“ THERE’S A LOT OF ENERGY THAT GOES INTO REWIRING THE BRAIN TO BE MORE RESILIENT, SO IT’S SOMETHING THAT WE STRATEGICALLY SHOULD BE CONSIDERING & BUILDING IN BEFORE A CRISIS OCCURS.”
AMY BRANN, FOUNDER & DIRECTOR, SYNAPTIC POTENTIAL
“Even 90 seconds of slow
breathing can affect our cortisol production,” she explained. “Taking a short break or getting out into nature are amazing for this. In addition, what we call social buffering, a quick positive interaction with someone else, just two minutes of genuine connection, measurably lowers our stress hormones.” She said the focus should be on
small, regular actions rather than storing it up until breaking point. “Managing stress daily is the
biological maintenance we need,” she said. “We cannot wait for an annual holiday. Those two- week breaks are really good and really important, but they’re not
enough to keep us well and in peak condition. We have to check on a daily basis that things are as they need to be, rather than wait and save it up.” She also described the concept of
resilience being less about enduring and more about recovering better. Planning for sleep, reflection, and connection increases productivity and reduces the risk of burnout, but it is something that we need to cultivate before a crisis hits, as it is hard to be resilient in the middle of extreme demand. “It’s a neural process. There’s a
lot of energy that goes into rewiring the brain to be more resilient, so it’s something that we strategically
should be considering and building in before a crisis occurs,” she said. “There are always things that happen outside of our control, but essentially, we want to be charging our battery before it dies. My question for you is, what is building your energy, and are you treating it as optional or essential?” She explained that building
resilience should be part of our daily strategy, so that when we do face tough times, we have a toolkit to use. “If we want more of something,
if we want to be better at something, then we likely need to be strategic about it and start investing in it,” she said.
HOW EXPECTATIONS CONTRIBUTE TO STRESS & BURNOUT Brann highlighted the critical role expectations play in wellbeing. A heavy or unreasonable workload is often blamed for burnout, but she explained that the demands that we place on ourselves, and the external pressure from others in the organisation, can also be significant contributors to stress and burnout. “One of the hidden drivers of
burnout isn’t workload so much as expectation, expectations of
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