Tag: Remote working

Staying on Holiday at Home

This piece was first posted as the Mindfulness Virtual Drop-in from the University of Edinburgh Chaplaincy. You can subscribe by emailing mindfulness@ed.ac.uk. 

 

Staying on Holiday at Home

Scotland has shifted towards re-opening dentists, hairdressers, and cinemas. There are new possibilities for physically-distanced socialising, and staying somewhere overnight. And many of us are thinking: could I…might I…go on holiday?

As in: GO on holiday. Pack a suitcase, get in the car, get on a train. Marshal the hand sanitizer and the DIY masks. Buy too many snacks, and forget rubber bands to tie around the half-eaten ones, so that the bottom of your rucksack fills with peanuts. Take after-sun instead of sunscreen. You know the drill.

After nearly four months in lockdown, you may be desperate to escape the confines of your city or village; your bags are half-packed as you read this. Or you may be horrified at the thought of having to put yourself through all of the above, with an added dose of re-entry anxiety.

Rarely, in our University, have we had more people in need of a holiday, with less energy, clarity, financial means, or choice about it. And so more of us will be tucking the guidebooks out of sight, and staying at home this summer.

Staying on holiday at home – after a time in which you have been not so much working from home, as at your home, in a crisis, trying to work – turns particular features of ‘holiday’ upside down. There is none of that satisfactory change in gear that we used to get by arriving home and putting the work laptop in a dark corner with its notes unfinished, because it’s 7pm and you have a plane to catch. The boundaries are murky, if not gone.

‘Boundaries’ are so useful, because they don’t just mark things as different from each other – they create space in which each can flourish as it is. The work/home boundary is so useful, because by enabling us to put work away, we can attend to what’s important at home in its own right: cats, children, a homemade pizza, a courgette plant. This, in turn, enables us to recover more effectively from depletion at work – which often makes room for curiosity and creativity in our work.

So the boundary between work and holiday protects and nourishes both. But with more of us staying at home this summer, in spaces that have become pervaded by work, we will need to be creative about reclaiming holiday as holiday, and home as home. If, like me, you are staying at home for your break this summer, here is what to expect – and how to find rest, and maybe even some joy, in the midst of it.

 

1.     Holiday Dread

Holiday dread comes in many forms. You dread shutting down your emails, because work, with its structure and connection, has been a life-line. You dread taking time off because it only reminds you of the holiday you had to cancel. You dread having time to spend with and around your family or flatmates, because they need more from you than you are able to give right now. You dread taking a holiday, because you live alone, and the last thing you want is more time with yourself.

This is completely normal. If you have been under stress, and your holiday is impending, the mind triangulates every stressful moment from every holiday you’ve ever taken, and multiplies it by every awkward conversation, or loneliness, in the last month. Then it creates a prediction, based on this lovely subterranean machination, about just how dreadful the next two weeks will be.

Start to spot the mind’s predictions as they pop up in the mind. Notice how they attach themselves to those last bits of work business, as you finish up on a Friday. If you’re really rundown, they will even tag along to your moments of happy anticipation, just to make sure that you don’t forget that you should be worrying.

Be gentle with your mind in this moment; it is your age-old fight or flight system, trying to help. As you put away your computer, and cook yourself meals that aren’t pasta with pesto for the first time in weeks, those thoughts will begin to soften and settle.

 

2.     Holiday Bugs and Blues

If you’ve been ticking along at work, feeling a bit tired or grumpy, but basically doing ok, you may find that the first few days of your holiday are unexpectedly…not as great as that wonderful week you spent in the South of France, with the local red wine, and the market garden tomato salad.

Aches and pains may surface. Day two of your holiday sees you in bed with a migraine. The hayfever you’ve been combatting turns into a cold. (Hopefully not a cough.) And – you may feel lower than you expected. Small irritations explode into big ones, as you worry about the effect of iPads on a generation of small eyes and minds, and dread your inbox on your return to work.

As we start to relax, and the firefights of work and study fade, the new space gives way to what was waiting in the wings. Some of these can wait; others will make themselves urgently felt.

Give them space, gently. Wrap up your migraine in an eye mask and blanket; take your worries to a friend, on a walk. When you feel better, give yourself permission to put the irritation away. Thank goodness, at this time when the kids can’t hug their friends, that there is Peppa Pig – and Sally Rooney on iPlayer.

 

3.     Holiday Frenzy

As I wrote a few weeks back, when you’ve been looking forward to time off, it’s possible to get very excited about all the things you’re going to do. Your glass is not just half-full, it’s a glass of that wonderful red wine from the South of France.

Depending on your individual flavour of frenzy, you could be envisaging two weeks of: self-improvement, catching up on emails, Netflix, intensive home-schooling, or reading six months’ worth of Times Literary Supplements, which are currently sitting in the corner of the hallway still in their plastic wrappers. (No comment.)

We all wind up needing a holiday from our holiday from time to time. This year, of all years, it’s so important that we spend our precious time off doing what nourishes us, and reminds us who we are. There are many lovely things, big and small, in our lives – even amidst uncertainty, and sorrow. We want to be open to them, and allow them to fill up our drained and depleted minds and bodies.

And: we want to be gentle with ourselves. Your body has been sitting still, in a too-small chair, for a long time. Your mind has had to read pixelated faces for many months. Your heart has been troubled, and determined, in equal and often competing measure. This is tiring, and you may only come to understand how deeply so when you pause, and notice.

So be kind to yourselves, on your holidays at home. Allow it to be a holiday. Allow it to be home. Know that it will be messy – and that that’s just fine, and could even be quite fun.

 

© The University of Edinburgh. No part of this content may be used without prior written permission of the copyright holder.

When Zoom Fatigue Becomes Zoom Burnout

This piece was first posted as the Mindfulness Virtual Drop-in from the University of Edinburgh Chaplaincy. Open to all, you can subscribe by emailing mindfulness@ed.ac.uk. 

 

A couple of months ago I wrote about Zoom fatigue: that specific kind of tiredness created by hour after hour of meeting without meeting, presence without presence. ‘It’s the plausible deniability of each other’s absence,’ Gianpiero Petriglieri – professor of management at INSEAD – writes. ‘Our minds tricked into the idea of being together when our bodies feel we’re not. Dissonance is exhausting.’

Three months into lockdown, we hear staff and students reporting digital exhaustion of a kind that goes beyond fatigue. They describe finding it hard to look at faces on the screen, or feeling the urge to sit on the floor rather than a chair. Some struggle to sit still, or get distracted by pictures on the wall behind the computer. You may find yourself tapping your feet constantly, or crossing and uncrossing your legs; your mind going blank when the person on screen mentions something that upsets you; you may find that you look down, or to the side, rather than at the screen. Alternatively, you stare at your screen fixedly, while not hearing what is being said. You may feel, sometimes, that you simply cannot sit there for another minute.

All these experiences make perfect sense if you consider how our social nervous systems are being challenged on all fronts right now. We are already under strain from the effects of physical distancing; our usual repertoires of human contact and connection have been profoundly altered. We have not seen our colleagues or tutors in person for months. If you are a new start, you may not even have moved into your office. Don’t forget what happens after hours, too. We may be unable to hug grandchildren or parents, and those of us who are clinically vulnerable cannot take socially distant walks with friends. When we go out, we must read the eyes and foreheads of masked faces, and listen extra closely to muffled voices.

These challenges are important to acknowledge. Although some may seem to be different – more personal – than those of working and studying, they are directly affecting our neurological and psychological resilience for month after month of online meetings and studying.

So intervention is needed, because online work is going to be here for some time. The good news is that this is an adjustment period, not the final picture, and as we talk to each other and find out what works, we can pre-empt Zoom burnout, and lay the groundwork for sustainability instead. There is much that we can do – and here is some of it.

1.     Looking

Sit in the space where you usually take Teams calls, and notice what you see. Observe what is in your direct line of sight, and what is in the periphery of your vision: up, down, to the side. Where are your eyes drawn? If you are in a meeting and find yourself looking everywhere but at the screen, this is your nervous system seeking out regulation by looking elsewhere for comfort. It is not wrong, or a mistake. In fact, this is useful information about your state of mind.

Having noticed where your eyes usually go, you might put something nourishing in that place: a favourite postcard or houseplant, a pine cone, a keepsake. If your eye is drawn to a nondescript pile, you might tidy it.

Notice, too, if the position of your screen warrants some adjustment. Months on a laptop require the eyes to look forever downwards, drawing the head and neck down too. While aching shoulders and neck may ensue, this posture also – critically – physically mimics low mood. So if you haven’t already, you might consider a laptop stand (or a pile of books) and external keyboard, to protect your back, and your mental energy.

2.     Moving

On your next Teams call, notice if your body feels rigid, or restless.

If you find that you sit very still in your chair, the legs may also be clamped together, and the breath shallow in the chest. Your body is in ‘freeze’: you are the rabbit in the headlights, and the headlights are Microsoft Teams. Experiment with wiggling the fingers, and the toes. These are small movements, and no-one knows that you are doing them. But notice the effect: you may suddenly take a deep breath, or wish to yawn. Your legs may unclamp. This is your stress system down-regulating; try it little and often, and see what happens.

By contrast, you may be so restless that you can barely stay in your seat. This is your body wanting to feel safe, so start by tuning in to the sensations of the soles of the feet on the ground. Sense your sit-bones on the chair, supporting you. It may be helpful to clasp the hands together, in your lap, for a few moments, and then wiggle the fingers. After your call, have a good shake out and stretch, and pause for a cup of something before you continue with work.

On a restless day – or week, or month – see if it’s possible to take your calls while on a walk. Our bodies were born to move, and by working with them, we restore our sense of stability.

3.     Resting

‘But I have so many meetings,’ you think. ‘They are endless. I just can’t bear it.’

When you are at the brink of Zoom burnout, you may notice that the mind fills with preoccupation. Rumination swirls round and round in your head, much of it heavy and dark, and it follows you before and after your meetings. In order to keep up with work, you may find yourself cancelling Skypes with friends and family, because you can’t bear more time on the screen. Many of us will be going through days and weeks like this at the moment, and it’s a sign that some proper digital rest is needed, while we limp our way towards annual leave.

Thankfully, rest comes in many forms. Your attendance at some meetings may simply be unnecessary – so don’t go. Others can be worked around: take calls on the phone, where you can; on screen, try turning your camera off, and darkening your screen, like one of my colleagues. Sit on the floor, if you want to, and feel the ground beneath you, and the wall at your back. More of us will be doing all these things in the coming weeks and months, to make online working sustainable on a given day, and they are healthy and appropriate responses.

But if you find that your weeks drag on in this state of depletion, this is your cue to take a proper screen holiday. You may be surprised at what that looks like. Going into annual leave, I had a list of films I planned to watch. They’d be fun, I thought. But the days went by, and I walked, and rested, and caught up with friends, and when I looked at my computer, I thought ‘nah.’ (Eventually, I got through Matilda. In half hour increments.)

It all adds up: the fuzzy boundaries between home and work; the months apart from loved ones; the reliance on Netflix for down-time; the relentless march of Teams invitations. Be gentle with yourself, and experiment with the techniques above. Our mind-bodies are remarkably resilient and adaptive, even when they feel like they’re not. Their signals of discomfort and fatigue are their way of speaking to us; and when we listen, and make changes, and listen again, they bounce back with admirable facility.

So look, and walk, and stretch, and rest, with some of these practices. Take your holiday, and make it a lovely one this summer. You need it.

 

© The University of Edinburgh. No part of this content may be used without prior written permission of the copyright holder.

Zoom Fatigue: Staying Embodied Online

This piece was first posted as the Mindfulness Virtual Drop-in from the University of Edinburgh Chaplaincy. 

‘Shall we use Skype, Zoom, Teams, or Facetime?’ someone asked me wearily the other day. I was struck both by the dizzying multiplicity of the technologies we currently need for work and life, and by the weariness.

‘Zoom fatigue’ is officially a phenomenon, writes Julia Sklar for National Geographic – and this has come as a surprise to many of us. Yet across the board, students and staff report that online meetings are tiring in a way that in-person meetings are not. Staff describe needing more time to decompress after meetings, while conversations that in person would have been energising seem unexpectedly to drain.

Why is this? As Sklar explains, ‘During an in-person conversation, the brain focuses partly on the words being spoken, but it also derives additional meaning from dozens of non-verbal cues, such as whether someone is facing you or slightly turned away, if they’re fidgeting while you talk, or if they inhale quickly in preparation to interrupt.’

As social beings, this interpretation comes naturally to us and takes place below the level of conscious effort. But ‘a typical video call impairs these ingrained abilities, and requires sustained and intense attention to words instead.’ Online, we can’t see much of a person’s body language; if the lighting is poor, or the image pixelated, we don’t catch the details of their facial expression. In meetings with multiple people, the tiny images on Zoom remove even more of this information, while on Teams, we can only see the last few people to have spoken. We lose the sense of the people in the room, the energy, the mood, the interest.

Meanwhile, that sustained and intense attention to words is tiring, particularly as our attention is also being fragmented by video’s partial visual cues. When this happens, we are essentially multi-tasking, which is known to be psychologically stressful and inefficient. In a long meeting with lots of people, we may find ourselves mentally checking out, or becoming bored. When we ourselves feel unseen, it’s even easier to quietly disappear into some other task. We’ve all been in the meeting where someone’s emails are perfectly reflected in their spectacles.

A Tweet from Gianpiero Petriglieri, professor of management at INSEAD, seems to sum up the human challenge: ‘I spoke to an old therapist friend today, and finally understood why everyone’s so exhausted after the video calls. It’s the plausible deniability of each other’s absence. Our minds tricked into the idea of being together when our bodies feel we’re not. Dissonance is exhausting.’

Posted on April 4th, nearly 37,000 people have liked Petriglieri’s Tweet so far. It seems many of us are having this experience. So how might we reduce some of that sense of disembodiment and dissonance – that gap between what is, and what seems to be, in which boredom, irritation, dissatisfaction, and fatigue emerge?

1.     Remember Your Body

One approach is to check in with the felt sense of your own body throughout an online call. Notice the soles of your feet against the floor, the sensations of your seat on the chair, and the weight and contact of your hands in your lap or on your desk. When you begin doing this, it may feel like a surprise to remember that we have feet, or hands. This shows how disembodied the attention has become while online: pulled into the screen and trying to make out the nuances of facial expression; or pulled to the words, and straining to understand their conceptual content. You may pick up on this if you tune into your own body language: are you tilted or hunched forward on your chair, towards your screen? If apathy has set in, you may be slumped back completely. When you pick up on these, bring your attention back into the felt sense of the body sitting. You may also find it helpful to shift your posture; something to remind yourself that your body is here, sitting and breathing. This helps to close the ‘gap’ between body, sitting at your desk, and mind, in the substance of the call.

Over time, you may find that keeping some of your attention in the felt sense of your body sitting actually allows you to ‘receive’, with less effort, the meaning of the words being spoken in the call. Online you may not be able to tune into the nuances of others’ bodies or faces, but your own body picks up on more than you realise. Staying connected to it will help you process the cognitive and affective information being transmitted at the level of conversation.

2.     Take Time to Transition

A second approach is deliberately to take time to settle and ground yourself both before and after an online call. By acknowledging these transitions, they come as less of a surprise to your social nervous system. You might take a three-step breathing space before and after a meeting, to help you consciously clock the content of the mind, and step back into the present moment. For a long call, have a glass of water to hand, and check that you are comfortable and your back is supported in your seat.

3.     Move and Stretch

You may have noticed that when you hang up after an online meeting, you yawn, stretch, or sigh; this is your nervous system down-regulating, so follow the wisdom of its cues, and take some time to follow it through. For a short and structured way to go about that, this mindful movement practice is just 9 minutes long. If it’s been a particularly stressful or discombobulating meeting – or you’ve simply been online all day – this half hour of gentle stretching followed by a sitting practice could be just what’s needed to help bring your attention back into the body, and the here and now.

Zoom and its parallels are, in myriad ways, a complete boon at this time – and there’s growing awareness that particularly for those on the autism spectrum, video calls may actually be easier and less anxiety-provoking than large in-person meetings. But it’s also understandable that for many of us, with our social minds as human beings complexly evolved over millennia, the ramped-up use of video conferencing presents some unanticipated challenges. You’re not alone in this, so take time to breathe and move – and if all else fails, there’s Britain’s standard energy-lifting go-to: an old-fashioned cup of tea!

 

© The University of Edinburgh. No part of this content may be used without prior written permission of the copyright holder.