Mental Health & Wellness – Self-care Returning to office
Beth Glanville, psychotherapist and lecturer specialising in mental health in the workplace
STO Building Group has long held the belief that our people deserve an excellent workplace in which to live, develop, and collaborate, both on-site and in the office. In the last year, this belief has informed our every decision and inspired our leaders to focus on the mental health and wellness of our workforce—from the early stages of the pandemic to today.
Our Structure Tone London asked Beth Glanville, a trained Psychotherapist and Lecturer who specialises in working with psychological and mental health issues in the workplace to expertly and sensitively
address some of the issues you might be experiencing as you return to work.
Self-Care Returning to Office
For those of us who have spent over a year working from home, many of us have found ourselves sliding out of routines and wondering how we ever had time to commute. We may well have experienced the blurring of work and home life – sometimes to our advantage, often not – and got used to having our fridges comfortably close to our desks (or stand-in equivalent). The thought of rebuilding what used to be a familiar structure, including giving up a large part of our day to commuting once more, can feel overwhelming. Dr Renju Joseph from the Priory Group provides some supportive advice about returning to the office in a video, which you can access hereGo to https://www.priorygroup.com/blog/managing-anxiety-about-returning-to-work-after-coronavirus-lockdown.
Some people may find that after just a few days of having to get up and out, rush to catch a train, charge into the office to get the IT system up and running, deal with all those daily frustrations and interruptions we’d forgotten about, manage a socially distanced kitchen or jostle for a takeaway coffee at the café, before racing back to the office for a final few Teams meetings with colleagues who aren’t in today (could have just been done from home, right?), before doing the reverse commute, that they are completely wiped.
It will take time to re-adjust to a ‘new, old’ way of life, and it will be important to give yourself the time and space to allow for the readjustment. Take a few minutes out of each day to give yourself some space to take a short walk, have a quiet cup of tea, enjoy a hot bath, or curl up with a book, an episode of your favorite box set, or a puzzle. Wherever you find your recharge, whether by yourself or with others, whether doing or simply being, just make sure you make time for it!
For those who are struggling for time or are unsure what to do, have a look at the BUPA one month of mindfulness calendarGo to https://assets.bupa.co.uk/~/media/images/healthmanagement/pdfs/mindfulness-calendar.pdf. Try and incorporate one activity into each of your days, to give yourself just a little moment to press pause and recharge. You can either work through each day over the course of a month, or just dip in and pick out whichever activity takes your fancy! You matter, we care.