easier to achieve.
Tips to Help Make Self-care Possible
Start short, and work your way up
Sometimes we associate self-care with activities taking a long bubble bath or treating yourself to a professional massage. While either of those can be great for self-care, these two examples involve a level of time and cost commitment that is unrealistic for many people. Instead, we should think of self-care as something that someone only needs to take a few minutes to achieve at first. While it’s ideal to take more than just a few minutes at a time for self-care, associating self-care only with more indulgent, time-consuming activities can easily set a person to give up on the idea without even trying, because it seems too unrealistic to achieve.
Develop strategies for work and home
You’re going to need self-care options for several different environments and circumstances, so it’s a good idea to keep a few ideas in your toolbox that will work for the setting. Taking a half hour to break and read a book or watch a television program might work at home, but in the office self-care may look more like finding a quiet space for a few minutes of deep breathing and recharging. Try to keep an open mind and find multiple activities that work for you so that you can practice self-care as you find time in a variety of environments.
Pursue activities that are therapeutic for you
When deciding how to care for yourself, think about what you enjoy and what kinds of activities give you a deepest sense of peace, relaxation, or accomplishment of self-care. It can be easy to get caught up in what self-care “should” look like through society’s perspective, but effective self-care is very individualized.
Make it a team effort
It’s a phrase we’ve heard a lot lately— “We are all in this together.” But, the saying is particularly true especially for those who are working directly on COVID-19 response. Caring for others is one of those things you’re good at, and you can use that power to take care of your colleagues, and let them take care of you as well. The power and protection of your team is more meaningful now than ever, so rely on one another to help make self-care a priority. For example, help remind one another to take breaks as needed at work, and be there to process difficult calls with one another. If everyone buys in to self-care as an important part of the workplace, you can all help one another be accountable for everyone practicing good self-care.
April is Stress Awareness Month. Right now we’re all very aware of just how stressful life is, and for those providing any kind of services and response to COVID-19, it is an especially stressful time. When the calls are nonstop, the task list is endless, and the hours are long, that’s precisely when we tend to abandon our self-care so we can focus more attention on work—And that’s the exact wrong thing to do.
It is normal to approach self-care with skepticism. Not so much questioning its importance, but how realistic it is to achieve. The reality is none of us have the free time staring us in the face where we can easily focus on ourselves, the point is you have to make the time and commit to it.
Why is Self-care Important?
Be a more effective caregiver
As the flight attendant says, “In the event of an emergency, when the oxygen masks deploy, be sure to put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others.” Why? Because if you pass out from lack of oxygen, not only do you suffer but those who needed your assistance can’t receive help either. You cannot be an effective caregiver to others if you yourself are suffering from excessive stress or burnout. And the way to avoid getting to the breaking point is to practice self-care along the way, and often, so that stress levels aren’t able to get to the point of breaking you and preventing you from truly being present for each client interaction you are tasked to handle.
Prevent physical and mental health problems
It’s not just about the health and well-being of the people you serve—your own health is put at risk when stress compounds and you neglect a self-care routine. According to numerous health authorities, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Canadian Public Health Association, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, American Heart Association, National Institute of Mental Health, and others, chronic stress can lead to several—sometimes serious—health conditions including:
Anxiety
Depression
Digestive problems
Problems sleeping/insomnia
Headaches
Weight gain
Disruption to memory and concentration
High blood pressure
Heart disease and stroke
The American Psychological Association outlines the numerous, and very scientific, reasons that stress impacts your body from your brain to your muscles and everything in between. If you struggle with investing time in a self-care routine, think of it this way: If any of the conditions listed above develop as a result of chronic stress, you’ll end up spending much more of your time, resources, finances—and, ultimately undergo even more stress. Think of the old quote by Benjamin Franklin coined way back in 1736: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Maintain healthy relationships
When things are particularly hectic at work, coming home can be a welcome reprieve. But, left unmanaged, stress can create unrest in your household. Stress is contagious, and so your overall mood or tense demeanor could cause your partner, children, and others in your home, to experience similar symptoms. Stress can cause us to have a “shorter fuse” and lose patience more quickly, leading to bickering or blow ups. And, in this case, one of the scientific benefits of stress—increased vigilance—can make you hyper aware of the faults, annoying habits, and negative behaviors of those around you, again potentially creating more arguments and bickering. Effectively managing stress through self-care can help keep the peace.
How do I practice self-care?
In Part 2 of this blog series, we’ll look at the different ways one can practice self-care to relieve the symptoms and effects of stress.
