MAY - 2023HR TECH OUTLOOK9challenges. This is made almost impossible to do effectively when our own health, wellbeing, and sense of self are compromised by chronic stress.How to Avoid Stress Becoming ChronicA healthy career is a long game. So, it's essential that we build in periods of rest and recuperation, to ensure that periods of stress are regularly interrupted by rest and restoration. Right now, most organizations are not structured to support this kind of healthy balance. So while the long-term solutions to chronic stress are systemic, as individuals we can't afford to wait. We need to be fiercely vigilant to prioritize our health and wellbeing, starting now, before chronic stress wears us down to a point where we no longer have the energy to make these choices. Working with people like Amber, we developed a few key strategies to help you ensure stress does not become chronic.1. Identify and Adopt Healthy Habits. Its advice we often give others, but are you taking care of yourself as a top priority? Identify a couple of healthy habits and behaviors you can adopt and commit to in your daily life right now. They don't have to be big ­ in fact, starting small is best when we're under stress.2. Block Time in Your Calendar for Self-Care.Frankly, self-care is infinitely more important to building a sustainable career than showing up at every Zoom meeting. That's why it deserves to be a priority in your calendar. Fix a time at the end of each week to spend 15 minutes blocking self-care into your calendar for next week (ideally, have events that simply repeat weekly in your calendar to save yourself leg work). Yoga, meditation, a long walk, a nap, simply resting or another activity that nourishes you which does not involve a screen. Whatever self-care looks like to you: prioritize it by scheduling time for it now.3. Be Gentle with Yourself When You Get Derailed.Eating takeout three nights in a row? Working through lunch after you'd promised yourself not to? The pressures of leadership cause all of us to do things we swore we wouldn't. The key thing here is awareness and being mindful of your inner critic. Notice that this behavior isn't serving you, forgive yourself, then get back on track. If you're struggling to embed consistent healthy behaviors, have a friend or a coach hold you accountable.The Ripple EffectNaturally, stress in the workplace is not going away. No matter where we work and what our career goals are, workplace stress is often systemic to the point of being normalized. That makes confronting it head even more powerful: identifying stress and prioritizing your own health and wellbeing will have a ripple effect.As a leader, when you role model these behaviors this sends a message to your team and even further afield. When you set and keep boundaries, prioritize your mental, emotional, and physical health, and stay on track despite the occasional setback, you empower those around you to do the same. Amber has put these tips into practice for a few months now. She was surprised by the feedback she got from not only her team, but a board member with whom she works closely. "Hearing from other people that they notice the positive change in me, just from more actively, prioritizing my health and wellbeing, has been super motivating." A healthy career is a long game; it's essential that we build in periods of rest and recuperation, to ensure that periods of stress are regularly interrupted by rest and restoration
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