 Ah, so yes, work-life balance and mindfulness, different names, same aims. This talk came about because I read an article in the Huffington Post and it posed that particular question. It was, is mindfulness the new way to talk about work-life balance? And I thought that was an interesting question, so I explored the topic further. I really do enjoy the whole sort of work-life balance, mindfulness, being more organised, that sort of topic. So this is what we're going to cover. So what is work-life balance? What is mindfulness? Is your life actually balanced? And how we can improve work-life balance? Before we get started, I do have a question for you. If you don't have paper, we actually have some paper up here and pens. And what we'd like you to do is just think about what you do for fun. Very broad question. We'd just like you to brainstorm that for a couple of minutes, even. We'll just see how far we get. OK, so you might want to think about that during the course of the seminar. You're wondering what the point of this is. We're actually not going to tell you until the very end. But there is a point, I promise. So our next question is about work-life balance and mindfulness the same. So Tamsyn over there is going to write your definitions of work-life balance and mindfulness. So if you just want to shout out what you think work-life balance might be. How would you define it? How much time you spend at work and how much time you spend doing the things you enjoy? Mm-hmm. Yep. OK. Someone else had their hand up. Yep. OK. So boundaries between work and home. Any other definitions? Anyone got something a little bit different? We're going to just be uncomfortable within yourself around the balance area. Ah. Lack of stress? Lack of stress entirely? Or... OK. So you feel comfortable with the balance. And yeah, a bit of lack of stress though. It can be too much stress. Work is required. So do your personal priorities? Yes. And what about mindfulness? How would you define that? Being present. Being present? Being with all five senses? What else? Anything else? Be where your feet are. Oh, I like that. Sorry, I missed that. Be where your feet are. I really like that. It struck a chord, obviously. Anything else? I think that encapsulates it. Do we think then that work-life balance and mindfulness are the same? No. There is an overlap, isn't there? And we will explore that tonight. I covered all my bases there. So what is work-life balance? So what it isn't, and I think, actually it's already been talked about, it's not equal. There's not equal balance. It's not like you have to get a perfect score of five every single. It's not equal balance. It's not like you have to get a perfect score of five every single aspect of your life. It might even change daily. It can vary over time, even daily, in terms of sort of that balance for you. And then there's no perfect one-size-fits-all. So what I think is good work-life balance in Tamsin would change for Natalie, for example. So what is it? Meaningful daily achievement and enjoyment in each of my four-life quadrants. Work, family, friends and self. And I think some of those definitions we're heading in that direction. So I guess the question is do you feel like your life is actually balanced? Ta-da! We're going to get you to do another exercise. And this is what you will be doing. So this is a wheel of life. So what we actually want you to do, so on this one you can see in the middle there is zero, then we've got five and then we've got ten. And this person has decided that their roles and the areas of their life, a sports player, team member, colleague, manager, mother, father, I don't know how they can be both, partner, health, career, work, friend and community leader. And so we actually want you to have a go at doing this yourselves. So really what you need to do is to look at roles or areas. So roles it might be, yes, you might be a partner, you might be just your individual, you might be a brother or a sister. So think about those roles. Then think about the broader areas. Could be career, could be education, could be family. Think about the areas, and it can be a combination of both of those. But think about what's most important to you. Think about your own personal values because your combination is actually going to reflect your personal priorities in life and your values. Then think about the amount of attention that you're actually allocating to each area. And as Peter said, the values scale of 0 to 10, 0 being lowest, 10 being highest. And looking back again to this, 10s are on the outside, 5s in the mid and 0 right in the centre there. Once you've marked the scores for each of those, then join it up. So again, I'll just flip back. So you get it joined up like that. Once you've done it for your current present tense, then think about your ideal levels. And what we want you to do is to have two different sets of scores. One for where you feel you are currently and what your ideal level is. And I won't give you any more instructions because that's enough for now. So I'm going to flip back to this so you can get a sense of this again. So that could be your present one for what you desire, your ideal is. It's an individual exercise, but you can talk to the person next door to you if you wish just to get some ideas. So most of you have got to the action stage, I think. So you're considering what actions you might take to gain balance. That Huffington Post article I was talking about actually asked the question, who's responsibility it is. So if you have a look at those actions, are they your responsibility or is it someone else's responsibility? So work-life balance, we usually actually talk about our employer. We do a survey of students and ask them what they most want from an employer, what would entice them to actually take a job. And work-life balance comes up a lot as though it's the employer's responsibility. Yeah. Or is it theirs or is it ours? It is true that an organisation's culture can definitely affect work-life balance, but we also have to take some responsibility ourselves. So aligning your priorities in life and your values with your work. Also, setting and communicating boundaries, which is really, really difficult. And then there's the whole managing stress. So before, when we were talking about definition, stress came up. And then the whole pay attention to what you're doing while you're doing it. So those last two in particular might sound similar to mindfulness. So that brings us to the definition of mindfulness. Mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment with openness, curiosity and without judgement. And I think that that's what we were talking about on there. So it's being present where of all five senses be where your feet are. So I think that fits really nicely in with that particular definition. There's two parts to mindfulness. So it's actually learning to focus attention on one thing and being able to bring the attention back when your mind gets distracted. A mind is very, very easily distracted and the whole thing with mindfulness is actually being able to bring it back. It's like your brain's a muscle and every time you bring it back you're actually getting better at mindfulness and more focus and attention. And then also it's the attitude though. It's that attitude of being open and being curious, being able to pay attention. Open, non-judging and curious about what you're focusing on. So it's both of those things. Mindlessness is the opposite of mindfulness. So I'm sure we've all had that experience, frightening to think, but you're driving, you get home, you have no idea how you actually got there. Or you have no idea if all those lights were green that you drove through. And then there's also that one, work one, eating lunch at your desk. That might be a conscious choice. Is your employer making you or is it your choice and is it your responsibility to do that or not do that? So they're examples of state of automatic pilot and we go through life a lot on automatic pilot. We were going through the motions in our mind and we're disconnected from our body. I went to the gym before and I was actually thinking about tonight's presentation and so when we were supposed to skip machines I was still thinking about tonight and I kept going on that one particular machine. I was an automatic pilot which is actually really good when you're in the gym. So who's responsible for the mindfulness? So with work-life balance we think it's both of us. Some would argue and in that Huffington Post article he certainly did that it's personal responsibility. That it starts with personal responsibility and then radiates out to your colleagues and your family, your relationships. But if we go back to those choices so those first two in particular you really need self-awareness and those last two I think it's sort of definitely mindfulness but there's a lot of overlap. If it is individual responsibility how come all these organisations are now mindful organisations? And these are just a small sample. Mindfulness is definitely infiltrating work. Counties Manukau Auckland District Health Board, EY0, Callaghan Innovation and then we've got places like Apple, Google, UK Government. They're becoming more mindful as well. So there must be some benefits and once again work-life balance and mindfulness it looks like it's the responsibility of us but also the organisation and its culture. I think I will answer that question but if I don't, yeah. You may have heard this word mindfulness. It's become something of a buzz phrase of late. I'm going to give you one simple serviceable definition which is this. Mindfulness is the ability to know what's happening in your head at any given moment without getting carried away by it. Imagine how useful this could be. That is an example. Driving down the road and somebody cuts you off in traffic. How do you normally react? I think most of us we normally react by having a thought which is I'm pissed. And then what happens next? You immediately, habitually, reflexively inhabit that thought. You actually become pissed. There's no buffer between the stimulus and your reaction. With just a little bit of mindfulness in that same situation you might notice my chest is buzzing, my eyes are turning red. I'm having a starburst of self-righteous thoughts. I'm getting angry. But you don't necessarily have to act on it and chase that person down the road screaming at them with your kids in the back of the car thinking you've gone nuts. Now, you might be thinking don't I need to get angry sometimes? Aren't I justified? I would say yes, but probably not as much as you think. The proposition here is not that you should be rendered by mindfulness non-judgmental blob. The proposition is that you should learn how to respond wisely to things that happen to you rather than just reacting blindly. And that, my friends, is a superpower. How do you get it? The way to get it is through meditation. I believe that meditation and mindfulness are the next big public health revolution. In the 1940s if you told somebody you were going running who's chasing you. But then what happened next? The scientists swooped in. They showed that physical exercise is really good for you. And now all of us do it and if we don't, we feel guilty about it. And that's where I think we're headed with mindfulness and meditation. It's going to join the pantheon of no brainers like brushing your teeth, eating well and taking the meds your doctor prescribed for you. Let me just close by saying if a non-stop parade of unicorns and rainbows, nonetheless, this is a superpower. And one that is accessible by you immediately. So I've got to link at the end. But those, that video and another one I will show you later are all on the University Health and Wellness page. So the benefits of mindfulness. So it's a tool. It can help you reduce worries, anxiety, stress, give you more energy, sense of calm. Sort of sounds too good to be true really, doesn't it? Help you learn to relax, regulate your emotions, creativity, enhance awareness, improve concentration, productivity, develop a sense of empathy and connectedness and enjoy better health and sleep. So they actually have done brain scans and have found physical changes in their brains when they practice mindfulness on a regular basis. Terms of sort of like what a mindful organisation might look like it depends on the organisation. Some of this would embrace this whole heartedly and in a little while I'll get on to meditation and whether that's mindfulness. So some regular meditation, others it's an optional programme. So it looks different in different places. But they are certainly embracing some of the organisations are really embracing this. Just the same as they're embracing other sort of elements of health and safety. And Auckland District Health Board I personally experience the fact that they're giving out mindfulness as a prescription. I have a bit of an issue with blood pressure when I go in for, I get white coats syndrome essentially. And I was going in for surgery earlier this year and I said how can I avoid just about being turned down for surgery like happened to me previously. They gave me a mindfulness meditation. I was still stressed when I went to the surgery. But my blood pressure was not crazy high it was just a little high. And so I said to the anesthetist and she said, yeah thank goodness because we had all the notes about what you were going to be like. And now they suggest so many people do that and they are seeing the benefits across the operating theatres invisibly. So yeah, I thought it was a load of tosh frankly before I did this but now I actually do but I'm a believer. And that leaves me beautifully into the science of it. I'm glad you laughed at the last video this one. I can't say it's a funny video but I think it's very motivational. My name is Craig Hassett and I work at Monash University. Based originally in the department of general practice. Mindfulness is very simple. It has to do with paying attention to the present moment to our life as it unfolds but also cultivating an attitude with which we pay attention. Researchers and psychologists start to adapt mindfulness to help people with chronic and relapsing depression and when those studies started to come out showing major reductions in relapse rates other people start to take it seriously and literally on the back of the research it's just gone up exponentially since the early 2000s. To the point that say last year alone in 2016 there were just under 700 new papers published in referee medical psychological journals. One of the interesting things and the challenging thing for people is how mindfulness can have profound effects on their physical health. Now to understand that we need to understand a little bit about the fire-to-fly response. So for a short period of time we're faster and stronger and we'll have more endurance than we normally have. Now the unfortunate thing is that when we're not mindful we often activate that response when we don't really need it. So one of the people to really put this on the map the chronic effect of this over-activation is low physiological wear and tear like fogging the car day in day out and that's associated with the poor immune function. We get less defence against coughs, colds, infections, we're more likely to get sick during periods of our stress or we get more inflammation in technical terms immune dysregulation. Metabolic effects, blood pressure blood glucose, blood lipids are out of whack. It thins our bones. It increases the rate of athrose to the roses to heart and get the arteries that leads to heart attacks and strokes and so on. If we want to accelerate ageing this is how to do it but it damages the brain as well. So these stress chemicals day in day out damage areas that are very important like the hippocampus so that's our learning and memory centre of the brain and the prefrontal cortex so that's working memory and executive function. These are our higher functions and damaging those areas of the brain is not what we want to do. And so on psychological emotional stress has even been found to go right down to the DNA of ourselves. So Elizabeth Bakburn an Australian woman who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2009 for discovering telomeres she and her team Eliza Repel particularly prominent among her team have found that overactivating this response accelerates the ageing process as measured by a DNA in terms of telomere length. So we can be about a decade older by middle age if we've got high levels of anger and hostility and stress and so on compared to somebody who might have the same situation in life but is getting less stressed and reactive over them. The interesting thing is when we practice being more mindful then it switches off these distracted default circuits it engages the sensory areas and the attention centres of the brain and when we're sitting down practicing mindfulness meditation those centres in our brain are getting a work out and it's like they're going to the gym they're lifting some weights they're on the treadmill. It starts to have a whole range of positive effects on the health so we get immune regulation so better immunity we're less likely to get sick with coughs, colds, infections switches off excessive inflammation take stress off the cardiovascular system switches down cortisol all the damage that has on the bones. Elizabeth Bakburn and her team have been doing work on that and a whole series of studies that started the first one published in 2009 that showed that mindfulness switched on the repair enzyme called telomerase and has been found to slow down the rate of aging down to the DNA of the cells. If that was a drug that would be a blockbuster drug. I'm not so happy but definitely motivational I think. So they talked in both of those videos about meditation and I used to I went to the Shreem noise centre this is years ago to learn how to meditate and I felt like an utter failure because I kept thinking about having what I was going to do afterwards having to pick up dinner et cetera et cetera instead of focusing on the rows that we were supposed to be focusing on so I always thought I couldn't do meditation failure for this video and also there's an app called Headspace there's also the Smiling Mind app which I've got links to in the presentation at the end for you and I listened to the app and I watched this video and I thought ah! I was actually doing it right all along I just didn't realise Despite what you may have heard meditation does not involve joining a group, paying any fees wearing any special outfits sitting in a funny position or anything in particular it is simple, secular scientifically validated exercise for your brain you don't have to do it yet but just so you know here are the three steps one, sit with your back straight and your eyes closed two, notice the feeling of your breath coming in and going out pick a spot where it's most prominent usually that's your nose or your chest or your belly going in and going out as soon as you try to do this your mind is going to go nuts you're going to start thinking about what am I going to have for lunch why did I say that dumb thing to my boss your brain is going to go nuts and that's fine the whole game is to notice when you've gotten lost and to start over and then to start over again and again and again every time you do that also by the way a radical act you're breaking a lifetimes habit of walking around in a fog of projection and rumination and you're actually focusing on what's happening right now meditation is unlike anything you do in the rest of your life failure is actually success as I said the whole game is just trying failing, starting again failing, starting again here's my advice you should be meditating every day 5 to 10 minutes a day that's it this doesn't require some giant investment I don't care how busy you are you have 5 to 10 minutes to give this a shot I guarantee you it will make a big difference if you find yourself slipping and not able to do that I think all you need to do is look at that science video again every time I watch it it kind of freaks me out a little bit oops sorry so is mindfulness just meditation so not everyone wants to meditate and so do you have to meditate and is that the only way to be mindful meditation is the formal practice of it but there's also informal mindfulness as well so meditation, formal practice we meditate to strengthen our mindfulness skills so that's what that does but there's informal ways of doing it too walking running, cooking eating and having coffee with a friend on Monday and at the cafe besides the coffee sometimes they have those little cookies or a chocolate covered bean or whatever it is and this was actually apricot and it was really nice so we were talking and then I had it and I was eating it and I was enjoying the flavours and she was chatting to me and she picked up the little apricot thing and she ate it and she was talking she didn't taste it at all so mindful eating is actually really tasting it enjoying it savouring it and it's just being aware of the textures and everything else and yes I heard a life coach who's actually a trained psychologist and he does executive coaching for extremely high powered executives and one of the things he does is he goes out to dinner with them but they can't speak neither of them speak they have to just focus on the meal and so for 15-20 minutes they just sit there silently eating their meal then at the end of the meal he actually discusses and the revelations that people get through that of what food tastes like of what actually they can think about while they're eating some people it's a bit a radical act just eating because they're actually putting their full body and mind into it and there's also such thing as walking meditation as well or walking mindfulness which is pretty much what it sounds like instead of just walking along and listening to your music it's actually when you're walking it's feeling the ground beneath your feet it's playing the tension on your face or the sunshine and actually noticing your surroundings Terms in and I did it in Albert Park and the things that we saw in that park that we'd never noticed before no not like that but there was a bit of that well yeah okay we'll make that but things like birds and the blossoms and even just the trunks the tree and the bark on the trees and the patterns it formed was stuff that we'd never noticed and the stuff we heard too because we heard stuff outside the park so the traffic there were bills I think there was a clock tower going stuff that usually you just tune out but actually that we were really heard all sorts of stuff it was mind blowing experience wasn't it so it doesn't have to be that formal meditation it could be that and I actually know a student who instead of sort of like doing 5-10 minutes a day he actually when he's studying and if he's doing an assignment and he starts feeling a bit stressed he'll just stop and just focus on his breathing for a few minutes and then he'll get started again so there's lots of different ways of doing it yeah the playing the music one another thing that you can do is sing silently to yourself but visualise the words as well as what you're singing and visualise the spelling of the words and the shape of the words and all of a sudden you're concentrating so much on the visualisation that actually the stress starts to go away because you're really really getting into the nitty gritty of the shape of the words and those sorts of things so there's all sorts of different little tools that you can use to reduce your stress and be a much more mindful person so that list that we had you have a look at at the beginning if you have a look at that list now and just think about whether some of those can be mindful activities and then the other thing Tamsin is giving you a handout and you might be able to find some of those activities on that handout and that handout will actually tell you what type of addict you are so just as an example I was talking about clearing out clutter so that means I'm getting a serotonin hit when I do that or I was talking about my to-do list that means I'm getting ahead of dopamine does anyone want to share what they're addicted to you might find that there's sort of in terms of that list where it's more of the serotonin activities or the dopamine activities you will see some crossover so exercise features in a number of different areas I'm so stoked just by something like going to the gym if you're wondering about coffee it's endorphins and dopamine and what you're sort of doing with those sorts of activities is it's activating the parasympathetic nervous system so it's empathy empathy increases your tolerance increases wider perception improve your immunity it sounds very much like mindfulness really it helps your cells repair and rejuvenate relaxes your muscles slows your heart rate slower and calmer lungs improves your digestion and even decreases blood pressure so all of those sort of activities and the different chemicals that they release within moderation some of those could become addictions anyone want to share their list yeah I'm a real mix between the serotonin and oxytocin the hugs and the sharing of meal and the people oriented things I'm a mix between the serotonin and the dopamine but there's elements of the others in there as well anyone else? and a lot of these when you look at it whether it's the exercise whether it's hugging whether it's sharing a meal all of those things can be done mindfully so then that would increase the pleasure and increase the hit of chemicals that you would be getting there's no one that's better and we're all a mix and as I said there's some crossover so like exercise comes in there in a number of different ways but we are getting chemicals in ways we didn't realise so if you go to a cafe and you're surrounded by people you get a chemical release so that's why people go to work in cafes and they find their productivity increases even if it's a total they don't talk to anyone, they're on their own we're actually getting chemicals we're just addicts basically we just don't realise and social media don't keep me started on social media and mainly dopamine yes so if you get a like so you go and check your Facebook and someone likes or makes a comment and it also some of them manipulate you like LinkedIn to actually complete the profile because we love to complete things dopamine it's been in the present moment and it's not thinking about what you're doing the next day it's being present with your friends enjoying it not worrying about whether the souffle is going to collapse or not but actually but actually being present with your friends and designing it in a way that you don't have to worry about those sorts of things so it's being where you're fita I love that and it's also not having your phone on so it's those sorts of things as well it's being actually in the moment so we were at a restaurant the other night and besides wonderful food they also had really nice cocktails and we enjoyed ours and then we saw one being served that was in a tube and it was blue and it just looked fantastic it was about this tall and the person that it was put in front of was on her phone we were looking at it in Marvel and she was on her phone and even when she did look up I never saw her smile or notice it at all and these weren't cheap cocktails either and I just couldn't get over that she definitely wasn't mindful okay so we started with our work balance and mindfulness the same and the answer is we came up with a new definition hopefully we'll show we combined the two kind of cheated so we do so these resources the PowerPoint will be sent out to you so we do have some resources for you so the university health and counselling that's where those happy videos were the not so happy video is on smiling mind website and there's actually an app that you can download which is free I think it was originally designed for students but now it's for all different age groups they've got a range of ages the headspace app is there's a 10-day free course but then you've got to pay for it Ministry of Business Innovation Employment has a little bit about work-life balance and the benefits for employers and employees and then the article that kind of made us all think about this workshop is the post one down the bottom because I do enjoy my box the first one there is actually called unsubscribe and it's about email anxiety and it gives you tips for email anxiety which I don't think you can be have work-life balance if you have your emails going to your telephone for example and if you continually checking them on the weekend it's about unsubscribing and it's about training the people that receive emails from you about what to expect so if you keep answering them straight away they'll expect you to respond straight away but if you kind of train them that'll take half a day or a day set up those expectations but it's available as an e-book as well as paper as well and I think it's really interesting and I'm not sure if it was out of that book but I think it was average about 54 times a day people will check their emails just think of what you could do of training a bit more work-life balance if you weren't checking your emails quite so many times each day there is actually an app lots of apps around that you can download onto your phone to actually figure out how many times you actually look at your phone which for some people could be really frightening the happiness project I threw in because I just really love the book she basically takes a different aspect of her life every month and tries and improves it so one of them is decluttering for example so for a month she just focuses on that one thing which is mindful or another month she focuses on a new hobby another month it's a book group it's just a really nice book it's easy to read but I love the way she just does one thing per month doesn't try to overextend herself and then the other two are highly recommended the life matters creating a dynamic balance of work, family time and money and then deep work is about focusing it's all about focus and concentration and deep work so once again be mindful not multitasking focusing on the one thing and that is the end of our presentation thank you do you have any questions is there a certain time of day that's best to do that not really it's whenever you can squeeze it in but often things like that are easy to do in the morning so you've got more willpower for a start and your mind is clearer if you think of willpower as a bucket when you've had a good night's sleep the bucket of willpower is full by the time you get to night that bucket might be empty so that's why you can stick to your diet during the day or go to the gym earlier in the day and at night time you stand in front of the fridge open it and you eat everything inside your bucket is empty until you've had another night's sleep so probably morning yep there's a great I made in the beginning an entry into your diet it's my book and it's true and it's taken all the side to the side of meditation so who was that Robert Wright why Buddhism is true I've just noted that down we can add that to the resources anything else okay thank you very much thank you