Finding What Works: Four Professionals Share their Unique Approach to Feeling Better
In Season Two of VISTV, we had the incredible opportunity of interviewing a speech-language pathologist, an international opera singer, a loan officer, a licensed clinical social worker and the host of E! Famously Single and a registered dietician. After spending our first season exploring the topic of leadership, we used this season to speak to professionals about their own approach to work and wellness. We asked: What are you doing to take care of yourself? What about your relationship with work are you actively working through? What do you want to see organizations do better? Over a series of three articles, we’re compiling and sharing the very best of what they told us.
First up: Four unique approaches these professionals are using to keep themselves physically and mentally well.
While we often talk about health in the workplace in broad strokes, we appreciated the nuances and specificity that came out of these conversations. We hope their insights inspire your own approach to wellness as much as they have inspired ours.
Scheduling Decompression Time Between Clients & Meetings
For a long time, conversations around wellness in the workplace centered around how to keep employees physically safe to avoid workplace injuries (which is where we come in!). More recently, we’ve seen wellness conversations expand to include mental health, though much of the emphasis has been on helping employees better prepare for—and then recover from—work outside of working hours. But speech pathologist Kathyrn Tarner explains that one of the best ways she keeps herself healthy is by scheduling time to decompress between clients. She says, “When you're on all day, If you're working in a school, you're working in a hospital, you have to go, go, go. Having that moment in my car or taking a coffee break between clients is a nice meditative moment to decompress, especially after a more stressful [working experience].”
With an office full of nurse practitioners, we know the short and long-term gains of these mini breaks. We often encourage employees to take a walk around the block, get up and stretch or find a quiet space to regroup away from the computer throughout the day. Kathryn’s comments reminded us that while this is a helpful mindset, actually scheduling time into our calendars will create longer-term habits.
Paying Attention to the Basics: Water!
Stefanie Sassos, Deputy Director at the Good Housekeeping Institute Nutrition Lab and registered dietician makes an important point: When we’re not healthy and taking care of ourselves, we’re not able to perform or take care of anyone else. Her wellness go-to? “I'm a big hydration stickler,” Stefanie explains. “That's the number one thing you can do for your body. I love it and I believe these simple little efforts we take toward our health and nutrition can make the world of a difference. Because if we think of our bodies as well-oiled machines, we have to put good quality fuel into our bodies for them to function properly and feel their best. If we’re not taking that extra time to really properly nourish our bodies, it's going to affect so many different aspects of our lives, from our mental health to our physical health to how our brain functions and the sort of clarity we have throughout the day.”
Therapist and host of E’s Famously Single Dr. Darcy Sterling echoes the importance of staying hydrated. She acknowledges that it might seem odd for new clients to have a therapist help monitor their water intake. But as Darcy explains, “Often, we’ll find we're four weeks in and 50% of a client’s anxiety has dissipated. So we say let's repeat this another four weeks and see how much more we can bring it down. We probably won't bring it down another 50%, but hell, if we can get it down another 20%? That's a 70% improvement just by drinking water and caring for yourself.”
Yoga Nidra Meditation
By now, most of us are familiar with the benefits of a regular meditation practice—reduced stress levels, increased self-awareness and improved sleep. But for those of us new to meditation, it can be hard to know where to start. We appreciated international opera singer and voice teacher Zachary Nelson’s insight into Yoga Nidra meditation, a guided meditation often referred to as “yogic sleep.”
Zachary shared a great story about how these guided meditations saved a series of shows he performed earlier this year. He explains, “This past January in Florida I had three shows in three days, and I felt like I had a golf ball in my throat. I didn’t know how I was going to get through the shows. I knew this was a symptom of stress, so I would do a Yoga Nidra meditation for an hour every morning and that golf ball would shrink down to the size of maybe a pea. It reminded me of the power of meditation because the mind can trick the body into doing so many things. Doing those Nidra Yoga meditations saved all those shows. I did every show every night, and they were good!”
Prioritizing Authentic Relationships
Independent loan officer Brooke Evans shared a recent shift she made in prioritizing her health and wellness in the workplace: prioritizing authentic relationships. As she explains, “I had my son in 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, and that really helped change my perspective on a lot of things. I realized that time is the most valuable currency we have, and I wanted to use my time to dedicate my work efforts to having more authentic relationships. We spend so much of our time at work. If you work overtime, like I often do for my clients, so much of my time is spent with work and my clients rather than with my family. I realized that it's really important to my mental health, physical health—everything—that I prioritize authentic relationships not only in my personal life but in my professional life, too.”
This realization led Brooke to leave her corporate job and begin her own consulting business, where she’s able to mindfully choose her clients and cultivate positive, authentic relationships, all of which have made her happier both at work and home.
Thanks to each of our guests for their insights and wisdom. To hear the full interviews, check out Season Two of VISTV here.
Note: Some of the quotes included in this article were edited for clarity.