Thriving in Winter: Creating Your Plan for Wellbeing for both Employers & Employees

One of the many joys of living in Vermont is honoring the changing of the seasons. As the seasons change, so can we. We can use the season shifts as opportunities for reflection and contemplation, marking the passage of time, and also for ensuring that we have a plan for our well-being in the coming season.

The New York recently shared an article about the importance of cultivating mindfulness and resilience as the seasons change. I appreciated how the author gave readers permission to grieve the cooler weather. It’s completely valid to feel apprehensive and sad at the loss of summer. The article states:

“Psychologists say that the feelings that often crop up in autumn stem from our discomfort with change, and an anxiety and uncertainty about what that change will bring. The melancholy we feel is a form of grief, mourning the lost sunlight, the ease of summertime, and the greenery that abounds in the warm weather.”

While many of us would prefer not to feel anxiety and uncertainty, ignoring those feelings isn’t healthy. Once we can name them, we can begin to process them and allow them to arise without judging them, as is the practice of mindfulness. We can also make proactive changes to set ourselves for a balanced and healthy fall/winter season. While wellness and ease may seem easier to cultivate in the summer, we can make intentional choices to cultivate wellbeing both at work and outside of it regardless of the outside weather.

At Adaptiva HR, we recommend that both employers and employees plan for Fall/Winter wellness. Organizations can be proactive to ensure that their teams are healthy and well during this new season. As we know, when the mental health of your employees matters, the entire organization thrives. Below are some workplace tips that we recommend employers implement to promote positive environments in which employees feel supported and connected:

• Offer healthy choices: Sugary drinks and sodas in most vending machines can be replaced by healthier options, such as fruit and whole wheat crackers. Other ways that employers can highlight healthy snacking and movement include: providing standing desks to employees, hosting walking meetings, offering yoga classes onsite or discounts to local gyms, offering CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) pickups at your workplace, incentivize smoking cessation and promoting alternative transportation (such as biking or taking the bus).

• Highlight creativity & relationships: Demonstrate to your team that your organization values connection and collaboration. Is there an empty office that could be used as a break room or a ‘creative’ space for folks to connect away from their desks? Install comfortable and colorful furniture (beanbags!) to promote away-from-desk connections. And of course, how flexible is your workplace? Thanks to the pandemic, we’ve all mostly learned that flexibility is key when it comes to employee effectiveness. Have you explored offering activities that focus on creating a sense of community? These could include a lunch out or a family-friendly event, such as going apple-picking or snowshoeing. Encourage your team to become aware of and connect with others beyond their immediate workgroups. Even hosting a training on non-violent communication or a mindfulness talk fosters connection.
• Promote altruism. Giving back feels good and it helps keep our lives in perspective. Helping others has a positive impact on our wellbeing and when groups help others together, more connection and joy is generated. We suggest that your team volunteer together once a month. Is there a soup kitchen you could volunteer at? Host a food or winter coat drive or help a farm with any harvesting or gleaning. Other options include helping to fundraise for a cause that speaks to your organization and even give your employees an allotted amount of time each month to leave their desks during the day to volunteer.
• Highlight mental health! The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that one in four of us will be affected by mental illness at some stage in our lives. Mental health is therefore a major aspect of wellbeing, and it is essential that organizations promote and protect the mental health of employees in the workplace. Demonstrate your commitment to mental health by offering EAPs (employee assistance programs) and keep promoting the importance of mindfulness and raising awareness about the damages of stress, anxiety, and burnout.
• Ask for feedback: Survey your employees to find out what’s working and what isn’t. Ask your team what they’d like to see more of at work. Don’t waste energy on wellness initiatives that employees don’t find engaging or useful. SurveyMonkey and Google Forms are good tools to create a survey to collect feedback from your employees on what they need to feel more supported and empowered at work.

Ultimately, our wellbeing comes down to the choices that we make. Having a supportive workplace certainly helps with this, but as we enter a colder season, we hope you take steps to ensure your own wellbeing. If you need some inspiration along the way, here are some of our favorite Fall/Winter wellness ideas:

• Slow down. It’s okay to go at a slower pace. Resist the temptation to be over-scheduled and screen-dependent. Nature slows down in the cooler months and so can we. Take intentional time to slow down and just breathe. Remind yourself that it’s ok (and important!) to not check your work emails at night or on the weekends. Give yourself time to actually step away from work. In our work-from-home models, the lines between work and rest are so blurred. Make them less blurred, however that works best for you (I like to change my clothes).
• Break the stress cycle. Drs.Emily and Amelia Nagoski explore ways of breaking down stress cycles in their new book, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. Drs. Nagoski explained that when our ancestors were faced with a predator, they would activate their fight or flight response, which required them to draw on their surge capacity, the set of adaptive and biological systems humans rely on to act in an emergency (aka, a rush of adrenaline or a pounding heartbeat). While this helped our ancestors literally survive, when we do this in our modern, digital-facing lives, we begin to live in that constant fight-or-flight state.

When we operate in this surge capacity, we don’t have time to come down from the surge. As our ancestors were able to finally relax after not being attacked by a bear (or storm), we have lost this ability to complete the stress cycle, says Dr. Nagoski. After a stressful day and dealing with difficult drivers in traffic and we come home to the stress of bills and kids needing our attention, our body is still in the midst of the stress cycle. If we don’t complete the cycle, our cortisol levels will continue to rise, causing our inevitable crash and eventual burn-out. Luckily, Drs. Nagoski recommend seven self-care strategies for breaking the stress cycle:

1. Cry.
2. Take slow, deep breaths.
3. Do a physical activity, like going for a walk.
4. Laugh.
5. Hang out with friends.
6. Do something creative, like writing or drawing.
7. Engage in physical affection, like asking for a hug. (Or hug a pet!)

• Seek support! We’re not meant to be in pain alone. Struggling alone can be so isolating. Seeking help opens the door to connection and healing and helps finding a community, such as a support-group. There is no shame in receiving mental health support anymore. You’ll only benefit from discovering new tools for better relationships and improved communication. As you develop new coping strategies, your performance at work can improve. Ultimately, finding support allows us all to increase our well-being and mental fitness.

As the new season makes her welcome and as the winter coats and hats begin to emerge, so too can we all make choices to find ways to embrace wellbeing all year long.

We hope that your workplace is supporting you on your journey and as always, please let us know if we can assist you find greater wellbeing during this new season.