PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — What’s causing stress in your life? If your first response is "work," maybe it’s time to take a different approach to your job.
That’s what author Jeanette Bronée suggests. Her book “The Self-Care Mindset” looks at mental well-being in the wake of COVID-19.
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“So often, we think of self-care as taking time out,” she told KYW Newsradio In Depth. “But what we really need to do is pause more so that we can get more in touch with how we think.”
She calls this “power-pausing”.
“Don't make it about taking more breaks and pauses for the sake of taking more breaks and pauses. Use those breaks and pauses to optimize how you are thinking and check in with how you're feeling.”
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Bronée said that the way we think about stress and the questions we ask ourselves can often make us more stressed. We get caught in a spiral, wondering why things aren’t the way we want them to be.
“We become what I call ‘why not-ers’,” Bronée said. “And if we ask the question, ‘why is something not happening?’, we are telling our attention to focus on that … and so that makes us even more stressed.”
Instead, Bronée said we need to “realize this is not working, and then pause for that moment and say, ‘What do I need so I can make it work?’”
Bronée shared more advice — like how to find meaning in your work and how to work with managers who aren’t leading from a self-care mindset - on our KYW Newsradio In Depth podcast.
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Listen to the full conversation in the player below, on the Audacy app, or wherever you get your podcasts.