Reflecting Over the Past Year – 2022 in Review

Speaker 1

Hello there, everybody. Welcome back. It’s here with Ryan, well-being specialist here at SIBO, and here with my peer Gillian Montezheoka, who is also a well-being specialist in the USA. Hi, Gillian. How are you doing? Hi, Ryan. How are you today? I’m doing great. Glad to have you here. Thank you. Yeah, glad to have you. Today, we have some one interesting topic.

We’re going to talk about these new well-being trends of 2022 and future trends as well, as we can see it in the health community, what are the new things that are trying to improve in companies and worldwide. Let’s jump into it, if you like, okay? Yes, of course. I’m ready. Tell me a little bit about stress management. I know that stress is something that everybody’s getting no to it.

We are aware that stress exists, but what can we do about it? Tell me, what are the strategies right now regarding stress? Well, stress train people of health and wellness and make energy labor drops, and especially bad moods. Unfortunately, most workers or people experience damaged living or stress, and their effects, their works, and home lives. Stress affects the whole life.

It could be personal, it could be in your work area, it could be any decision that you have to make in your life. Stress will affect that area, especially with bad moods, and when you have bad moods, you won’t be able to make good decisions in that area.

I think a simple mindfulness program could give the people or the employees tools so they will be able to manage and learn coping skills to deal with stress. My fullness practice could be something like a set present right now, what is going on right now, be able to say, yes, this is what I have right now, and then I will figure it out.

I will develop some skills to deal with this situation, but sometimes helps people to pull away from thought in the past and in the future, which is what we most fears and have doubts about what will be my future or what I’m going to do with this. Stress is something that we need to learn how to manage, how to process ourselves.

Every people is different, every people learns and express feelings and emotions completely different. So every people also expresses stress and anxiety and other issues completely different. So we need to find out like hints that maybe we’ll have a lot of stress and we don’t know how to address that subject.

So maybe you should ask for help, maybe you should go to somebody that you trust or maybe tell your partner or friends or somebody for help. Sometimes we need to ask for help in order to manage much better or in the best way possible stress. That’s what we call stress management because we need to manage that stress in the best way possible. Yeah, I agree.

I definitely like those meditation techniques or like more being the present, like right here, right now, techniques can really help you a lot regarding stress management because sometimes we have so much workload and not only workload, right?

Speaker 1

We have our own personal problems, family problems, even financial problems. And I do see that some companies and enterprises are right now giving some kind of aids or talks or something like support regarding financial talks because I do understand sadly like and it is important and it’s a real factor and money sometimes or financial health. can trigger some stress right now.

So because you got bills to pay, family to keep or support and stuff like that. So if I see a new trend where companies are implementing programs where they have financial education to their employees, to their peers or so on and so forth, where they can be more. Yes, financial, I’m sorry. Don’t go wrong, sure.

Okay, financial wellness is something that is new in the trend right now since most people have a lot of financial stress and they don’t know how to manage their financial issues.

So companies are looking for alternatives and options to give them to the employees in order for them to balance life and be able to feel more relaxed because a struggle with financially issues could cause depression, anxiety and many of them withdraw from working and they will affect personal life.

So financial wellness is something, is a topic that is increasing right now in the agenda of the employers and they are creating programs to help their employees.

Because at this point, it generates a lot of stress and people wants to feel more comfortable about the financial issues and some of them do not know how to deal with that stress, especially after COVID that we have to re-adact ourselves to the new world or the new normal and it could be difficult to understand how can you manage your financial issues right now.

That’s why companies are being more flexible in that direction and actually they are kind of like offering like a work from home, more flexibility, hybrid kind of like options for the employees because they consider flexibility is essential component for the mother of workplace.

So flexible works can improve the world life balance between personal life and workplace and they will see benefits and the company will be seeing benefits from those employees who are able to balance financial and personal life. I agree. Like one of the things like the pandemic left us is like this hybrid remote working is really helpful.

Companies are now where the people can work very well from home. So this hybrid or remote workings are really helpful regarding stress management because you can reduce a lot of stress like naturally, like going from your home to the office, like all those driving hours or traffic jams where you gotta take lunch or you gotta think about what you’re gonna do at home.

So all of those kinds of things, all of those factors can contribute to your stress and you can avoid them if you have a remote working or even a hybrid mode where you gotta go to the office, maybe two or three or even one time to the office which is really manageable and people do appreciate under stress levels are more manageable because they’re in their own comfort zone because they’re in their own rooms,

Speaker 1

apartments, houses, whatever they are, they feel more comfortable where they are than going specifically to the office.

Not saying that the offices are really harmful places not, but what I’m trying to say is like people feel more comfortable, like they can save more time regarding going there, more energy and they can dedicate those extra hours or minutes to themselves and consequently to their stress management. So that’s kind of healthy.

And now that we’ve been talking about stress, think one thing related to it, it’s like self-care area, taking good care about yourself. There’s a lot of things right now. So I know earlier you told me a little bit about meditation. So what are some kind of like the pros or the good tips or why is meditation good for you? Tell me a little bit about that.

Okay, self-care is something that society are beginning to learn that self-care is not a luxury, it’s a necessity. So that really means we understand that we need to take care of ourselves right now at this precisely moment. So self-care is part of personal improvement and this is a new trend and doesn’t have to be expensive to be honest, you can do self-care of yourself if walking.

early or late in the afternoon. Have a journal like gratitude journal. Meditation is excellent and you can use that several times per day. 30 minutes daily exercise and also eating clean. There is a lot of ways that you can take care of yourself and it doesn’t have to be expensive. It doesn’t have to be like going to a spa and have like a 60-minute massage.

It could be something small that you can be able to help yourself in the best way possible. So awareness is a key for health care issues and this has been increased in the past years. So people are more proactively thinking and taking care day to day and there will be.

So if you choose for example meditation and you decided that you want to meditate early morning, you can choose that time for you using just for you. Save that space that time. Use music. If you need like guidance, there is a lot of guidance. Sounds and meditation guidance online that you can use and that will help you to improve your quality of life.

That will help you and give you tools to deal with stress, to deal with anger, anxiety, depression. So there is a lot of benefits and I’m pretty sure you know about meditating. So you can use that as a tool to deal with yourself, to deal with your issues, personal issues. We all have personal issues.

So it will help you to deal with other people’s issues too because when we work outside, we have to deal with people and those people could have a lot of issues like you. So you have to be able and have the knowledge to understand and meditation is an excellent resource to start to providing yourself good self-care. That’s great.

Yeah and the good thing about meditation now that you’re saying all of these great things about it is that not necessarily like what people tend to think is you’re going to meditate for at least three hours before you do like have the full benefits of it.

Speaker 1

Like that’s not necessarily meditation because you can meditate for 30 minutes, you can meditate for 20, you can even meditate for five minutes and you can have some of the benefits.

You can have benefits of it and as you say like there’s tons of tons of information regarding meditation and all the types that they are because some people are meditating like they’re walking, you don’t have necessarily stand still or sitting and going home or something like that because there are those kinds of stuff but there are different ways we can meditate and the great thing about meditation as you were saying is like helps us have a little bit more awareness of what we’re feeling, of what we’re thinking, about what’s going on with ourselves and with other people like thinking oh that happens because of this and this and that because you have those minutes or you have that time to reflect on yourself and just give you that moment of soothness and calmness and just feeling connected with yourself.

So it’s a practice as you say of self-care you know and you were talking about exercise you know exercising needs a great tool for you to relieve stress, to relieve tension, to relieve a lot of things and like we know well both of you and me are practically more in the mental kind of area of well-being but we know the full benefits of exercising a little bit or moving because we know the mind and the body are connected in one so we gotta we gotta get we gotta take care of them both equally so we know that if we have some kind of exercising then again doesn’t have to be like full marathon or you gotta go competition nothing like that like it’s okay and it’s great if you want to do those kinds of things but also you just move a little bit your body and you can feel the benefits and in some way it’s at the self-care then again like I want to finish with this idea it’s like eating clean right eating well because I know that there’s a lot of sugar out there and stuff like that that’s not necessarily good for our health And it can trigger us our depression or anxiety, because if we eat like a lot of things that won’t really help us won’t really will affect our mood, right.

So we got to be really aware of what we eat. And this all reflects in our self care, because that’s the thing, you don’t have to meditate and journal and exercise and eat clean to be 100% self care, you just got to do a little bit, if you can.

If you have like journaling your practice already self care, if you’re exercising for yourself, either the objectives you want to do it like every just exercise in trade for your practice in self care. And that’s the main topic that we want to talk to you right right now it’s self care, take care of yourself, that’s which is awesome, which is great.

Very important and part of our self to take care of ourselves, we used to be taking care of somebody else as a as a family, we take care of our family, our kids, our husband, our wife, we don’t take care of ourselves.

Speaker 1

Sometimes we have to stop and think about ourselves. So that’s why self care because I have to be okay in order for me to take care of somebody else. And we never think about it.

Speaker 2

Self-awareness is a core component of optimizing health and well-being. Gaining clarity around personal needs, preferences and boundaries helps to manage daily stressors and life demands. Whether financial, relational, work-based or environmental, it is vital to recognize how common stressors can impact their physical and mental health if left unchecked.

Often times, self-care can gravitate into becoming another to-do list. Even people burdened by a sense of need introduce specific things in order to be healthy. By gaining an understanding of the benefits of a self-care routine, you will see positive steps in all areas of your life. Zevo Health has a number of self-care trainings that will assist your organization maximize well-being.

Contact us today to start your workplace well-being journey www.zevohealth.com

Speaker 1

other area that we have to take care is sleep health. We need to take care of the sleep issues that is growing in this society. There is a lot of people with sleep issues depending on fields to fall asleep. And better sleep means better mood. When you sleep well, you will be able to perform much better during the day. So when you have to when you sleep well, we wake and feeling refreshed.

Good habits can possibly impact not only your overall health, but also your lifestyle. So a good sleep hygiene increase the ability to improve our productivity, mental and physical well being, and overall, quality of life. That’s what is so important to take care of sleep. At least seven eight hours every person is different. So it could change from one person to another.

But some of the benefits to sleep well is you will have sharper memory. You improve your immune system, enhance muscular repair, and increase energy level. So you have to think about it. Sleep well is part of cell care. If you sleep well, you are actually practicing self care, you’re taking care of yourself. And you have to develop some some people ask me how can I improve my sleep?

How can I be able to sleep without pills? Well, you have to develop some routines. And I’m pretty sure you know about this. Yeah, sure. sleep habits. Yeah, you’re gonna take a lot of care of your sleep hygiene because you’re you’re you hear a lot about dental hygiene, you got to brush your teeth, use dental floss and stuff like that.

But now that you’re talking about all the whole benefits of sleep hygiene, it’s like developing this routine because people tend not to care really much about sleep, they don’t think, Oh, I got to sleep and that’s it. Not necessarily just sleeping, because you got to have a really good schedule, as you say, like going to bed, not necessarily waking up at the same mile or 6am per se.

No, you got to go to bed at the same hour as well. Because you got you got to have those necessary hours of sleep. As you say, every person is different. Some people need eight. Some people are even heard that some people need nine. And that’s okay. Some people need seven and some other need six. But you do what you feel better where you wake up feeling rested. And you can take good care of it.

And what are some of the habits is like in the last hour, usually, before you go to bed, you don’t use any and any electronic devices. Yeah, it is because I heard a lot of people myself be included with this.

It’s like sometimes you scroll a lot with a phone because we have these tiny little computers in our hands that are our phones, where we have access to social media, to YouTube, to Netflix, and we can spend hours and hours without even noticing the time about scrolling.

And when we notice it’s like midnight, two in the morning, four in the morning, and we didn’t get the hours necessary for us to feel better. So we will be lacking a good memory reflex, we wouldn’t be cognitive working well, will be even moody, right?

Speaker 1

So it is really necessary to take good care of our sleep hygiene and our sleep health. The sleeping well, if you think about it, we spend one third of our days sleeping. That’s necessary. Because our body needs it, and our mind needs it. And now that no, go ahead, right? No, you have to be consistent. Because you have to follow that routine every single day.

So if you do to do that today, but then you want to wait three more days to do the same thing, you will never get that routine in order to put on place. So it won’t be a habit. So you have to be consistent with your routine in order for you to develop a pattern and then attend, for example, you will be able to follow. If you don’t have that consistency, it won’t work. Yeah, I agree.

Consistency is a great key of it. And that’s again, consistency, where you just got to take small efforts, small steps on self care, stress management, sleep hygiene. And now that we’re talking about this consistency, I was reading a lot about this new trend, but that I wanted to talk about is digital detox.

Okay, you just got to disconnect yourself from any electronic devices, this meaning the computer, your phone, any kinds of video games, everything that is electronic, just disconnect yourself, have a digital detox, at least once a week, or if you can a little bit more, that’s okay with every person, you know, going on their own measure, just to disconnect themselves, you know, and the great efforts and the great benefits of it is like we spend so much time watching screens, you know, we’re here, we work in the computer, sometimes what we when we get home, what we do, we turn on the TV, we start watching Netflix or HBO, or Amazon shows, whatever, right?

And we so much time spending or what what else do we do with our phones, we just watch a little tons of social media, or videos or or maybe you’re working and you never disconnect yourself just to have a moment where you don’t use computer where you just go for a walk without your phone without your watch, even so like just go for a walk, have a detox, because that way, you can be more aware, you can be more in the here and now you can be more in the present.

And that can soothe you that can help you a lot with those stress levels, with anxiety levels, whatever it with with even symptoms of depression right now because you want to disconnect yourself with we spend so much time. I’m sorry.

Actually, Ryan, that’s one of the recommendation to be able to fall asleep is to remote, remote electronic device from your bedroom from your area like TV, computer, smartphone, everything that you have to be with social like you say social media or interaction with electronic device, get out of those device out of your bedroom in order for you to be able to fall asleep.

Yeah, so it is very important and is affecting our lives right now. We are attached to technology. We don’t know how to detach ourselves from technology. So sometimes it’s very difficult. The digital detox.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it sounds easy, but it’s difficult to practice to us. I agree. I agree. Because we want to be so much connected. But sometimes we forget to be connected with ourself and we other human beings. Yes. So it is good. As you say, it is hard. That’s why I like the recommendations try to do it at least once a week, where you just disconnect for one hour, maybe or less or whatever you can do. Right.

But just disconnect yourself, no electronic device, read a book, go for a walk, exercise without your headphones and stuff like that. Just focus on the hearing now. And that can help you a lot. And now that that’s an excellent recommendation. I’m 100% agree with you. We should practice more. I agree. I totally agree.

And now that we’re talking about this, all of this digital detox, one of the topics that is related as well is social media regulation, right?

So we spend so much time using social media, you know, we have all of these apps, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, tech talk, you know, Pinterest, all of these social medias, which is a great way to be informed, sometimes some people use it to be informed, some people to be seeing what other people are using it.

But we got to regulate the time we spend in those apps, you know, because what happens in the social media is not necessarily 100% the reality and the truth of it, because we know we have filters and people edit stuff. And it’s a good way to communicate yourself. But sometimes you got to regulate that for yourself. You can develop some depression symptoms, or even a depression.

So to seeing other people’s what’s going on in their lives, and you can feel a little bit down, say, No, they’re doing all of that here, you know, and that can really affect your mood. And or you can feel really anxiety as well, because people are doing this, this, and I got to do it as well. Well, you push yourself, you try to compare yourself to other people.

And that’s not really healthy because you cannot compare to another human being. Everyone’s going in their own way, their own process, their own life. So what I’m saying here is we’ve got to regulate the social media use where we don’t spend so many hours. That’s the trend. People spend at least three to four hours using social media.

Social media, it’s a lot of time that three or four hours is many hours to spend in social media. That’s way too much. So we try to regulate ourselves and sometimes it’s good to set up an alarm if you’re going to use Instagram or Facebook or whatever.

Just set up an alarm to say, OK, I’m going to use it for 20 minutes to check out what’s going on and I’ll stop because you don’t get overexposed on a lot of stuff that maybe it’s not feeling very comfortable with you. So that’s really necessary. Yeah, and it’s something that is affecting young kids and also the adults.

Actually, when most of the adults have like iPhones and they will give us like how many time we spend into the web media and the web pages.

Speaker 1

And it’s sometimes a shame that you spend too many hours looking to the different apps and you don’t even spend like 30 minutes doing exercise. Sometimes you feel kind of like guilty, like how many hours I’m spending in these apps in the Internet and I’m not able to at least run a bike or go out for 30 minutes.

So it’s something that we should evaluate and be able to focus our self and what are we doing with our time? Because we’re spending a lot, a lot of time in front of the computer, in front of our cellular phone, and we don’t spend any time doing like physical activities to promote self-care or do anything else that it will help us to improve our life.

So sometimes we have to reevaluate ourselves and be honest with ourselves in order to know what I’m doing. This is this is time enough to spend in my computer, to spend with my cellular phone. And I don’t have time to do other important things in my life because I’m spending this time in social media. And it’s not just like little kids or teenagers. We all go into the same process.

We all have to be guilty for the same issues. We cannot attach to our cellular phone as part of our body. So when you wake up, the first thing that you do, you reach your cellular phone. Yeah, so sometimes it’s difficult to detach from that, but we have to. It’s necessary for taking care of our self-care.

And the great thing about how you show go ahead that no, no, the digital detox is excellent and also regulate social media is an excellent tool that we we have to start using more and more in order for us to be able to to do other things. Yeah, not just to be in the Internet inside web pages because maybe we’re losing some good stuff. Family time, quality time just to spend time in the Internet.

One of the great things about all of this is that companies are being more aware of our well-being and companies are developing strategies where you can use apps as a meditation app to guidance apps or they’re developing different ways.

Or affinity groups where they with the pandemic, we’ve become a little bit detached with the social gathering, so they’re developing groups, affinity groups where people can get together and share their own interests, you know, because that’s kind of helpful and healthy to you connect to other people’s with the same interests, like affinity groups or well-being area.

Companies are being aware of using like meditation apps or keeping track of your food intake or stuff like that. Companies now mental health, well, not mental health, mental health, health itself and well-being, it’s a budget line now in companies. Companies are investing in their employees to be well and to be healthy.

And that’s great because they’re they’re developing and they’re promoting stress management, self-care, sleep hygiene. There are a lot of strategies here as a lot as like moving a little bit in your day of day basis, like companies now are more aware of it.

Speaker 1

And that’s great because we’re taking actually there is a lot of companies who are they are more aware of mental health issues and they develop these apps of well-being. So a stigma around mental health conversation is reducing is reducing right now. So recently data suggests that people are increasing, seeing support in that area. So that’s why companies are more motivated to create these apps.

And as a result, mental health apps. game popularity and now we have telehealth after COVID. So we have new version of mental health and that telehealth is helping a lot of people who previously wasn’t able to get the service. But like you said, there is a lot of other apps who help and promote healthy quality of life, smoke cessation, diabetes, health, dieting. So there is a lot of nutritional apps.

So you can have anything that you can have and companies are investing money and time to develop these kind of apps to help employers to perform much better, which is good. This is a new trend that we don’t see it before.

And these affinity groups, I think is something excellent to promote social license because since we are too deep into the internet and social media, we forgot sometimes how to socialize, how to go out, how to make friends. And these affinity groups help you to get that kind of

Speaker 2

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1

feelings that somebody else is working with you, somebody else share the same interest with you. So it’s an excellent reason. It is. Companies now are investing and that’s a way, and I think that’s a way that we can go come in closing right now, that companies, enterprises are aware of their employees.

So they’re, as you say, they’re developing all these kinds of apps, either mental health, physical health, all kinds of health, they’re developing all of this apps where they can feel well, we could, we were talking about financial talks regarding their financial stress. So they can manage that. We were talking about sleep hygiene. Companies are more aware of that. The remote working, all of that.

So companies, enterprises are investing on their employees to be well. More importantly, we must invest in ourselves so we can take care of ourselves. And I think we can close with that idea. It was lovely to talk to you this lovely afternoon.

I think it’s really productive and I really hope that everybody out there watching this really can, can really understand some most of it and really apply some of these techniques, either sleep hygiene, stress management, self-care, fear and wear of that, or if the company isn’t doing something, well, they can try to move something about it, you can.

So I hope you take something with this small talk that we, both of us, Jillian and I had and, well, well, first of all, let’s thanks a lot, Jillian, to be here. Thank you. Thank you to have this conversation with you. It’s been a pleasure for me. Awesome. And well, that’ll be all. I hope that we can see you in the next time. Take care. See you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.