Work from home anxiety or stress? Get the dopamine flowing by setting yourself reachable goals and doing victory laps when you make them

Our mindset influences the results of our actions and how we feel. Change our mindset, and this can change our response to stress, Dr Michelle McQuaid says
It’s important to get a sense of meaning from your work and to celebrate when you have done something well to keep up your enthusiasm, the psychologist says

Wellness

Kate Whitehead

Published: 8:00pm, 20 May 2020

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The uncertainty the coronavirus pandemic engenders can seriously challenge our mental wellness. If you are struggling or feeling stressed, take solace in knowing you are not alone. The global health crisis has brought mental health issues to the fore.

Communities and workplaces are more open to acknowledging and understanding mental health issues than they were a year ago. This could be an opportunity to make some positive changes in your life.

“Feelings of struggle and stress are not signs that you are unwell or ‘broken’; they are signs that something important needs your attention,” says psychologist Dr Michelle McQuaid, who has a decade of experience implementing positive psychology interventions in workplaces.

“Provided you have the well-being knowledge, tools and support to respond to these signs, [such] struggles don’t have to undermine your well-being or performance. In fact, they can enhance your learning and growth.”

Taking time out to celebrate when you have done something well while working from home is good for your mental health. Photo: Shutterstock

McQuaid is working with the Hong Kong-based firm Just Challenge on a recently launched virtual employee wellness platform for corporate clients. The company, which typically offers physical challenges and programmes for companies, has rolled out this platform to help companies looking to support their staff, who are often working remotely, cope with stress.

Delivered through video tutorials, podcasts, downloadable guides and live sessions, the Just Challenge Wellness Programme offers mental and physical health education and engagement. That is great if you’re working for an enlightened company that cares about the personal health and success of its staff, but even if your firm has not subscribed to the programme, there is still a lot you can do.

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“There’s never been a time in history when you can more easily tap into well-being,” says McQuaid. Yet many of us are adept at looking after ourselves physically, but tend to ignore our mental well-being. The challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, working and living differently from the way we normally do, has made mental well-being even more important. So how do we attain it?

Many of us tend to think that monitoring our eating, exercise and sleeping patterns is a matter of discipline and willpower. However, McQuaid says, recent well-being research shows that we may be unrealistic in our expectations and not satisfied enough to cheer when we win.

“The difficult part is that we tend to set our goals too big and expect too much too quickly,” says McQuaid.

The unexpected gift of this time is that everyone is struggling to some degree; it makes it safer to talk about our struggles. The more we can talk about struggle, in appropriate ways, the better that is for our well-being

Psychologist Dr Michelle McQuaid

Sound familiar? Anyone thinking of those New Year resolutions? She says successful well-being challenges are less about repetition and more about celebrating when we do well.

“We don’t take enough victory laps; for most of us it’s a step we’ve never thought about. But watch any athlete achieve on the field and they will fist pump, there’s a sense of celebration, which neurologically we know fires up the reward chemicals and sends dopamine to the brain,” says McQuaid.

Those dopamine reward chemicals help to build neurological pathways that mean the next time you come to tackle the same issue, it will be easier because you are primed for the reward.

Anxiety isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We are hard-wired to be resilient and anxiety can fire us up, spurring us on to greater things, says McQuaid. She points to research by psychologist Alia Crum at Stanford University, which shows that our mindsets create our reality.

Objective health benefits depend not just on what we are doing, but what we think about what we do. Our mindset influences the results of our actions, determining what we pay attention to and how we feel, and expect to feel. We can change our mindset, and this can change the body’s response to stress.

“For a lot of us, even just knowing we have a choice in our stress response can have a positive impact,” says McQuaid.

The Just Challenge platform walks individuals through a routine, showing how to integrate well-being activities into their busy lives. McQuaid’s own website is a good starting point for those who want to change their own mindsets; it offers free resources, including useful “tool kits” and podcasts on topics such as a “thriving mindset” and “happy brain chemicals”.

“The unexpected gift of this time is that everyone is struggling to some degree; it makes it safer to talk about our struggles. The more we can talk about struggle, in appropriate ways, the better that is for our well-being,” says McQuaid.

Start small, take little steps and remember to celebrate often.

Psychologist Dr Michelle McQuaid has a decade of experience implementing positive psychology interventions in workplaces.

McQuaid’s tips for working from home

1. Develop a sense of meaning and purpose in your work. It’s possible to find purpose in even the most mundane tasks. Ask yourself: Who does this help? Why does it matter? We need to feel that at least some of what we do is having a positive impact on someone somewhere.

2. We need to feel engaged in what we are doing. It helps to do this if you know what your strengths are. There are plenty of online tools do gauge your strengths, such as www.viacharacter.org.

3. We need to feel we are learning and making progress. At the end of each day or week ask yourself: What went well today? What did I learn? Focusing on the learning outcome – rather than the professional outcome – has longer-lasting positive effects for our mental wellness.

4. Do not underestimate how much we need positive emotion. Try to start your day with a jolt of joy – it can be something simple, such as a funny meme or cute cat video – that will ripple through the day.

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