Description of the video:
I don't know. Maybe I should go ahead and get started without James, do you think? Yes I sent, we sent him the link. And advised him to close out every other Zoom. That's what I had to do, close everything. We have 15 people and I want to be respectful of people's time. And here my screen. If people join us later, that is great. So share my screen and get this down. Get that down. Get this up. Well, thank you everyone for joining us today with our zoom troubles. And I apologize again for those of you who are just joining us, trouble logging in. Both zoom fatigue is real and also all of the frustrations with learning the ever-changing world of technology. And if you're like me, you're probably three or four different platforms throughout a given day to today, we're talking about turning surviving into thriving kind of understanding and managing stress, especially during a pandemic. And hopefully James Volcker center will be joining us from the Department of Equity and Diversity. This was really his idea. And luckily, I'm going to do the first part and he's going to the second part. So hopefully he'll be here by the time that gets started. But he independently thought of this at the same time that I think a lot of other people were worried about the front-line caretakers, our faculty and staff, because you're out there trying to do your best to help our students manage their stress along with being successful students. And we wanted to make sure we did something to kind of look out for you and give you some supports as well. So with that in mind, once you kind of know what to expect for the next hour or so, we're going to do is kind of a little bit of psycho education on the theory of stress management and how to succeed with that. Take notes if you want, because the test is going to be your life. I'm not going to ask you any questions, but we're all trying to manage our stress as best we can. And there may be some helpful tips that you make it along the way. After I do a bit of that for about 25 or 30 minutes, we're going to take a little breathe and stretch and kind of practice some of the things we talked about. And then I want to do some open discussion and sharing. And James is going to take, kind of take the lead on that. So you kind of think about the sources of stress that you're dealing with as well as some of the things that are working for you or that you would like some advice on, or you might want to share with some other people. I also encourage you to use the chat function and to share through that function if you have some ideas or insights that people can use, also want to let you know that we are video recording this so that other people that couldn't join us today, we'll have some time for that. After a little bit of discussion will also have just a short little exercise on maybe some goal setting force, self-care for ourselves. You get through the next three months because they're probably going to continue to be a challenge. I'm going to share some IU and nationwide resources with you. So it's kind of our idea. I do have a screen where I can see some of you, but if you do have questions and want to interrupt me, please just talk out loud, real loud so I can hear you. And so it'll kind of interrupt me because I won't see you if you raise your hand necessarily. But I am certainly open to having any put input as we go along. If you'd been through some of my presentations before, I seem to use these pictures every time. So, but there's a real purpose behind that. Not only are they cute faces of children, but they remind us of an important fact that I want you all to kind of think about in relation to your own mood, your own feelings, your own thoughts, and yourself. And that fact is that as humans, we have emotions before we have language, we experience emotions, we express emotions. We communicate through emotions, and we begin to learn about emotions even before we have language. And that's a huge point because we're such a language based creature that we oftentimes. I think in some ways overemphasize our language and our rational thought or thought that goes through the process of language. We diminish or downplay our emotions. But they are a core part of who we are. And what are they exactly? They're kind of our reactions to our environment, both internal and external communication system that our body has for us to tell us when something's not right. When something's out of balance, when something's pleasurable. And they're very important as far as a guide to us. We're not always right and are not facts. And we don't need to always act out of our emotions. But they are a core part of who we are and they're important to attend to. And I think in many ways, there's a psychological researcher, Marshall and Han, who talks about them being co-equal with our rational thoughts. And that there's the emotions on one side and rational thought on the other side. And if you think of two circles that inner lock a bet where they overlap is where she says we find wisdom. And so attending to our feelings, recognizing and going what they're telling us, that our experience really important. We're also not going to get rid of emotions. And I think sometimes as mall, we learn messages that we should try to get rid of emotions and simply kind of bought them out. But that's not rational. Some of my clients actually, I think, come to me and they want me to get rid of all their negative emotions. I can't do that. I can get rid of your emotions nor would I want to end stresses like that as well. We can't get rid of stress. But what we can do is learn to manage it better and to kind of work cooperatively with our own emotions and with our own stress levels. So we kind of started with that in mind. That gives us some insight about how to proceed. I think with stress, we're talk a little bit about stress and I won't go over all of these, but stress does have an impact upon us whether we're aware of it or not. A variety of ways. And we'll talk about what stress is in a moment. But a couple of ones that stick out to me. Amanda and I were talking about this the other day. And we can become more accident prone down here in this behavioral area. I don't know if anybody's had a few more accidents over the past six or seven months, but that certainly can be a piece there. You can have a appetite increase or decrease. There can be kind of the lack of sex drive we maybe feeling like we wanted to drink more, may have problems with sleep. Any of those type of behavioral things has an effect upon our mind. We may get kind of muddled thinking, not as clear and rational and our decision-making, we may have some nightmares or impair judgment. We may make some hasty decisions or be a little more negative or irritable, certainly has an effect upon our body. Not only stress, but setting at the computer all the time can give us more headaches, more back aches, more tension in our muscles, may get some twitches. Friend of mine, I can tell when he's under stress because well, it gets a little twitch in his left eye. Another friend of mine, she was used to get irritations around her lips on her on her mouth and she kept thinking there was something seriously wrong and her doctor kept selling or it was stress, change jobs and hasn't had that sense. So you kinda think about how you can manage your stress and not worry as well. And we certainly know that it affects our emotions that can lead to depression, to love, lack of confidence, to some irritability, apprehension, those type of things. So why don't you talk about stress coping and the anxiety response. The state of stress really has two components when we look at it from a psychological perspective. There are the stressor wars and those are the things that create demands upon us, demands for a response. They can be any kind of event, internal or external. So teaching our classes, doing research, Kelly, that's going to be a stressor for all of us. Having some deadlines. We also have internal our own thoughts about ourselves or thoughts about situations. Medical issues can cause us extra stressors, relationship stressors. And right now we all have kind of the ongoing extra stressor of the pandemic, which I think in retrospect we'll all see, has really been traumatic for our entire world and it's something that we'll be dealing with for some time. It's kind of that low level kind of fear that we can't kind of get rid of, that we carry around with us and that impacts our life on a daily basis. Any stressors can be cumulative and so we already have our normal stressors and then we add that covert stress or on top of that. Right now also particularly in our country and in the local areas specifically immovable. Certainly our racial tension in our country has always been a stressor for many people. You know, significantly for African American population. And right now it's at a higher rate for, for them and also for many of those of us who are concerned and care about that. And that's an added stressor that we get through the news and through the reality of kind of the exposure, what people of color than dealing with for years. And two, that our political environment and all the exposure we get to the conflicts that are arising in our country. And I think our stress is really at an all time high. So those are the kind of external things and internal things. And then we have the stress response and that is how we react to it. And this is where something gets really important and as a key insight for us, we can't always control the stressors and we can't necessarily control our response either, but we can improve the way that we respond to the stressors. And that's the one thing that is a little more under our control. And that with some education, some insight and some practice, we can get better at managing within that stress response to things that are really important is how we respond is influenced by both how we judge the event itself, how dangerous is that event, and how do we judge our evaluate our capacity to react or respond to that event? And if we can work on either of those two things. So that old idea, Mills, Well, there certainly are some mountains that we're dealing with right now, but there are also some mole hills that seem like mountains. And so kind of being more objective about those things that are out there and how big are they can infect, how you respond and you're more logical about that. And maybe some of those things down to size where possible, that will improve your response. And if you judge yourself and evaluate yourself to be more effective at managing that stress. And if you learn some ways and increase your ability to respond, then you're going to be able to respond better by having those, that knowledge. I always think of first responders, they go into very stressful situations and they practice for that and they get education around that. They learn how to do that. And over time it becomes less comfortable for that. Most of you, a lot of faculty are here today. In the first couple of times we get in front of the classroom. As early teachers, the stress level is particularly high and we don't evaluate our ability quite as well. Or maybe we haven't prepared for the lecture quite as well. The better prepared we are for those things, then the lower our stress level will be. And people who seem to have a good sense of themselves don't seem to have this negative impact upon stress. So what can we do with that? Well, another thing I'd like to show this picture here, because oftentimes our response to stressful situations involves an activation of the sympathetic nervous system. And what that means is our heart rate increases, our breathing becomes more shallow and rapid. We get muscle tension. And it has to do with how we think about it. It's our perception, our perspective. It's kind of like being on a roller coaster and you're at the top of the roller coaster and we have a couple of people here. She seems like she's maybe show an offer the camera, and she's really excited about the picture. This young lady looks like she's pretty happy. This little girl looks terrified. This boy looks terrified. On a biological level, their body is doing the same things. They're getting the same physiological reactions. But their interpretation of it is different. And that plays a vital role in our reaction to stress. In fact, there's some recent research from Harvard University that shows when put under stress on our body reacts similarly in that way. The differently on the The vascular level. Those individuals that see stress as a threat, as dangerous, as terrible as the worst thing in the world. Their veins and capillaries constrict. When under the same stressful situation that an individual evaluates as a challenge, as an excitement, as this is thrilling, I can't wait to get in there and deal with this challenge. Their capillaries and their blood vessels stay relaxed. That's vital for heart health, for cardiovascular health, for blood pressure, for all of those types of things. Also vital on an emotional level. When you think of trauma, we know that some people experience similar situations and say one group will end up with post-traumatic stress disorder or post-traumatic stress reactions based upon that and other people won't. It's not just a choice. I'm not saying that at all. But how are they prepared and how do they view that? There's a lot of factors that play in to that that are beyond their control. But some are under our control. And the better we are able to kind of manage and kind of evaluate and control the way we see these things. If we see something as I'm dragging this, I don't wanna do this. It's awful. Or more likely to have more negative effects of stress. Whereas if we can find some way to see it as a challenge, as an opportunity and something I can enjoy, or at least something that I know how to manage and I can do this thing, then we're less likely to have the negative effects of stress. So rethinking our thinking is a big piece there. If you've been to many of my presentations, you also have kind of seen this area and kind of talk about the central nervous system. And it talked about the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system. Well, in managing our stress that were hit with a stressful situation, our body is prepared on two levels. The brain level, it does certain things. Nervous system that does this sort of thing. So I like to think of our brain not as a singular organ like most people commonly think about it. The more like a organ system, there are different parts of our brain that control different aspects of our human experience. From language to rational thought, to heart rate, to tension level to fear, to happiness, all these different sub parts within our brain. And they're kind of divided into three major areas called the hindbrain, the midbrain and the forebrain. And you can correlate those with lizards have a very active hindbrain. They don't have a very active or much of a midbrain and they don't have much of a forebrain. This area up here. Mammals and we're one of those. They have a well-developed hindbrain, are lizard brain, they have a well-developed mid-brain, but only the humans have the well-developed forebrain and the other five great apes to some degree as well, but not as well-developed as we do. And whether this is evolved or design is another discipline to kind of talk about. But we know that this is the fact. And that when we're under stress, the first thing that happens for us humans, is our forebrain kinda goes offline. The energy is pushed down to the hindbrain and we go into fight, flight, or freeze. It's all about survival. And really survival isn't the right word. It's about avoiding. We avoid one danger and we might go towards another danger that doesn't seem as immediate. So will run away from the current challenge. And that's a biological thing that happens. The brain also triggers the autonomic nervous system, which is automatic. And specifically the sympathetic nervous system to get us ready for fight, flight or freeze. So we start breathing real quickly. You get a lot of oxygen so we can run are so we can punch someone. Or heart rate increases. Are salivation decreases? Our digestion stops. We divert the energy out our resources to be able to mobilize our body to, to react, rather than taking care of itself and doing the normal types of things. That's really good for short-term stress. But we are not prepared as humans as well for long-term stress. And if we stay in that sympathetic nervous system and that lizard brain too long, then it begins to cause wear and tear on our body, upon our emotions and our mental abilities as well, goes back to some of those consequences I talked about at the very beginning. So what can we do with that information? When we find that our sympathetic nervous system is activated or that we're down here and lizard brain. We need to do things to reactivate the Courts acts and to activate the parasympathetic nervous system on a very biological level. Taking deep breaths is one of those things that we have under our control. Breathing is automatic under the sympathetic nervous system, but it's also under the somatic nervous system. We can consciously choose to regulate that. We can't automatically change our heart rate. But if we breathe slowly and deeply, or heart rate will go down. And that's one way to reactivate that. Making sure that we stay hydrated, stretching, moving our body, getting the muscles loosened up when they're tense is another way to do that. Changing the thing that we're thinking about. If we're worried about that upcoming deadline and all we're focusing is on that deadline. The lizard has scared and wants to run away. If we do some grounding activities and change our mind and distract ourselves, will re-engage the cortical area. And that's the area that's going to be able to finish the work anyway. So we need to get that back online. The lizard is not going to know how to write that paper. But this part of the brain is, and so we've gotta get that brain reactivated. And we do that not by completely avoiding the re-engaging in stimulating some other thoughts, some other activities that we can do. So that's kind of some of the theory, a couple more theory things and we're going to get to some practical applications of this. Said, we would never get away from stress and never be something that will go away. We don't want it to go away. Actually the groundbreaking work because it hurts. Your CS and Dobson. Tell us about stress. We have an x-y axis with performance here. And the level of our stress is down here on the bottom. And you can see that if our stress is too low, we're kind of on underload than were inactive or relate back. And we're not actually challenge to do our best work. Kind of couch potato not doing a whole lot. If we have enough stress, we get into this optimum zone. And we can actually perform at a higher level. If we stay there too long, then we can move into overload and kind of get into the exhaustion. If the stress gets too high, we can either get into a panic attack or anger or some kind of that fight flight or freeze response or into break down if it if it's sustained long-term stress. So I'd like to think of it as a thermostat of how can I modulate this better? I don't know if any of you had this problem, but when I was an undergraduate, I did not know this at all. And I would be over here on the two low stress until the day before the paper was due or the day before the test. And then I'd be over here. And I just kept jumping back and forth between being too low and my stress and too high because I would avoid the deadline. I wouldn't think about the deadline at all. I'd be happy, go lucky over here. And then it snuck up on me and then I was over here. So I had to learn to use a calendar and to plan and to set new deadlines for myself. So if I have three things due on one day, I can't do all the night before. It's just not possible. And many of our students haven't learned that yet. And sometimes as adults we forget that or we don't manage that too well either. So we kind of have to plan are the things that are going to make demands upon us and work those things out so that we can kind of build in times to lower our stress and to take breaks from that stressed whenever possible. So what are some of the things we can do? And I know I'm going pretty quickly, but we're going to get to some discussion time that I want to make sure we get to. These are some strategies and some of them will work for you. Some of them wants to see if there's one or two that kind of stick out to you. But one thing I like to encourage some of my clients to do is to keep a stress log for a week or so and kind of write down the things you can either do it throughout the day or at the end of the day that you find in your environment that are causing you stress. Because oftentimes we're not really aware of all those things and we can evaluate them in the moment that the end of the week we kind of look back at that list and say, wow, okay, that deserve stress as I've done this and sometimes I find that I'm doing some things I don't need to be doing. Or I have some people in my life than are really all that beneficial to me, that they're causing me a lot of stress. And so I've kind of cut some people out my life in the past because really wasn't beneficial for them to be there and they were too much stress and and not kind of the line with my values and my goals. Or I've been able to kind of re distribute some of those things and I have to manage that I find on that log can be really insightful at times. Learn to say no. When I was at Spaulding University, there was a professor in the School of Education and was notorious for saying yes or no when someone asked him to do something, He did not say, oh, I wish I could but I can't because of X, Y, and Z. His purpose and that was to teach people that it was okay to say no, particularly the women he worked with because he realized in our culture, oftentimes women are not kind of power to say no, and they're kind of acculturated that they have to do what's asked of them. A lot of people in our lives who will ask amazing things of us that they really have no business asking and will feel guilty because we won't do that. But it wasn't our responsibility to do it in the first place. Native say no. It feels bad at first, that if you get used to it, it's kind of empowering. Rethink you're thinking. What do I mean by that is kind of cognitive behavioral therapy. We get into pattern ways of thinking. And another was a pessimist and a little paranoid. So I grew up with that pessimism and that paranoia around me. Kind of my default automatic way of thinking. You'll kind of recognize that and say, wait a minute, I don't wanna do that. How do I begin to change that? And one of the things you can begin to do is called rational emotive behavior. That they pay attention converge then this loop up to others. And when you target cell and you find yourself using a lot of negative language, a lot of pessimistic language. If you can kinda check yourself and say, wait a minute, I want to change that and begin to speak more optimistically. Because our feelings follow our thoughts and our thoughts often follow our language and our language kind of rayon doctrine eight US and reinforces the way we think. And so if we can change our language, we can change our thinking, which will then change. Control, influence, and concern. Steven Covey talks about three inner affecting circles with the center circle being the area of your world over which you have some control. The next larger circle is the area of your role. You have influence. And then the largest circle is the area in which you have concern. And he encourages us to try to make sure we focus the majority of our energy and time on the inner two circles. Most energy on the things we can control. The next level on what we can influence and then lesser on which we can we have concern. I think that's particularly important these days with social media, the 24-hour news cycle. I always feel guilty because sister Mary Alice always taught me. You've got to be politically aware, you've got to be politically connected. But that was when there was an hour of news a day and one or two newspapers. And you could trust them. Nowadays, you can't. And you gotta sort through some of that in a few, spend so much of your time kind of in that area of your world that you really have even very little influence over. It will eat you alive and it will cause you to much stress. I get that way all the time around politics and I kind of have to limit myself. I want to be politically aware and I want to vote and I want to influence are things I can. But I don't want to spend 20 hours a day fighting against the things I can even influence. I want to make a difference where I can, because that's going to make me feel more in control of my life. And I'm actually going to make a bigger difference than if I'm out there tilting against windmills. So I encourage you to kind of think through that. With that, turn off the phone, the email, social media. Can you put some limits on that? I took Facebook off my phone because my phone is always with me. And so, you know, every second I will get in between things. I'd be checking Facebook and I get a climbed usually some doses of negativity, R0 check CNN. I'd get doses of negativity and decrease the dosage by that. And I try to attend to things in a more scheduled fashion. So I can still look at Facebook, but maybe for 20 minutes at the end of the day, as opposed to a cumulative of an hour and a 2.5 hours throughout the day. And I can do it without calming down as opposed to during the day. Zoom fatigue is real. So take some breaks. You know, there's a lot of talk out there about blue light classes or blue light filters. I've also heard about some supplements for your eyes. I don't know if any of it that's true, but I'm kinda willing to try anything these days. Scared. Six, staring at the screen is getting really, really tiring. With that also were not moving around as much, but we're setting in front of our computers all day. You know, normally we would walk down the hallway, would say hi to some folks. We would kind of maybe walk across campus. If we're stuck in our house, we're doing a lot less of that and there's a lot more tendency to stay in front of the computer. So we need to kind of try to take breaks from that. Certainly be careful with mood-altering substances. They have the illusion of helping us because they take away a little bit of the initial stress. But over long-term use, they actually lower our baseline and make us more susceptible to stress and can cause some other problems. I'm trying to make a schedule and stick to it. And that's another thing that going into work helped, you know, I find many of us emailing each other at 1011121 o'clock in the morning. We're working all day and at various ours and we're kind of not getting those breaks as much because our schedule can be more flexible, which is a benefit in some ways, but it has some drawbacks to it as well. Certainly spirituality for some folks, I'm going to run through these pretty quickly because I want to get to the next part, what James going to lead a discussion. Make sure you nurture yourself, find some things that you can do as far as in recreation, some fun, some hobbies. You have to invest in yourself. I know for me I've unfortunately taken on more work because of covert. There's been some other opportunities to get some other jobs and that's probably not what I ought to have done and maybe need to make sure I do still make sure I go on a vacation or something like that. Even though I don't know who I'll go with or where I can go to want to fly. So we have to be a little more creative. And what those things were going to do, make sure you get enough sleep, but not too much sleep. Eat well. That might be easier eating at home unless you're not a good cook and maybe he's eating a lot more junk food, exercise. That's something I know I need to get back into. Did it really well consistently for about ten years and felt much better. Seem like I have more time now. And unless likely to do it, maybe rethink your class assignments. Maybe, you know, being at home may give you more time to think about things that you are excited about teaching and about doing. But then does that make it more work on the students? And it really needs to be. And does it make it more work on you on the grading? And I know that's probably all you've been doing the last couple of months is rethinking how your classes are going to be, the kind of reevaluating and where can I kinda make some areas and there that may cause me more stress. As a test easier to gray perhaps in a long paper. Be realistic and try not to overextend yourself. Make sure you bolster your support system. And if need, be, make sure you seek some professional help. You know, mental health is something we have a lot of stigma about. We go to the dentist, we go to the eye doctor. If we have, you know, some health concerns, you go to a health Dr. mini. Mental health issues can be preventable if we intervene, early. Stress can lead to depression, it can contribute to anxiety. Many of these conditions are developed based upon our interaction with our environment and the stress that we're having. Learning new techniques or getting some help early on is much easier than waiting until the disorder has gotten further along. That's true with medical conditions. It's also true with mental health conditions. Maybe just a brief checkup, a session or two might be able to get some people back online as opposed to having to go into long-term, kind of longer term kind of treatment. Also want to point out that there's some acts, some great apps out there for managing stress. Buddha phi, calm. What's up or not? What's app, but what's up? Mood kit, PTSD, Coach. Of these, the heart rate coherence is another really cool one that, you know, ten years ago you'd have to go to a doctor. He or she would have to use devices that cost a couple $100 to be able to take your your pulse and your blood oxygen level. But now our phones do that and our iWatch is due that Apple watches do that. Some of the other more fancy watches do that. And some of the apps train us how to breathe. Diaphragmatic league, deep breathing, slow breathing, which we'll bring down our heart rate and being able to see that on a digital readout and to see that your oxygen levels actually going up and your heart rate is going down, really tells you that you're getting into the parasympathetic nervous system activation and are lowering your stress level. And I would say that that's kinda like why do pro basketball players keep practicing their free throw shots? They do that so it becomes automatic, so it becomes muscle memory. So that in the big game when everything's on the line, they can shut out everything and they can just follow through with that free throw shot. If you learn to deep breathe and if you learn to throw slow down your heart rate. And you practice that even for 510 minutes, you know, two or 34 times a week, you're going to get to where you can do that automatically and you can do it in that next meeting, in that next zoom class. In that next argument you have with your loved one, you're going to be much more effective if you do some practicing of that. So that kinda brings us back to our baby faces and to kinda reminder that those children still live within us. And I encourage you to kinda rediscover some of the joy and the excitement that children have to kind of recognize that you're going to have these emotions. And to kind of not let our ego get in the way so much that we don't pay attention to what our emotions are telling us about ourselves and our environment. So with all that said, oops, a little too far, I want to kind of give you just a little experience of deep breathing. And if you do this with me for just about 30 seconds, and then James is going to take over, kind of lead us through discussion. And there I was. I figured it would take place in a minute. Oftentimes when we're breathing, we're not breathing correctly. For optimum health. Well we want to do is our diaphragm will move up. So actually are lee will move in and our chests will expand. And we usually do not breathe deeply, are slowly enough. As you breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Kind of in time with the Blowfish. In kind of imagine your chest filling up just like the puffer fish does as he breeds, are cheaper. I'll stop it there. You might get a little light-headed if you're not used to doing that, but if you do that kind of regularly, it really will have amazing benefits. This is kind of a cute little version of this. Lot of grade schools are using what's called Conscious Discipline now in their teaching children these techniques to calm themselves down when they get angry or when they get overly emotional. You can use the puffer fish. You Imagine blowing up a balloon and then letting all the air out of a balloon as are some of the things that they're teaching. Some of the kids. With Conscious Discipline can also call it square breathing, where you kinda breathe in a square, breathe, then hold, breathe out. Hold, breathe, then hole in a 44 time. The next one I think I'm not gonna do that because of time and I want to make sure we get to. But if you want to watch this later, it's important to take some stretches and there's a lot of short little videos that this one actually shows people how to stretch right at their desk. And even if you just roll your shoulders. Our arch your back, those type of things, or do some neck rolls. It really is that idea of re-engaging the parasympathetic nervous system. Because the sympathetic nervous system, titans muscles, when we're nervous or worried or stressed and we need to get the blood flowing through those as well. The body also has kind of an automatic evaluation system where it notices on a subconscious level the brain does when we're feeling tense and IT a feedback loop. And then kind of gives our mind the idea that there must be something that I'm worried about. And so it kind of becomes cyclical and kind of be self fulfilling prophecy or kind of escalate the situation. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to James Wilkerson and let him introduce himself to you. If you haven't met him before, he may have a different way of approaching this, but I did kind of get four questions together and we'd like you all to have a little bit of a discussion if you're open to it. So James, turn it over to you. Alright, hey, how's everyone doing? Thank you guys all for tuning in today. You know, the whole purpose. This whole thing is I was sitting in my office and I was thinking I was like, you know, staff and faculty, we have a lot that kind of falls on our shoulders, especially during times like the ones that were in. When it comes to our students. A lot of times our students are looking at our direction for help, for guidance. And, you know, it's on us to kind of help them and guide them. However, as someone who has worked in criminal law in just in a high stress level before area before. I I can say personally that I know that a lot of times when we deal with traumatic things, you know, a lot of times it has a way of kind of stacking up, kind of stacking up inside of our heads. And sometimes we don't realize that stacking until it can be too late. So that was the whole purpose of trying to just get us together during lunch today. It's just a way for us to care for the caretakers, which we are so to speak. So we got a couple open discussion and sharing questions. This is really just a time for us to just kinda chit chat so I can lead us through these, through these questions. I guess maybe the best way is just to, if you want to answer, just hop in there. Hopefully didn't cause too big of a traffic jam, but I'll go ahead and I'll get it started. So the first question is, what have you been doing for self-care? And I answer, yeah, I'll go ahead and start to answer that. One of the things that was on the list and the PowerPoint was learning kind of wind disconnect, especially from social media. I don't know what social media looks like for everyone else here, but my social media has a tendency to be very negative. You know, there's a lot, a whole lot of negativity. Everyone has an opinion. And sometimes that negativity can build up. I can recall a few years ago whenever Collin happening first started kneeling during the National Anthem. Everyone had an opinion on that and I found myself responding and responding, responding until one day I'm sitting on my couch and I physically have a headache and I'm sitting there thinking my while I am buying, I've worked myself up so much that I am physically in pain over something stupid like social media. So I've disconnected, I deleted Facebook off my phone for probably about 4, 4 months and I'd say it was the most relaxing and amazing four months ever. So That's something that I will regularly do for self-care whenever I can. Whenever I feel that stress level kind of building and building disconnect for about a week or two or and I'll come back whenever I feel like it and I'll be refreshed because there's no reason to let social media put me in physical pain. So that's one of the things I've been doing for self-care, but I'd like to hear from you from everyone else. Please chime in on things that you've been doing for self care as well. Kelly Ryan in the comments section said she's been taking walks. Yeah. I feel that on a spiritual level, Kelly, whenever, uh, whenever this pandemic started, it seemed like walking in the park was really all that you were allowed to do. So definitely you can see the value in that. More cat time. Yes, I can see that. Carving out time for yoga. Yeah. Absolutely. Yoga's definitely relaxing. Any any anything else than anyone's doing? Journaling? To do quick vacation? Talking to co-workers? Yeah. I really think that I really think that talking talking to coworkers, talking to friends definitely is something that's strong. You know, I I kind of live in-between the legal world and I guess what I would call the real world. So sometimes there are legal things that are appropriate to talk about that may not be well received whenever I'm talking to non-legal person. So being able to talk with friends and coworkers is that, that's an amazing thing as well. Someone put in there, a mini-trampoline. Yes, we should all have mini-trampolines. That should be part of our package here, at IUS. Alright, so the next question that we have on here is, what do you wish you had been doing for self-care? So maybe some things that you maybe some things that you haven't done. I see trialing, meaning emails for the weekends. Absolutely. Shutting off email notifications. Remembering to do something nice for and let me go. You guys keep on, keep on talk and I'm going to go and I'm gonna put my shadow. Again, Lulu, Amanda said less candy. Yeah. I feel that I feel that for me maybe you replace candy with bourbon. But yeah. Maybe some maybe some are healthier, healthier eating and drinking habits for sure. I'm gripe Hama above. Remember C. Finished your morning routine before turning on the computer. Sure. Ha, more yoga. Someone is tempting me with a great recipe for Barbie crane stick around. So whenever we get off, I'll talk to you about that. Let's see what else do we have here? Maintaining maintaining the same schedule as much as possible? Sure. I think we are I think as humans, we tend to be creatures of habit. So maintaining the same schedule. Shutting down social media at eight o'clock each night. That's a wonderful idea. Too much social media humming. Yeah. I'm with you on that. What suggestions or insights do you have? What are some suggestions for self care that you have? I tell you one suggestion that I have is we have times where we are what we're we're working from home, we're not in the office, were out of our routine. I tell you what. Nothing makes me feel better than waken up and actually just taken the sweat pants and this does the sweat the 30 off and like dressing like I would be at work. I mean, there's just something about it. You look good, you feel good. So that's something that I've been doing. I think that's a really good suggestion is, you know, maybe, you know, dry even if you're going to be sitting in your kitchen. I mean, it just makes you feel good. Let's see. Janet, for or T says reject the idea that you must be working 24-7. Absolutely. I mean, I think that that's been working from home. It can be a gift and occurs. And that whole 24-7 bang, I think definitely falls on the correct side of it. The C blocking out work time on the calendar so you don't get overbooked. Absolute. Once again, that goes along with the working 24-7. Remembering to not eat breakfast and lunch at your desk? That's That goes back to the schedule. I'm you would you would you do that if you were actually in the office? I mean, so yeah, it's kind of trying to fit a separation between your home space in your workspace, as difficult as that may be. Kelley Ryan says socializing. Absolutely. And I know that looks different for everyone right now depending on what code, what your COVID practices are. Socializing. But yeah, certainly, certainly socializing. Don't stay cooped up. You don't have to be perfect. Well, good because I'm not. But yes, remembering that you don't have to be perfect. And then also the golden rule, treating others as, or treating yourself as you would treat others, sure. Hugs. Yeah, hugs. You have to remember to give family members hugs and to make them feel better, but it also makes, makes other people feel good as well. Absolutely. That's one of the things that I kind of, I kind of miss with COVID restrictions, I miss I miss inter-physical interaction. I miss hugs, I miss handshakes. Yeah, we did a little elbow bang, but nothing beats. Get in there with a good hearty hand Shanker given some of the HUD. So yes, Susan, you're correct on that. And then, see, J. L. Doorman, I read an article about balancing risk. If you are more indirect contact with people for one aspect of your life, limiting risk elsewhere in your life. This advice really helps me re-evaluate my sorry, anxiety triggers. Sure. Yeah. If you wouldn't mind. If you could put post the link maybe to that article if you if you still know where it's at, I think that'd be a good thing to read. So we add that link. Put it up there. Coming into the office of new days a week, tell me feel like everyday is not the same name into that. As you can probably tell by looking at where I'm at right now, I'm in the office. I'll tell you. I I love my fiance. I love her so much, but I did not realize how much that eight hour buffer called work. How important that has been to relationships. So working and being next to someone 24 hours a day that can be rough. So yeah, I will come into the office every few days just to kind of, you know, my guess that put that buffer between us so that we can that we can stay, stay saying that c The last question is, what questions do you have for the group? Are there any questions that anyone has betting on us that they're out there and we can maybe answer as a group. Any questions that they want to put it in the chat there. Alright, Kelly says, I'm curious to hear from folks who journal. How do you get motivated to do that? So if anyone wants to put some thoughts in there, I'll tell you. I I go back and forth on journaling some some days, I will hit like maybe a two or three days span where I am I'm hitting it every single day. Other times, live kinda gets busy. And, you know, it's a little bit more difficult to, you know, take some time for journaling. For me, I find that I journaled the best Whenever I make journaling apart of my morning routine. So when I wake up in the morning before, I check Facebook, before I check the news, before I check my email, I'll take about 15 minutes to kind of fill out my journal pages. I have one of those guide journals. So it kinda asked you questions and you just kinda fill the questions out. But doing it doing it first thing in the morning is usually kinda what works for me whenever I me and those those span Trump hitting it. That see, I do a crazed journal in the morning for things that I'm thankful. Thankful of yes. Going and put that in there. So any other thoughts on any other people that do journaling is kind of what motivates you to. I feel like having the right type of journal kinda works as well. Like I said, I have a, I have a guided journal, so it's I think that's really neat. I don't know how would sit down just with a blank page. Let's see. Karla. Karla says, I do the first thing in the morning. I read a devotion and then journal. My motivation comes from the fact that the days I don't journal do not go as smoothly. It helps me work out my anxieties, gives me insight, et cetera. Very, very, very awesome. They're Carla. Okay, there's the article. So if anyone wants to check on that article, Inc. It it's in the chat now, Karla also said that she says I also do a hang on screens moving. I also do a quick gratitude journal at night. It's a part of my data or my bedtime routine. Susan says as to journaling, I DO much, but occasionally I find myself writing my thoughts down. It helps me see things more logically. Sometimes you just have to write it down, right? Sometimes you have to write it down right through it. Sometimes we have to talk through it. But yeah, yeah, did it really helped? I think it's a real organizational tool for our thoughts for sure. So anyone else have any questions that you want to put out to the group? Let's see, JR says I do meditation every day and read my personal affirmation. Absolutely. And that could be that could also tie into journaling as well. I mean, you know, sometimes, you know, sometimes you may want to go back and write about what? You may want to write down that personal affirmation. I personally, I feel their strength and writing things down. You can say it, but when you write it down, then you actually have to take the time to think about what you're writing. So I think there's definitely some strength in that as well. Any last questions getting by us want to put a question out? Well, if there are no other questions, I'm going to send it back to Michael so he can rapids wrap it up. I just wanted to say though, once again, thank you. Sandra says, Can we do this again? Yeah, we can totally do this again if he has felt that this was valuable. Absolutely. We have a lot of stuff coming up. Of course, we Abimelech an election right around the corner. So I feel like there's a little extra stress that is here. Then maybe in years past. So we add that coming around. But thank you guys so much for everything that you do for our students here. I know our students would be lost without you guys. So thank you for everything you do for them. And just please remember to take care of yourself as you are taking care of the students because we need you guys healthy and awesome too. So Michael, do you want to take us home? Kind of building off of that, if you please do send myself James. Anybody else you think of that could help coordinate if you have some other creative ideas, whether you want something like this or if you want more of a small group kind of just to chat with. And so that B were actually doing more talking than we are today. You know, that's some of what we're really missing. I think as those opportunities to have those hallway conversations are those lunch room conversations and there might be some benefits and having some zoom socialization instead of Zoom Meetings. And whether that is done on a large level as are that's done at a departmental level with other people that you would normally socialize with. Maybe some out-of-the-box thinking of how can you get some of those opportunities rebuilt into our, our schedule. So we got two more slides I want to go through real quickly and I just want you to maybe take a minute or two. And if you want to either think about or write down one or two things you can do are three things you can do for yourself over the next three months. And we'll make a personal commitment to something that you can do. And then we may take a moment to share. And you can kind of think about these areas of your life. What could you do, baby? An emotional? Well, for one thing you can do for yourself, intellectual, environmental, spiritual wise, getting back to the community, helping others is a great way to decrease stress. Or financial. You know, a couple of things I've done already. I cut the cable bill. That was a great day and a grow anymore. So think about it for a minute and then we'll kind of open it back up and see if anybody has anything they want to share that they think they can do. And surely ask if I will share the PowerPoint presentation. Yes, I will. I have recorded this, so I should have in the chat access to all of your names so I can look up your emails and I can send you the PowerPoint presentation. Does anyone have any kind of goals that they want to share, that they want to kind of verbally commit to. I'll tell you one thing I'm going to verbally commit to again, maybe this time I'll make it work is to exercise at least three days a week. I have the ability I have right in my house. All I need to do is you need to walk downstairs. So that's one of the things I'm going to do. I also have never taken time off in October, but if I don't use some of my time this year, I'm going to lose it. So I'm committing to take a week off. And during that week, I'm going to do my best not to do any work. If MSF anybody else have things they'd like to somewhat, Manoch is going to eat healthier. Land is going to have more laughter and arrive. Now one of the things I started doing, gene MCR gave me a, a recipe for bread and I started making bread and then I started expanding like a loaf of bread or on my way. So I had to stop that by myself and no one should eat a loaf of bread by themselves before it goes bad. But I was finding myself finding ways to cook with bread, Very powders, and just took a vacation was she normally does not. Good. Matters really push us to do that. It's easy not to take a vacation right now because like I said earlier, it's where do you go, what can you do that we need that. Jeanne has another recipe for me for rebel Lottie. And they have not said that correctly. Rebel ITA, given Lita, it's a heavy weight, is day old or stale bread, so you don't have to eat itself as Bull. Well, if no one else wants to share, that's okay. Down is going to she's doing knitting. Awesome. Okay, I'm going to share a couple more slides with you if I can figure out what I'm suppose to do here. There we go. I want to tell you about some IU resources. We do have the IU EAP employee assistance program. It's a new program this year. Looks like. This is the phone number for 1888881. Link are 5462 and they have a broader range of services than our previous EAP. So they have, I think tell of therapy where you can meet with a counselor online. They may have some face-to-face options as well. They also have some coaching activities and some things, some self-help activities through that organization. And it is free to all faculty and staff who are full-time and unfortunately not available to her. Adjunct faculty, but it's available to full-time faculty and staff. Healthy IU and healthy IU.edu is open to everyone, students, faculty, staff, regardless of your status, they have some trainings like this right now going on and a variety of other activities throughout the year. So meditation activities, I LTE, particularly if you're trying to think about ways to reduce your stress level in the classroom and maybe make different usage of technology or of technology as part of your stress. As it was for me at the beginning today. They can help you to manage that more effectively. Human Resources, Of course, one of the things that they are particularly interested in letting you know is linked in learning. And I'll send you this link along with the entire PowerPoint. We all have access as IU employees to some free training through LinkedIn. You do not have to pay their premium membership to LinkedIn to take part in this part of being a part of I. Sometimes it also can be helpful to give back. And so I want to tell you other things. Many of you may have known that we used to do the out of the darkness walk, but because of Cove it, we're not doing that. But we are doing the out of the darkness experience. That is a pledge walk to support the work of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Suicide is the second leading college circulating cause of death for college students and oftentimes is exacerbated during times like this. And so this Saturday, actually the 17th of October, is our virtual walk. You can walk wherever you are on live stream, on Facebook and Twitter and all those type of things. And there's also a way to give support directly through the website. And that's www dot, AFSP dot org backslash ius. Kinda give a shout out to Sam tack, they gave us $5 thousand. It's not reflected on the website yet, but it will be after the pledge walk is over. But they gave us a great donation to help support that work. I US food pantry, As I said, giving back sometimes can be helpful. We do have a food pantry that is for our students and it's also for faculty and staff. It's really for a member of our community who may find themselves Short-term need of food, you know? So if you want to make a donation to that, either in the form of durable, like dry goods are canned goods. No fresh food please. Or hygiene items are a small like $10 gift certificate or gift card to admire or Kroger. You can do that by taking it to your local school office, whether that's the School of Education, the School of Nursing, should be boxes in each one of those, or to the police department or to our office or drop off boxes for that. So I want you to know that the, I think it would be considered the school of social sciences is putting together a post-election zoom experience on November fourth from six to eight PM. To kind of explain because we're anticipating that this year will be different and that there'll be a lot of uncertainty after the vote and that it may take a while. And so Dr. wort and Dr. Brzezinski, we'll be explaining some of the kind of legal political laws and what the process is going to be like. There'll be also kind of opportunity for people just to gather over Zoom and kind of sharing some support around that. So finally, if I can get my slides to advance there, I'd like to really thank you. James did as well, and I know Kelly and Amanda, the chancellor, and Betty and Dana all feel this as well. You all make the dream come true. For so many of our students, we are life-changing institution that changes their future. That helps them to kinda break maybe the cycle of poverty or the cycle of, of some other negative things in their life, or to advance their life from where it otherwise might be. And that can't be done without you. And your work in whatever role you have at the university contributes to that dream. And that dream means so much to our students, even if they can't always say thank you to you, don't say it every day. I know that they're thankful and so are we so kinda close with that unless anybody else has anything to say. Thank you for given our time today and have a wonderful rest of your week. Bye-by
