Time for a Check-In
Now that the month of October has rolled around, we find ourselves in Q4, the fourth financial quarter of the year. As we draw closer to the end of 2022, it’s a good time for us to stop for a moment and to check in on ourselves. What exactly does “checking in” entail? Let’s explore that today.
Do you feel overwhelmed and stressed? Does it feel like you haven’t managed to truly relax for even a moment recently? Are you holding tension or feeling pain in your body right now? If any of these scenarios sound familiar to you, the odds are that it’s a good time to check in on yourself.
Checking in on yourself simply translates to assessing your current physiological and psychological well being. When we get caught up in the flurry of work to do and responsibilities to manage, the first thing we often sacrifice is ourselves and our rest. Some might choose to put others first consciously, while others might do it without realising. Nevertheless, checking in on yourself and assessing your current state of mind is always an important activity to set time aside for. Burnout, a form of exhaustion that comes with being overworked, is becoming increasingly common. Here are some ways to check in on yourself and to assess if you need a break or a change in your routine.
Mental Health: Mood and Thoughts
If you often feel anxious, get easily irritable, or feel on the edge throughout the day, you’re likely to be feeling exhausted by bedtime. Being on alert all the time and being extra sensitive and prone to outbursts of negative emotions is energy-consuming and might be a sign of burnout. If you find your mind thinking up negative thoughts more often than usual, it might be a good time to check in on yourself. While stress and negative emotions are natural, excessive amounts of them experienced consistently over a long period of time is often a sign of trouble.
Physical Health
Stress and exhaustion can manifest in our body. This is known as psychogenic pain, and is often a result of prolonged periods of being under stress or distress. Psychogenic pain is closely associated with conditions such as depression and anxiety, and is often the body’s way of alerting us to pain experienced mentally. The most common places that this type of pain manifests is in our neck, shoulders and back. If you’ve developed an onset of acute and prolonged pain, it is a good time to check in on yourself and take a trip to your doctor or a specialist if required.
Why Check In?
Checking in on yourself means making time for yourself and listening to your body. Checking in on yourself proactively means that you make time for yourself to take a break and reduces the likelihood of being forced to take a break should you fall ill or get injured due to exhaustion.
Knowing yourself and when to recharge also means greater productivity in the long run, and greater levels of satisfaction in your daily life, both of which contribute to your overall well being and happiness. In the pursuit of success, many of us may find our days blurring together into an overwhelming period of stress.
Take some time this week or perhaps this month to consciously check in on yourself. Some questions you can ask yourself to reflect include: Am I holding tension in my body right now? How am I feeling emotionally right now? Do I need to take a break? What is making me feel upset? Am I putting off anything right now? What can I do now to make myself feel happier? Am I sleeping enough?
There is no one right way to check in on yourself. Experiment with different ways of questioning yourself and different activities when you set aside time for yourself to unwind.
At BCD, the wellbeing of our people matter. If you’d like to be a part of a team that cares, feel free to contact us. At BCD, our focus is YOU.
*Disclaimer: This article is not meant as a diagnostic tool, but simply a starting point for retrospection.
