The Mental Emotional Health Blog

There are days when it’s tough to walk out the door after work without carrying some “emotional baggage” with you.

1. After you arrive at work and just before you start your day, close your eyes, picture yourself in a good frame of mind for the day, and take 2 deep, cleansing breaths.
2. Make your smiles simple and sincere.
3. Send a short, supportive or complimenting email to a co-worker you enjoy working with. 
4. Avoid listening to and spreading gossip. 
5. Right before you leave work, or just after you get outside, mentally review the day you just had in your mind (take about 30 seconds to 1 minute). Consider the emotion you felt most often that day (whether you think it was positive or negative), and then reflect on something positive outside of work. This provides a nice transition from your work life to your personal life.

I am taking an business class online right now (as if I didn’t have enough to do already). It’s a great class, and as students we are learning about clarifying your purpose, your vision, and your values. Going through these has reminded me of the phrase, which I’ll paraphrase,”If you do what you love, it isn’t work.”

I read something recently in R.J. Leider’s book, The Power of Purpose, about the idea of purpose being expressed through work . That got me thinking about work mindsets. What if you didn’t always look at work as just work? Instead, what if you looked at each workday as an opportunity to stretch your mind? It is idealistic and simple. Maybe that’s why it appeals to me.

Anyway, I tried that mindset today. I forgot for a good part of the day, but did manage a few times to remain aware of stretching my mind and my limits instead of just working. Now that the workday is over, I feel I accomplished something personal in a small but significant way.

Anyway, feel free to try it out yourself and let me know what you think. Take care!

A friend of mine has been frustrated lately with someone asking personal questions, with the obvious intent of getting info for gossip. That got me thinking about different ways to handle questions that aren’t anyone’s business. I thought I’d offer a few ideas:

1) After the person mentions something personal about you they heard from someone, say something like, “I heard that you just can’t stay away from gossip.”

2) Once you can tell the person is starting an inappropriately/private question, dart your eyes back and forth several times between their eyes and their mouth, ear, or hair. Once they ask what you’re looking at, say, “Oh, it’s nothing.” After they ask, “What?” just keep denying it’s anything important. They could be self-conscious for hours.

3) Get a thoughtful look on your face, look up and say as if you’re thinking out loud, “I am trying to figure out if that’s something I want to talk about with you, here at work, in front of all these other people. I’m also wondering why you want to know.” Then give them your full attention again. If they keep at it, say directly to the person: “Now I’m wondering if you are just looking for gossip you can spread to whoever wants to listen.”

4) Be sincere and direct, “I think that’s something for me and my <family/significant other> to figure out, don’t you?”

5) “Do you want me to email you the answer to your question, or should I send a press release to the TV stations in town so everyone knows?” Say this jokingly, and if the person persists get a little more serious and say, “Oh, you seriously want me to answer that? That is funny.”

Have fun with it. You don’t have to let a gossip wreck your day.

Anger management is not hoping that you won’t be angry. So give yourself a good chance to diffuse anger by expecting that you will, in fact, get angry. I have worked with several clients, male and female, that have worked on their anger and then get surprised when they get angry again (For example: “I got mad again last night, so this stuff didn’t work!”). That is when I explain what might be obvious to some: Anger management is learning to manage the anger reactions you will have, not eliminating anger as an emotion.

The next time you feel stressed, frustrated, or annoyed in a specific situation, tell yourself that you are going to get angry, accept it, and then figure out how you want to handle it appropriately. Then you’ll have a better chance to manage your anger and will allow your rational brain to stay involved in the process.

Have you ever heard of the Ripple Effect? Jacob Kounin wrote a book in the area of education, Discipline and Group Management in Classrooms (1970), discussing the idea that when one student in a class is reprimanded or disciplined, other students may tend to comply even if they were not addressed directly. According to Wikipedia, The Ripple Effect is a term also used in sociology, economics, and spiritual activism.

For people that use systems-thinking, which views individual problems (or components) as part of a larger system, The Ripple Effect makes sense. For any direct intervention there are other effects because one person or situation is also part of, and therefore interacts with, a larger system or situation.

So today, I want to use the Ripple Effect angle as a way to emphasize how important it can be to be positive and healthy. Whether you say that laughter is contagious or smiles are contagious, you’re absolutely right. Positivity affects other people positively, just as negativity tends to affect people negatively. When a positive and negative person meet and influence each other, whoever has more patience will have the greater influence. That is where health becomes part of the equation.

A healthy person will tend have positive energy and generally will have the patience to stay positive. But the thing about positive people is that they also tend to share their positive energy with others, and that promotes health in a workplace, classroom, or community. If enough people buy into positivity and health frequently enough, a healthy culture is established. People are more productive, more supported, more supportive, and less stressed.

And that is why genuine smiles and compliments are so important. They ripple out to people beyond the people you shared your positive energy with.