Month: March 2020

Coronavirus – how do we stay well?

Most of us will never have gone through something as epic as this in our lives, certainly not in the UK anyways. The coronavirus has disrupted our lives in all possible ways. This is serious and it does not appear to be going away anytime soon. It feels as though we are being battered from all sides. We have inevitable health worries for our vulnerable relatives and friends, anxiety around jobs, businesses and livelihoods. There’s anxiety around self isolation and how long that is going to last and concern about the world and what the future will look like. It’s a bit like the opposite of a bad dream: you wake you and for an instant feel like everything is OK and then it hits you and you remember the reality of the world right now.

I’ve been reading and putting together lots of resources on how we can best cope during these heightened times of stress and anxiety. How can we cope when we are being asked to stay at home for prolonged periods of time? How do we stay sane and how do we look after ourselves? How do people with kids cope when they are working and home-schooling them at the same time? 

I know we will get through this and life will become easier. This is very much a temporary crisis, and I think it is important to focus on that. We are all in this together and there are already some amazingly positive things coming out of this. Communities are pulling together and looking out for the vulnerable and people working to support their local businesses etc. This will build resilience, strength and hopefully make our world a better place to be in the future. 

I’ve been helping to put together lots of additional resources as part of Kate Garraway’s new Wellbeing Club. Sign up here for free: www.clubgarraway.com to access the resources.

Here are some key areas to focus on with some of the most useful resources I have found:

Reducing Anxiety and Stress:

Anxiety and stress levels are bound to be high at this time. Although it’s important to keep up to date with the latest news it can become quite addictive and there’s a danger it can impact our mental health if we are constantly plugged in to the news. We can’t control what’s going on in the world but we can control our own reactions to it and how we deal with it. Try to limit yourself to two or three updates a day.  See my earlier post on stress here which may also be useful. Here are my some of my favourite resources to help: 

Staying active:

It’s even more important than ever to stay moving at this time to keep ourselves fit and active and to help our mental health. There are loads of great free online workouts out there and lots of fitness experts are running live sessions on the internet. Here are my favourites: 

  • Kitchen Dancing this is great – it’s fun dance/fitness classes set to 80s, 90s and noughties music, in a disco setting, from the comfort of your own home.
  • Yoga: Great for the body and the mind: There are lots of online yoga tutors including Yoga with Adriene. My local studios East of Eden and Yonder are doing live streams of their usual in person classes and I am sure lots of others are too. Try a 20 min yoga session in the morning. 
  • The 7 minute workout: A video taking you through each of the 12 exercises in the 7 minute workout. A research based high intensity workout you can do at home to improve cardiovascular fitness for an all over body workout. 
  • The Body Coach TV: Joe Wicks The Body Coach has over 250 free workouts and he’s also doing regular live streams of his workouts. 

Connection

Staying connected is super important at the moment. I’ve decided to phone at least one person I don’t usually speak to every day during this period. I hope what we learn from this after it is all over that actually speaking to someone is so much more meaningful than just sending messages. We might even make some new connections with people who live near us who we have never met before. Let’s hope this continues! 

  • Are there older people on your street you can reach out to to have a phone call or keep them company at a social distance? There are WhatsApp groups for streets everywhere so it should be easy to connect up with your neighbours. 
  • There are so many ways of keeping connected to our loved ones at the moment from Google Hangouts, Zoom and WhatsApp video and my friends introduced me to an app called House Party which is pretty fun. Have you tried having dinner and or drinks with friends over video?
  • The Sofa Singers: a free & weekly online singing event that aims to bring people together from around the world to spark joy and human connection

Stay grounded in the present moment:

We don’t know what’s going to happen over the next weeks and months so now is the best time to stay as focused in the present as possible. If you don’t already have a go at practicing meditation. See my earlier article summarising the benefits of meditation here and below my top resources: 

Keeping kids moving

This must be a super anxious and unsettling time for kids and even more so for parents as the schools start to shut. There are absolutely tonnes of resources out there and seeing as my focus is on movement I’ve kept it to that for now:

  • Cosmic kids yoga – a great way to start the day with the kids with some yoga.
  • Joe Wicks P.E. The Body Coach is doing a workout for kids every week day at 9am streamed from YouTube*
  • A whole range of ideas to get kids moving here.

Get Creative:

  • Gok Wan cook along: check out his Instagram account for the next mass cook along
  • There are lots of free gigs, DJ sets and music events being streamed. Check here for a list of up and coming stuff.
  • What can you do at home to make the most of this time?
    • read a book that’s been sitting on your shelf for years
    • Clear out your wardrobe/cupboards/lofts
    • start/continue writing a journal
    • create a scrapbook
    • plan a holiday you have always wanted to go on
    • make some plans about what you want to do with your career
    • rearrange your furniture
    • take up an old hobby like painting, knitting, sewing 
    • if you are lucky enough to have a garden get out and do some weeding 
    • Do a jigsaw 
    • Put your favourite album on and actually listen to it all the way through
    • Do an online course
    • learn sign language
    • write a letter to a friend.

Do things for others:

  • Foodbanks are in urgent need of donations at this time. Find out how you can help here.
  • Support your local businesses by buying vouchers, leaving reviews or providing donations. Here are some other ideas.
  • Charities are struggling as lots of events have been cancelled and their funds are shrinking – so now is the time to set up a direct debit not just for Covid-19 related funds but for any worthwhile causes.

Have some fun and stay positive: 

How adopting a growth mindset can benefit you…

I read Carol Dweck’s seminal book Mindset: Changing the way you think to fulfil your potential at the end of last year. She outlines the differences in what she calls a “fixed mindset” and a “growth mindset” and pushes for the reader to understand the benefits they will gain from learning to adopt a growth mindset.

Here’s a quick definition of what Dweck means by each of the mindsets:

The Fixed mindset

A belief that your abilities and talents are set in stone and unchangeable. You are naturally gifted or not. Believing that you only have a certain amount of intelligence, or another character trait, leads those with a fixed mindset to need to prove and validate themselves over and over. It leads people to believe there are inherently flawed when making mistakes and this can be a permanent mark. For example, you might always judge yourself as unintelligent if you didn’t pass some of your exams at school. With a fixed mindset people tend to want to hide or deny their deficiencies, or blame others when things don’t go as planned. They feel the need to appear to be flawless. The fixed mindset encourages people to believe they are superior to others and therefore demean others. People with a fixed mindset tend to gravitate towards people who will reconfirm their self-esteem and abilities rather than challenge and encourage growth. This means that when relationships start to become harder work people with a fixed mindset see them as flawed, and not working, and they are then often doomed to fail. It’s the live happily ever after mentality without effort or hardwork.

The growth mindset

Is the belief that ability and talent can be nurtured and developed through hard work, learning and effort. True potential is unknown with a growth mindset and an individual sees mistakes and failures as ways of learning, growing and stretching themselves. People with this mindset are more able to take on board their flaws as they are open to continually developing themselves. A growth mindset allows us to thrive on challenge and become determined to keep learning and growing to enrich our lives. Someone with a growth mindset will enjoy the journey regardless of the outcome and throw themselves into activities even if they aren’t good at them to begin with. With a growth mindset people tend to seek out other people who will challenge them, encourage growth and even provide constructive criticism. They are able to embrace this feedback and learn from it, to continue growing throughout their lives. They are more likely to work hard at their relationships, compromise, listen to the other person’s points of view and therefore develop strong and long-lasting relationships.

Natural talent v effort

Dweck covers how the two mindsets affect so many aspects of life: at work, in our relationships, with our children and families, in our hobbies and sporting abilities. She quotes Malcolm Gladwell who said “as a society we value natural, effortless accomplishment over achievement through effort”. We can see this in many areas of life and the media perpetuates this idea of “natural talent”.

Michael Jordan and John McEnroe

Dweck uses case studies of John McEnroe and Michael Jordan to illustrate her points. John McEnroe she says had a classic fixed mindset. He believed he was the best tennis player, and he was for a time. But when things started to go against him, and he lost matches, he would blame everyone and everything else. He saw effort as casting doubt on his talents and believed if he was to succeed he needed to get out and perform 100% all of the time. McEnroe’s fixed mindset prevented him from looking at areas where he could improve. Instead he wished he played a team sport so he could conceal his flaws. He considered himself to be a finished product and therefore why did he need to work hard to be good when he was already the best.

Michael Jordan on the other hand embraced his failures. Each time he was knocked back he worked harder and harder to grow his talents. This is hard to imagine as the Michael Jordan we know now as one of the best basketball players of all time. He was cut from his High School team, and he was devastated, but instead of giving up this made him determined to work his hardest to do the thing he loved. He’d leave his house at 6am to practice and repeat the same shots over and over again until he nailed it and he would keep practising it after that too. His success stemmed from his mindset. He said “The mental toughness and the heart are a lot stronger than some of the physical advantages you might have. I’ve always said that and I’ve always believed that”.

Growth and fixed mindsets in children

Dweck covers how communicating with children is so important in terms of nurturing a growth mindset. She talks about how crucial it is to praise children for their effort rather than achievement. Indeed, there is robust evidence to show that praising achievements in kids actually does the opposite as it actually harms their motivation and performance.

This does not seem intuitive so let’s explain: by constantly praising accomplishments by saying to children “you are so clever/so smart/so talented” it gives them a boost, but only a temporarily. The moment things don’t go so well they think they are the opposite: “If success means they are smart then failure means they are dumb”. This means children are afraid to try new things as they fear failure and start to doubt themselves as soon as they don’t succeed in something. Dweck advises to keep away from praise directed at, intelligence and talent, but instead to praise the effort and work put in. she says children need honest and constructive feedback, without it they won’t learn and in their adult lives they will experience teaching, coaching and guidance as negative and meaning they aren’t good enough. Think about people in your workplace who might exhibit some of these characteristics – an inability to take on board constructive feedback and defensive behaviour towards anything they deem as not reassuring praise. 

We all have both mindsets

It’s important to remember that this is by no means black and white. We will all exhibit the fixed and growth mindset at times and our task is to understand what triggers fixed mindset thinking.

What to do to nurture a growth mindset

Dweck provides many tips on how to cultivate a growth mindset and I’ve picked out my favourite ones here:

  • Next time you struggle, get bored or want to give up trying, when you are doing something new because it gets hard, try to persevere. Push through the difficulties and imagine your brain forming new connections as you take on the challenge.
  • When there is next a disagreement in one of your close relationships try to allow the other person to air their grievances and really listen and take on board their viewpoints. Try your hardest not to take their critique personally and try to avoid the blame game.
  • Think about ways you could be less defensive about your mistakes in the workplace. Can you make more of the feedback you receive at work and see it as a way of learning and growing rather than being judged and criticised?
  • Next time you are tempted to praise a child for their achievements try to comment on the process they used, their choices and efforts. For example, when something goes well. “I am so impressed by all of the revision and hard work you put in to that test, the results really showed how dedicated you were”. When things don’t go so well “everyone has different ways of learning, let’s work hard to find the way that works best for you”.
  • Try to work out what triggers your fixed mindset (Dweck provides lots of tips in the book) and then give your fixed mindset a name.

I would highly recommend everyone gives this important book a read!