Washington State EAP: So i'm going to go ahead and start the recording now it's like we're ready to roll.


Washington State EAP: Alright, so I think we're all set I think you can all see my slides. I'm also getting back into the swing of things after taking a little bit of a break.
All right, oops nope I suppose talk here okay so good morning everyone thanks for joining thanks for you know dropping some info in the chat there.

My name is Tiffany, I'm a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with the Washington State EAP. so I'm part of a small group of people who are here to support all, I think like, 110,000 Washington State employees.

So today we have a presentation, for you on managing stress more effectively. Lots of stress has been going on, I think that a lot of us are tired and burnt out and maybe stressed with the holidays.

So we're going to dive in. A couple logistics; I've got Kari joining me in the chat, so if you have questions or want to make a comment go ahead and drop it in the chat and Kari is going to be moderating for me.
I won't be super watching the chat just because I'm looking over here at my notes and all my stuff, but Kari is there, so she'll be putting some information over there as well.

For those of you joining us online, you should be able to see my video, and you can enlarge the video by hovering your cursor over the edge of the video boxes and then, when you see the double arrows go ahead and click on those, 
hold and drag your mouse to expand. You can choose to pin me and I guess I'm the only person who would want to pin today. Sometimes we have an ASL interpreter. Kari is putting all this info in the chat. 
We also are using closed captioning which is available to you. So just look for the words "live transcript". It's either going to be the top or the bottom of your screen depending on your device.

And just go ahead and click on show subtitles. Everyone is going to be muted that's just for your benefit, as well as to not be distracting me. So you'll be muted throughout the duration of the presentation. But the chat feature is 
there. Just make sure that you are chatting to the right group of people. There's a little arrow next to the word "everyone", if you drop down on that you can speak directly to "host and panelists", which will talk to Kari and I, 
or you can chat to "everyone". I know sometimes I mean to say "welcome" and I'm just talking to me and Kari. So just make sure you're picking the right selection there so that the whole group can see what you have to say. 
There is a copy of this presentation available online and we'll be adding the link in the chat box here shortly, or you can go ahead and visit our website www.eap.wa.gov, click on "webinars" and you'll see the link for the presentation 
slides below the registration information for this session.

It might be helpful for you to know that the Washington State EAP serves all state agencies, as well as many other public service organizations in Washington. Such as higher education, school districts, fire districts, counties, and 
tribal governments as well as many other organizations. So it's possible that you joined us and we're not your EAP. It's not likely, but if you're not sure if we're your EAP go ahead and check in with your HR department.

And since we have people joining us from all over the place today, especially since Covid-19 our workstations have really changed so I'm going to talk about your workplace, and that may mean a home that you go to maybe your own home, 
maybe an office, maybe you're at the Capitol building in Olympia. Wherever you go to work, is what I would be talking about a workplace.

And just know that if you have any questions that don't get addressed during our time today, or if you're feeling overwhelmed to where you need some additional support, you can go ahead and reach out to the EAP.
You can give them a call at 1-877-313-4455 and Kari is going to drop that in the chat and we will also bring that up later.

Hopefully, by the end of the webinar you're not more stressed, but maybe by the end of our presentation, you are feeling like you might want some support so we'll give you that information as well.

Alright, and that is my logistic spiel and we're going to go ahead and dive into it.

So, like I mentioned, and I think, like you, are all very aware, the last two years, we have had a tremendous amount of stressful events. Some we would call good stress some we will call bad stress, but there has been 
almost two years now, of sustained stressful events, meaning just kind of one thing after another.

And I know I'm not telling you much that's new, but I just hoped to normalize it. Ideally in a perfect world, we have a stressful event, and then we get some recovery time. And that recovery time allows us to kind of process and contain the stress.
But lately what's really been happening is, we're just one stressful event after the next, and we really have historically talked about compartmentalizing our stress right like separating work and home.And that's really what we talked 
about the stress of work and home and now for the first time in my life we add a third category of stressors it's no longer just work and home but it's the whole world, and there are national and global events that have caused a 
ton of stress for so many of us.

So that global stress those events that are happening in the news and in your community and around the world right there's just this announcement about a Covid variant in Africa and, as we hear this information, 
as we are exposed to this. It wears us down, it activates our stress system over and over and over again, and it makes it harder for us to show up as our best selves at work and at home.

And the things that I experienced that are stressful at home are going to impact work and the stressful things at work, right, we're changing how we work. Where a lot of us are short staffed. A lot of us are working from home, 
which has some new stressors like dogs barking and kids wanting our attention and maybe sharing small small spaces with others.

All of these things are really blending in together now so we're feeling maybe no break maybe we're noticing that I watch something on the news it's really stressful and then I have to hop into work and I kind of carry that with me.
So I just want to normalize that we don't actually get to compartmentalize like that our brain doesn't actually just go "Oh well, that's not happening anymore I'm not going to worry about it."

Instead, it makes us more vulnerable and we're going to talk more about this later, but the stressful events that happen in the world, and in my work and at home, are all kind of compounding each other and they impact each other.
We don't really get to separate work and home as much as we'd like to, and we certainly can't fully unplug from the world or the nation.

So let's start maybe understanding better what stress is ooh sorry about that little scroll bar sure does some stuff for you. We're going to dive in and understand more about what is happening when we talk about all this stress.
And, and what stress actually is it's sort of a term that we throw around a lot right we say "oh work has been stressful", "home has been stressful." But I don't know that most of us really understand what stresses, and what happens 
in our body so let's start by defining it. Stress is just a body's response that's it it's a physical and emotional response to change and it's our body's way of turning on a special system designed to help us overcome big challenges.

Our brain takes in information it detects change in my environment, it may be detects that there's a big important thing, or even a threatening thing and it turns on the system designed to respond to that so it actually isn't good 
or bad and a lot of people will say that stress is bad. I mean stress is uncomfortable, sure, but it actually isn't bad and you and I wouldn't want to make it go away.

Stress happens on good events and bad events. So if you won the lottery today, you would experience stress, you would be perceiving some change and your body would step up to meet that challenge.
You may experience stress in the morning, when your alarm goes off that is actually the activation of the stress response system that's what the alarm does; it fires on this system and makes your body wake up. 
So if you pay attention tomorrow, when your alarm goes off you could actually notice and observe the activation of your stress response system in a relatively safe environment.

You might notice if you're awake just moments right, just as you start to wake up.
You may notice that your heart rate increases that your body temperature increases, you get a little bit of warmth, when you wake up your breathing is going to get faster and more shallow as opposed to the slow deep breaths of 
sleep. This whole system is actually pretty amazing when you think about it.We need this system to protect us, and allow us to do really big important things it's the same system that allows you to pick a car off of the kid that 
when trapped underneath.

It's the system that turns on kind of our Hulk mode right it activates our "fight, flight, or freeze" response which can make us really good at overcoming challenge and adapting to change. So what's happening in your body. 
I'm a pretty big brain nerd and I think whenever I understand sort of what this system is doing, it feels a little bit less scary a little bit more understandable. So on the screen right now is a picture of the stress response system, 
this is also known as the sympathetic nervous system. 

The SNS, sympathetic nervous system, is the part of the brain that sympathizes with the threat or the change it says yeah "I hear you, let's get ready!"
It's actually very, very useful and a lot of times when we say that stress is negative we're thinking about the negative impact, right, like the heart disease, increased risk of heart attack and stroke.

And Harvard actually did a study that found out it isn't so much  the case that stress is bad for us.Instead it's our perception of stress, 
it's the way that we see it, and respond to it and treat it that has either negative or positive health implications, let me change that I don't know that it has positive, 
we can reduce the negative implications. And we do that by stopping fighting and we stop resisting the stress. Instead we see it as adaptive and as something that we 
maybe thank our body for. We appreciate it.

When my stress response activates I do take a moment and go "Okay, the system is functioning. My brain and body are doing exactly what they were designed to do", and I do 
say "thanks body". It's kind of like a little wellness check, right? That system is totally working good. I'm going to want that, in case a lion comes inside of my 
office to try to attack me. I want the system to function.

I want the system to function, before I get on a webinar because just the right amount of stress actually helps me think clearer respond quicker and behave all 
around in an optimal state.So what physically happens when this SNS the sympathetic nervous system is activated the first thing that happens is my brain detects change 
in my environment. Right, my brain is constantly sensing and getting all this information to see what it needs to respond to.

So some information comes into my brain and goes through my hypothalamus. On the screen right now is a picture it starts with the brain at the top and that brain takes that 
information in and then says "oh there's change, we need to respond, we need to do something'"so it activates ACTH, which stands for adrenacorticotropic hormone.
That hormone signals down to our adrenal glands and it says "we have a situation going on. Let's do this! Adrenal glands then excrete cortisol and adrenaline. 
Both of those help turn on this system. This whole response happens from those three chemicals.

On the screen is a brain connected to the two adrenal glands. From there, it connects down. Adrenaline and cortisol turns on as the body diverts its attention and it says, 
you know what,we need to focus all of our energy on the systems that will help us adapt and respond and we're going to actually pull some attention, we're going to pull 
some resources from systems that aren't very useful or maybe even slow us down. So below the adrenal glands is a picture of the liver. And the liver, I'm sorry it's 
not the liver, it's a stomach, the stomach has decreased digestion and decreased activity.

The brain says, right now, I have to fight a lion, my sandwich from earlier can wait. It's not very important and won't help me right now. So we decrease digestion we 
convert or revert our energy from our stomach into these other systems, so it goes to our lungs and we dilate the bronchioles in our lungs our lungs start to breathe short 
and fast and shallow. We're trying to get all that oxygen and so that our body can function.

It also activates the liver and so there's another another line from the adrenal glands going down to the liver. Where the liver is storing glycogen and when we're under 
stress when the system activates the liver says ah, I should convert all this glycogen into  glucose. Glucose is a really great form of fast acting energy again turns on 
this system allows me to function.

Similarly it's going to increase my heart rate. My heart is going to start beating faster and stronger. It is going to increase my blood pressure and all of that is just 
designed to get oxygen out to my limbs and out to all of this system, so it can perform its best.

So sure if you just found out the have a meeting with your boss, you may notice that this system activates and you may say it's uncomfortable. But if we take a step back, 
it's actually pretty impressive it's amazing that my body has this whole system that it just automatically does to help me respond. So when it happens and we noticed heart 
rate is going and we're breathing faster we normally freak out just a little bit. But I would encourage you to just say, "Oh wow! I'm observing this really cool system in 
my body," and you know that might sound cheesy. But it's literally what I do, and maybe I am just super nerdy but I look at and go "wow!" that's pretty darn cool, the system 
has been happening for us throughout all of human evolution it helped cavemen it helped.

It's helped us survive and without this system, well, I don't know where we would be. Now there is a point in time when we're experiencing sustained stress and we don't get 
to recover from it right there's another system called the parasympathetic nervous system. It's the part of our brain that we hope to activate after the stressful event 
has ended so SNS happens stress response system happens turns on ideally we enter recovery period. But one of the things that has happened in the last few years is all of this 
ongoing stress. 

I was actually talking to someone earlier this morning, who was talking about how Covid itself has changed his work and, in the middle of all of this, you know they had a 
family member pass away and they had a you know big illness. So all of these things are causing us to have some maybe negative symptoms associated with stress.
So maybe you don't even notice that your stressed, maybe you operate with a high level of stress and you think like oh, this is great, but when we start to notice that we're 
experiencing high levels of anxiety or depression that might be an indicator that our stress response system is being accessed too many times, maybe we're getting too tired.

And, probably, we need to shift our thinking so that we can effectively respond as instead of being kind of overwhelmed by our stress.
Symptoms that you might be having way too much stress that you're not managing effectively maybe you're using more substances, than before.
You know I hear people picking up you know, maybe a glass of wine in the evening and maybe now it's two or three glasses, maybe we're drinking when we didn't intend to.

We might be isolating people who enjoy going out with others being social may find that they're just not interested, or you're canceling plans, more often than you're 
maintaining them. Maybe you're losing focus or you're fatigued maybe you're just angry irritable all the time.

This is partially because our system is just tired and it doesn't have anything left to regulate this is normal, it is a sign that we want to manage our stress more 
effectively. And you may not be cued in totally to your emotional changes, perhaps it's physical maybe we're overeating under eating, you know, maybe we just don't have an 
appetite anymore, maybe we've lost a lot of weight.

We might also be experiencing headaches, I know for myself, I start to have headaches, where the base of my neck gets really sore and that's because I'm carrying that 
stress in my shoulders.

Maybe you're feeling restless like you can't just sit you feel keyed up on edge and all of these things could lead you to feeling burnt out to where maybe you don't like
your job anymore, or maybe you feel like you're not good enough inadequate.

Julia I see your comment that this feels like it to do checklist of life right now, yeah, unfortunately I think the world is feeling this across the board. Everyone that I 
interact with is really struggling, more than ever and that's totally normal we've been in this situation for so long.

And so many things have just been happening to us, and a lot of us feel like we've lost control we've. You know, lost part of ourselves we've lost some freedoms there's 
been a lot of big changes, and so, if this does look familiar then let's maybe hopefully give you some 
strategies to manage that.

So on the screen now is an image of person who has, you can see their eye and there's like a ring of lights that she's holding around her I. And I picked this picture, 
because I thought it really helped explain the next concept that I have for you and that's called the "Circle of Control". Other people have called it "Sphere of Influence",
this isn't mine, you can Google search this and look more into it. But I think when there's a lot of big stressful things happening, we get overwhelmed by the things that 
we have no control over. And we exert a lot of energy on the things that we can't control which usually makes us more frustrated because we put out this energy we tried to do 
this thing and we got nowhere.

So a lot of times, people will reach out to the EAP saying I need you to fix my boss, I need you to fix my partner, I need you to fix, you know, Covid. I need you to fix 
the changes to the vaccine requirements, and I look around a little bit and go well they're not here.

And even if they were I don't know that they're bought in on changing all that much so we're better served if we take a look at the things that we can control. We kind of 
separate out what I can and cannot control. And I like to think about like a hula hoop that i'm standing in, and I kind of look around when i'm really stressed out and I'm 
trying to manipulate and change the world and I look down and I think, the only thing I can control is just my mind, my attitude, and my response.

There's a lot of people who were impacted by the vaccine mandate and maybe feeling like the decision was beyond their control. And sure, while changes in vaccine requirements 
are beyond our control it isn't the case that we had no control. So we could decide when and where to get the vaccine which vaccine to get we ultimately could make a really 
difficult decision to not get the vaccine. So in that situation, instead of exerting our energy on what we can't control, maybe there's going to be short staffing maybe we 
have uncertainty organization changes I can notice my own self, and I can take a look and see what can I do, how do I change me.

So Viktor Frankl is an individual who I just love and he is an individual who survived four different Nazi concentration camps. He's a psychiatrist who, during his time 
there really put on his psychiatry lens and spent his time trying to understand what helps some men be resilient and others, not so much. He writes in his book, it's called 
"A Man's Search For Meaning", and he writes in this book and he says that he wanted to understand is why some men walked the halls at night sharing what little food they had, 
singing while other men cried and wept. Some men were able to survive and they stayed reasonably healthy and others their health just really disintegrated very quickly.

And so, his whole book and his whole you know writings and studying from that point on, has really been around understanding resilience. So to me if someone is speaking to me 
having gone through that experience, which to me, is probably one of the most stressful experiences I can imagine, I'm going to listen to his advice on how to navigate stress,
and so one of the quotes I want to share with you from Victor Frankl's book he says that between stimulus, something happening, and response, there's a space. And in that 
space is our power to choose our response in a response lies our growth and our freedom. So when we look at circle of control, ideally, we can create a little bit of space 
when something happens, we pause and we take a look and see what is mind control and what is not. Viktor Frankl also talks about the last of man's freedoms that cannot be taken
from him is the power to choose his own attitude in any given circumstance, his ability to choose his own way. 

And so, putting those together, I think that when something stressful happens, the first thing we do is pause. Recognize that we do have a moment before response we assess 
what is our responsibility, what we can control and, if nothing else, we can change, maybe, our response or attitude. From there we shift our actions we shift our mind, so 
that we can navigate the stress effectively. And instead of wasting time trying to fix my boss or fix my partner or my kid or my dogs.

I can spend time strengthening my own attitude changing my response if something doesn't work for me in my world maybe I can set some healthy boundaries. Maybe I can take care
of myself in a way that can navigate the stress that's coming. So the first thing that we can do when we are trying to assess what we can control, and one of the things that 
we can control is vulnerabilities. And I mentioned this a little bit earlier when we're stressed, we become more vulnerable. And a vulnerability is just a physical or 
emotional condition that impacts our ability to respond effectively that's it.

On the screen right now is a picture of a body of water that has a big crack in the ice right so there's thick ice on top of the water there's big crack in it. And when I 
see this picture I think about ice road truckers where individuals will drive big semi trucks across these frozen bodies of water, because it's more direct path in the winter.
Now as spring comes that it starts to lose its integrity and there becomes cracks at that point, the truckers stop dragging their trucks across the ice, because if they do.
That ice is now vulnerable; it's compromised. And when we put stress on it it's more likely to crack and fall apart.

And you and I are just like this ice. When we have vulnerabilities or cracks in our own kind of emotional or physical ice we're more likely to fall apart. Right, when I am 
really hungry, for example, I might get hungry I don't know if I'm the only person, but sometimes if I'm real hungry I get cranky. That's because I'm vulnerable. My mind is 
trying to navigate that problem, and so it has less reserves to maybe be effective right this frontal cortex part of my brain is the part that regulates my responses and 
helps me choose an effective response. But when it's tired, or when there's a lot of stress happening, it doesn't get as much energy because it's not essential to survival.

So when I'm vulnerable I'm less likely to be my best self I'm more likely to make mistakes or be short, with people, maybe I'm going to start crying more right maybe wearing 
my emotions on my sleeve. But overall, when I'm vulnerable I'm less able to show up as my best self.

So our first strategy is to recognize that some vulnerabilities are well beyond our control. That's real. So again we assess control. Can I make Covid stop? No. If I could, 
I would have done that, by now, I promise. Can I control my own response to COVID? Sure! I can choose how much I'm going to go out in public. I'm gonna wear a mask or not 
well, I mean we're in Washington, we should wear a mask. I live by Idaho so it's a little bit different for me.

But I do have some control, knowing that the world has been very stressful maybe tells me that I need to manage the vulnerabilities that can because I can't stop so many.
I can't make spring not happen for the ice road truckers, but I can kind of do an emotional zamboni to kind of heal some of the cracks that I can.

So how do we manage our vulnerabilities well, I think that we have to think about our body sort of like a machine. We have to recognize that our body needs things in order 
to be optimal. It needs things like exercise that helps us first get some energy out it helps take some of that stress energy that restlessness and it gives it a healthy 
place to go. So exercise, one, lets some energy out to exercise also helps us increase our positive chemicals, it gives us some counteracting happy chemicals right we get 
those endorphins and dopamine so it can help buffer us against stress, because we get some good stuff.

I also recommend trying your very best to eat balanced regular meals, meaning don't go too long in between meals, if you can handle that like if you, I know that sometimes, 
this is a privilege. But ideally we're eating every couple hours or putting something in our belly so that we're not hungry or not, you know depleted. We're also eating a 
variety of meals That way we have enough building blocks, so that our body can make all the amino acids and proteins and hormones and chemicals, it needs. Right, when we're 
activating the stress response over and over and over again we're really depleting the system, so we need to recharge it and replenish it by having some 
ideally balanced healthy-ish meals.

Also establish a good sleep schedule, if you can reduce being exhausted that's going to be very good for you.Try to go to sleep at the same time, every day and wake up, at 
the same time, every day, even on the weekends. That can reduce one vulnerability to where your body is ready to fall asleep at night and ready to wake up in the morning, 
this can definitely help you avoid some vulnerabilities and make you better handle your day. 

I'd also recommend that you avoid substance use, although sometimes we do want to take the edge off or take a break from our worries oftentimes substances actually just 
create new vulnerabilities. They make us tired they make us groggy they may be, make us feel physically drained or ill. So although you may be tempted to reach for some sort 
of a substance marijuana alcohol, whatever that is. I would really encourage you to not and instead I would spend your time exercising. I know this doesn't sound as fun, but 
exercising, drinking water and doing those really healthy things to replenish yourself as opposed to dehydrate and maybe even draining the system more.


All of this is just good self, care, but I would also add do things that make you happy do things that bring joy and goodness into your life. We need those moments of joy 
and laughter to buffer us from those really hard moments.

This also means that you got to engage in your community, and although you may have an urge to isolate and for some of us, especially people who are neuro divergent. Isolation
may be important right, we may need to reduce stimulus I know I'm like that. But there comes a point in time, where we're isolating too much, and we really do need social 
connections, we need our Community. So if you're part of a faith based community make sure you're spending time there, make sure you're in engaging with religious spiritual and social communities.Maybe you're 
going to decrease a little bit, but lean into those supports they have really good buffers and really do help manage our stress. 

So earlier today, I said that you can't 
really compartmentalize and we can't really leave work at work and we can't leave home at home and now i'm going to contradict myself just slightly. Because I do want us to 
kind of aim towards that goal, and this is like a progress not perfection. So we understand that if something stressful happens at home, and then I shift into work I'm going 
to carry that with me a little bit. But a lot of us are having a hard time leaving work at work we're having a hard time letting go of the stress of the day, the exhaustion 
maybe the commitment, the importance of our work calls us to want to work longer harder hours and really what's in our best interest is to try our best to emotionally and 
physically cap our day, end our day, and move into our home life right, we do want to try to leave work at the office, and now that we're working from home that's even more 
complicated.

I know my bedroom is just a few feet from my office I walk past my desk 15-20 times a day it's really easy to want to just check my email really quick or do that one thing 
real quick. But, ideally, we do start to really create some space between work and home if we don't we're going to be drawn we're going to be drained out we're going to be 
exhausted. So some of the things that we can do, and on the next slide I'm going to give you a practical application, you know 123 ABC on how to do an end of day practice.

But one thing I'm like you to think about is when you're at work. Someone is paying for your attention, right, like that's that's the deal you pay for my mind you pay for my 
energy that's the exchange. That's reasonable, but when I go home it's my time. And I don't have to give my attention to someone, so I like to shift myself mentally and 
energetically when i'm at home, so it feels different than work. At work it's very much next appointment next appointment, what I have to do you know what are the deadlines, 
I have what things I need to write up a report strive to submit. It's just this constant focusing of my attention on something that really isn't mine.

And that's fine that can be its own stress break all in and of itself, sometimes I love going to work because I don't have to think about my own problems.
But when I go home, I can stop looking at what's next what's next what's next, and I can start looking at what's now. I can choose to get present with my family, I can get 
present with my hobbies or even just myself in silence, but we shift away from what's next what's next into being present and what's now.

Similarly, when you go home try to reduce multitasking at work we're often trying to do, five things at one time and honestly that's really stressful. Your brain can't 
actually do two things at one time instead it goes back and forth back and forth between those tasks which is actually really exhausting right. If I told you right now I 
want you to go back and forth, and want you to get up from your desk and go do something and then come back here and then we'll do something and come back here and go do 
something. Well, that would be overwhelming and exhausting and very, very stressful so as much as you can when you go home try to just do one thing at a time.

Focus on the thing right in front of you, and trust that you'll take care of the next task when it's that turn. You might find that you're going to be less stressed out 
doing it this way and you're probably going to make less mistakes and be more effective at home as well.

So if you're going to do the dishes just do the dishes don't try to do two things at once don't try to make toast at the same time you're going to burn it. So avoid 
multitasking and then make time for mental freedom okay said, I believe that when I go to work. The person who is paying for me to do the work gets access to my mind right 
and then work is constantly saying look over here pay attention to this pay attention to that.

So when I go home, I really like to relish, the idea that I can think about whatever I want to think about that nobody is requiring me to look at this problem or focus on 
that thing you know, sometimes I just this weekend I thought I'm going to take a day of mental freedom.

Where I solve whatever problem, I want to solve, and I think about the things I want to think about. We need that and that helps us feel a little bit less like we're at work, so, although i'm going to give you a strategy to really cap your day.
I think it's a lot more about like an energy shift when I go home where I don't have to give my my energy and my attention to one entity. I can carve a little space out and I
get if you're a parent to littles this is challenging, I understand if you have multiple jobs, this is going to be really hard. And just try to find any moment, you can 
whether that's even driving to and from the office try to just create some space for yourself to have mental freedom. So now I'm going to offer you and strategies for creating
a meaningful end of day practice, so this is what you want to do. Try to actually cap your day off and end your day, so that you can leave work at work and separate it from 
home. I know for myself, I work from home all the time now and part of me, misses my commute. That was a bit of a transition period that really helped me leave work at work, 
and transition into home mode. 

So for you, wherever you are, I want you to take about 30 minutes, the end of your day every day and just write out what you're going to do the
following steps, so the first step is to sit down and write out your to do list for tomorrow. So I sit down and I write all the things I think I need to do and I actually I 
do what I call the great to do where I write everything I need to get done. And then from there, I figure out the priorities for tomorrow, because the to do list never 
finishes and it's always longer than what I can do in one day. So I take a little asterisk and you can highlight, however, you want to do this, you just make a little 
indicator that these are the top three to five things for tomorrow that I have to have done before I go home.

Next, open up your calendar take a look and see where you're going to do those tasks and maybe even put that on your calendar. Plan the day don't just let the day pull you. 
But sit down tonight, make a plan for tomorrow. This will also help you a lot of times people report going to bed, and having a lot of anxiety turn on about worries about 
what they need to get done. If you do this practice than tonight when you're anxious mind turns on and says oh don't forget to do those things, while we have to do those 
things well, you can say, "yeah brain, we already wrote the to do list so I won't forget and we actually made time in the day tomorrow, so I know at 10am I'm going to do that 
thing." That can help decrease our anxiety at night and also make us way more effective tomorrow so that we, maybe don't fall behind on our work, because that also becomes 
stressful. 

Then, after I've made my list and set my plan for tomorrow, I sent off any final emails I have. Maybe I need a video link maybe I need some information confirming an 
appointment, whatever that looks like send off those final emails. And then turn off your computer, bare minimum, put it to sleep, but actually engaged in the act of saying 
I am done.

I also like to tidy up my workstation at this point. Kind of putting away all the posters, especially if you work from home, so that you're not tempted when you walk by your 
desk and see that post and go I should pay attention that one. So tidy up your workstation and then take a few deep breaths and just release the day like just sit at your 
station and and acknowledge that you're done. During this deep breath part I like to adopt an end of day affirmation, and you can borrow mine I've been saying the same one 
for about 10 years now.

At the end of every work day I take a couple deep breaths and I tell myself you've done the best you can today and you'll try again tomorrow. That's my way of honoring that I 
gave my best, that I worked really hard today, whatever that looks like, right, some days we're more tired, it's still giving our best it just isn't as best service best.

But acknowledge that you gave your best you put forth good effort and you did as much work as you could and then tomorrow we'll pick this up again. But in between now and 
tomorrow, I'm not doing work i'm not because, ultimately, I need that break if I'm going to be good at work tomorrow.

I hear a lot of people were really pulled into work and they're working all day, every day, well, the unfortunate part of that is. They don't have enough energy to be 
effective, so they're always kind of drained and in the deficit versus if we really took a break and separated, well, we might come to work a little bit more energized a 
little bit more recharged and maybe we can get more stuff done. Alright next strategy I've got for you.

Like I said, Viktor Frankl talked about, our last freedom is the ability to choose our own attitude.And a lot of times the thoughts that we have we're not aware of, but 
those thoughts that we're having our guiding our behavior they're guiding our response, maybe they're even activating that stress response unnecessarily.

Because it's this weird thing where when we think thoughts when we say things to ourselves, it is like a dialogue within our own mind. So sometimes when stress happens, we 
tell ourselves I can't handle this this is too much.

If we do that our brain follows suit, our brain says "Oh, that is not a thing we can do don't try to pursue this." And it might even secrete some negative hormones, it might 
even turn on the stress response, because now there's a problem that we can't manage. So instead try to convert that thought to say how can I handle this let's ask a question. 
When we asked the brain of question it tries to find an answer it tries to solve it, so we can kind of brain hack by shifting the things we say to ourselves to get a better 
outcome. 

Similarly, we often go into all or nothing thinking black and white thinking it's you know everything is ruined or it's wonderful you know you see this maybe with kids where 
it's like if I didn't get an A then now i'm going to fail. Well that's not entirely true there's like several letters in between a an "F" so notice if you're doing that 
notice if you're catastrophizing making the very worst case scenario probable. And then shift that. Instead, try to find balance, it is very rarely all one thing or the other 
it's usually a combination of both right it's not good or bad, it is both good and bad and also neither.

So try to find the balance, try to find the middle ground, recognize when we are doing the black and white or nothing thinking and shift it. We call these "cognitive 
distortions". They are ways that my mind distorts my perception of the world and our goal is to reorient ourselves to what is actual and true. And the reality is the worst 
case scenario is usually very improbable and there's usually a lot of steps in between today and the worst case scenario.

So, as you start to notice that you're having these negative thoughts try to shift your thinking into more adaptive thoughts. Finding that balance focusing on what is real 
and present right now, instead of what we're worried about might come. That automatically will decrease our anxiety and stress, because most of the time what's present right
here, right now is not the big scary stressful thing. The worst case scenario is very rarely in this moment, I'm not saying it's not possible that it's coming, but if we 
focus right now on what's here and what the facts are that usually decreases our stress.

So now I'm going to teach you about the Vegas nerve and i'm told with closed captioning it is spelled like "Las Vegas". We're talking about a different type of "Vegas" nerve, 
this is a v-a-g-u-s nerve and it is a powerhouse in our body. The Vagus nerve is a big player in the parasympathetic nervous system, so earlier, I told you about the 
sympathetic nervous system that sympathizes with the stress and calls for a response. The parasympathetic nervous system is the part that turns on when the threat is over, 
when the body is okay and safe and can calm down. Again, part of the challenge of the last two years is that sympathetic nervous system has been activated over and over and 
over and over again, with very little activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, because it's just as though, one thing after the after the next keeps happening.

So what I would love you to do is kind of push the body's reset button that's what the Vagus nerve, is it helps us recharge and relax to kind of move out the chemicals of the 
sympathetic nervous system. So the Vagus nerve is this awesome nerve that connects the brain and many types of many oregon's it goes through our face it goes through our 
skull. It goes, all the way down her throat into her stomach and all of these major organs remember earlier, I showed you the picture of the stress response that had.

All of the organs that are part of the sympathetic nervous system will need that the Vegas nerve touches the same organs, but this time it calms it down. 

So we're going to try to activate this and for all of you who have heart rate monitors on I would love it if you would take a quick peek down and tell me what your heart 
rate is. You can go ahead and drop it in the chat and let us know where you're at maybe you're at a 78 maybe you're stressed out and you're at 100.

But I'm going to teach you how to stimulate your Vegas nerve and we're going to see what happens. See some people playing along with me, we got 8856 I don't know what's going 
to happen, we got a couple calm folks right now that's great.

75, 66, 77, 90. Yep! I'm curious to see and 90 and 80s what's going to happen so keep checking it and remember your number, because after we're done, I want to see if 92 came
down if 93 came down. And sometimes I do this exercise with people and it doesn't really change their heart rate or sometimes our heart rate goes up. So if that happens you're
not broken this will still work but remember the sympathetic nervous system stress is the body's response to change so right now i'm going to ask you to change the way that 
you breathe. Your body is still going to turn on that sympathetic just a little bit it's going to. "She asked me to breathe and we I don't know how" so sometimes your heart 
rate goes up if that happens that's okay. Just do more breath cycles, so I may guide you through it might be too short that's okay, you can keep going and see what happens I 
have absolutely been able to drop my heart rate by 30 points bpm.

So I use this when i'm in the dentist chair, or if you're getting a tattoo or if anything is stressful happening, you can use this and see what happens so right now I'm going 
to. Well, not yet it's coming so keep track your heart rate here, so when we stimulate the Vegas nerve, we can do it in a variety of ways I'm going to teach you one and just 
one more slide here.

But you can do things like putting cold water on your face or neck, you can take a really cold shower or jumping or really cold lake. You can also sing or hum because when we 
do, that the vocal cords actually run right by the Vegas nerve and it kind of massages it and turns it on.

You could do yoga that's good for us in so many ways it requires us to be present do deep breaths focus on our body and it activates that calming sensation from the biggest 
start.

You can also do laughter I was gonna say do laughter yoga but maybe you don't know what that is yet.

You can do massages and, most of us aren't going to be going to a professional massage every day, but you could keep lotion at your desk or I keep lotion next to the couch 
when I'm watching TV. And I like to give myself just a little hand massage right just rub right here, maybe give ourselves a little finger massage all of that again activates 
this whole body system of calming.

Laughter yoga I mentioned that, but you could also just pull up YouTube you could go talk to a friend who's funny right get on the phone just engage in something that makes 
you laugh.

You can also do supplements, not a doctor and I can't really talk to you about it but I'm just letting you know that they exist, and you could talk to 
your doctor about them.

But my favorite way to activate my sympathetic or my Vegas nerve is paste breathing, and this is what I'm going to guide you through.

So when we do paced breathing all we have to do is breathe, opposite the way that our sympathetic nervous system would ask us to breathe so remember earlier, I said 
sympathetic asked us to breathe short shallow and fast.

Paced breathing is the opposite so right now I want you to take your hands and put them on your belly. And we're going to practice just breathing in through our belly most of 
the time our breath doesn't go very far it doesn't go out of our chest, so when we want to activate that Vegas nerve let's take a big deep belly breaths.

Fill up the belly with air. Just notice, you can see your hands rising falling. You can do this with kids by lying on your back and watching your bellies rise and fall with 
the belly breaths.

So the first step is just to change the way that we're breathing physically and we're going to breathe into that belly in a way that we wouldn't if there was a lion coming to 
get us we don't want to waste time with that I need oxygen. And if I do big deep breaths not quite getting the same responses if they're short and shallow and fast.

The next thing is that we're going to slow the pace of our breathing I'm going to do that in a specific way.

But what we really want to focus on is exhaling very long, so if you take away anything today it's breathe, through your belly.

Breathe out very long slow and controlled study exhale so now I'm going to guide you through this exercise so I'd love it if you wrap up whatever you're doing and get ready to 
breathe with me.

What we're going to do is paced breathing. Where we will inhale for a count of three and then we're going to exhale for kind of six so it'll be slow. Really slow, really 
controlled, so its first close our eyes and I'll close my eyes, with you.

Let's just settle into our bodies, a little bit. Rotate your neck and release any tension that might be there. Then, just take a couple deep breaths all on your own. Just 
settle in. I'm a big fan of breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth.

Again that's not really how I would breath if a lion was attacking.

On your next inhale, I'd like you to breath with me. We're going to inhale for a count of three and exhale slowly for a count of six.

Ready.

Inhale 1-2-3. Exhale 6-5-4-3-2-1 Inhale 1-2-3. Release 6-5-4-3-2-1

Inhale 1-2-3.

Slowly exhale 654321. 

Now on your own count and I'll breath with you.

Slow exhale.

Now, you can open your eyes. You can drop your new heartrate in the chat. I'd love to know what it is and if it went up or down.  

Sheila says cool stayed the same 63 already resting that's a bit tricky went down to. Who went down nine okay yeah 66 that's a resting heart rate so it's in you can go lower 
but it just wouldn't be super uncommon. Down by for less tension and neck and shoulders 53 down 56 went down those are some good resting 68 down. Okay, so we can see the you 
know that the data would suggest that this works and sometimes you need to do it longer right if my heart rates at 120. I might need to do this a little bit longer my heart 
rate isn't going to automatically drop we just you know, we may need at least five breath cycles.

So just do this until you feel yourself relax. You can do it anywhere.I close my eyes, just because it decreases stimulus and kind of helps me focus on my breath. I would 
recommend you do the same if you can, but if you can't, at least just breathe. I literally was getting a tattoo the other day, and I was practicing this there's people around 
we were chatting. Nobody realized what I was doing, but I was activating this Vagus nerve and therefore activating my parasympathetic nervous system.

So what we just did is a form of mindfulness and I would be a terrible clinician and really betray my own personhood if I didn't tell you about this strategy because 
mindfulness is without a doubt, my favorite stress management strategy I've been using it for well over 12 years now.

And I've used it in a variety of settings I've worked with teenagers young kids adults. Highly functioning folks I actually remember a time when I was working at a different 
agency and we used to run a Mindfulness Wednesday, we would do mindfulness for the whole office and the CEO and the directors and everyone would come to the office, and we 
would all practice mindfulness.

And there was once a time when my coworker came to me and said, Tiffany, Chelsea and I are having a terrible day and really stressed out, but we need to do this curriculum, 
would you guide us through mindfulness to help us relax?" I said "yes I would love to." So we just did a quick  mindfulness. All mindfulness is is paying attention to the 
present moment in a particular way.

You can get fancy dancy with this there's lots of different strategies, but my favorite is breath, because I always have it, so I can get present with my breath by noticing 
it. I like to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth because it's one more anchor that I can attend to,it takes a little bit more energy for my 
brain to focus on that than just breathing normally.

So the goal of mindfulness is not to clear your mind clear mind, maybe a product of mindfulness like some of you reported that this felt great right, some of you reported 
that you were less stressed. That's the product of mindfulness. When we did paced breathing at no time did I say "don't think." That's actually very hard.

Instead, I said, think about this specific thing that is present, right here, right now.

That breath becomes what's called the anchor so when something tries to pull us like a big wave right if we're if we're a ship on the ocean and there's an anchor and a big
wave comes like maybe stress about that meeting tomorrow.

Then we just come back to the anchor, just like the ship would and it keeps us sort of in this space.

So the mind is going to wander just like that ship that's okay that's part of what a brain does and that's why the goal here is not clear mind. The goal is controlled 
attention.

So we noticed that we start to wander and we just come back you can pick anything for your anchor that is interesting enough that you can pay attention. But not so interesting
that you get lost in it so Facebook is a terrible mindfulness anchor. Instagram, Tick Tock, or any social media are poor anchors because they take no effort to focus on. 

Instead, things like physical sensations are great. If i'm in a meeting where maybe I'm feeling stressed out, I like to notice that if you put your hands on your thighs and 
and the back of your hand gets cooler.

And that's a mindfulness activity. It's just shifting my attention to something that is physical so we're observing information through our senses. We're also noticing the 
thoughts and feelings that we have the urges right earlier, I talked about. Shifting your thinking part partially we're doing that because we're mindful and we're aware 
right we take that moment we turn in and we go "oh! I am doing that black and white thinking that Tiffany was talking about."

And then, like Viktor Frankl said, between stimulus and response is that space where we can choose the response that space is what I would call mindfulness. And the more 
mindfulness you practice, the better, you are at accessing that space and the better, you are at picking an effective response. And if you really engage in mindfulness an 
awful lot Okay, this is not like a quick thing, but you can get to the point where you can turn the stress off.

I know there was once a time when I was showering and I was just ruminating and it was worrying about everything, I thought. You have a different option you don't have to 
worry about this right now, you can get present with what is. So in that moment, I chose to shift my attention away from the stress and the worry of what's coming. And I 
focused on the warm water and I gave myself a little scalp massage oil, I did my shampoo and I noticed how nice that felt and I observed how nice my shampoo smelled and how 
comfortable a shower actually is. And in that moment I diverted my energy away from the stressful thing that wasn't here and I focused on what is because here's the trick 
most of our moments are incredibly mind numbingly boring most moments of our existence there's not a whole lot happening.

And sometimes really uncomfortable with that, so we invite in the stress from tomorrow and the regret from yesterday and the trauma from yesterday we bring it here to this 
moment we say "Hey,that thing that happened three weeks ago, why don't you just come right here to this moment, let me worry about you, we don't have to.

We can just sit with this mind numbingly boring normal life and appreciate that most of our moments are boring they're neutral or even good. It is the case that our worst 
moments can be contained to those moments, and the stress that isn't here yet. But we're far better served if we slow down and we enjoy these good neutral moments, so that 
we're ready right, the more mindfulness we do, the more we tune into the goodness of life. The more buffered we are when that see gets really rocky and maybe pulls our ship 
around. So I don't have enough time to totally go into mindfulness I would love to teach you like a five hour class on it. But for now I would recommend that you tap into 
some resources and Kari just put them in the chat for me thanks Kari.

You can go on YouTube you can use Calm or an insight timer and you can actually set up apps that will cue you to do mindfulness. And I have an apple watch which  
used to say breathe and now it's time me to take like a mindfulness break. I love the shift. So use those when your watch cues you to actually do the thing do the thing 
there's also some books in the chat that Kari put for me, these are some of my favorite authors. I think you can read anything from Dan Siegel or Tick Naht Han. 
They're just kind of two different perspectives. Dan Siegel is more Western. And Thic Nhat Hanh is a monk. He writes some really good, accessible ideas or books on mindfulness. 

Study this practice it engage in it teach your kids. It is the best stress management strategy that I have ever known it actually changes the way that your brain functions, 
so that in the long term you're more able to navigate these stressful situations effectively.

And if you need some support if you want some help in maybe learning more mindfulness or maybe by the end of this webinar you're thinking whoa I am way more stressed out than 
I thought and I'm not navigating as well as I'd like, then reach out. 

You get three sessions per issue per year from a licensed mental health counselor like myself or Kari. It is really a small group of really passionate people who are 
committed to doing what we do so reach out to us and will support you.

You also have a lot of support on our website, there are resources like handouts there's old what former webinars and presentations so we have.

You know the recordings or PowerPoint slides that you can access there's a lot of different topics like suicide awareness and navigating change at work.

You also can get access to legal support and different resources so go check out the websites you actually really should, I think ap is something I didn't fully understand, and so I worked in the ap world but it's a really good resource available to you.

You can access this also by calling our 800 number. Again, that's 877-313-4455 and Kari put that in the chat as well as our website, which again is EAP.wa.gov.

And again, the EAP is a Washington state program it's accessible for you and any adult members of your family.

If you need support with children or teenagers, you can still reach out and we can give you some resources, but at this time we can't provide direct response or support to 
those adolescence.But please do reach out access these benefits and yeah I hope that this has been helpful for you.

So it looks like we're wrapping up here, which is two minutes if anyone has any questions go ahead and drop them in the chat I will end the recording now so if you have some 
questions that are maybe private, it will not be recorded, so let me go ahead and stop recording.