COVID-19 makes most aspects of life more difficult and complicated. This is especially true for those working in senior care environments. You face new risks and significant challenges simply by going to work during the pandemic. Balancing this with stressors at home (from COVID-19 or for other reasons) is no small feat. It is normal to feel tired and not at your best in any roles.
This blog provides reassurance and encouragement as well as simple, brief ways you can build resilience and relieve stress immediately.
This blog post focuses on team relationships and how to create an experience at work that is positive despite the chronic stressors and team dynamics that can be under extra strain due to COVID-19.
The building blocks of resilience have a few themes that can be applied at work and home. Our Pause-Find-Practice approach (see webinar for more information) to building resilience really comes down to a few basic things you can do (and probably are already doing) to make even the most stressful time more manageable. We’re focusing on Practice in particular with these blog entries. Click here for the Pause-Find-Practice Stress Relief Plan.
For this installment, we are starting simple: acknowledge this is an extraordinarily difficult time. While this sounds obvious, we often skip this step and move to being frustrated with ourselves and others. Instead, try to stay kind to yourself and your colleagues with the understanding everyone is under more stress and new challenges. People are taking on new tasks, making sacrifices at home and stretched to do new roles they feel less confident in.
Know it is normal to feel extra fatigue, less confidence about your work, less productive and more “foggy” than usual. This is the pandemic’s effect on you physically and mentally. It is NOT YOUR FAULT. If you can acknowledge it, that provides relief and opens the door for more ways to build resilience. You might even remind a coworker of these things and find you both are reassured as a result.
Give this a try (even if it’s quietly to yourself) and stay tuned for more ways to improve your experience not only on your work team, but across your other roles as well.
Thank you for all you do!
For further information on teambuilding during crisis: