Josh Jeffries discusses the mental health and wellbeing challenge created by the new digital world.
I heard a seminar recently in which the speaker claimed that the tech boom of the mid 00’s will go down as one of the most pivotal periods in the whole of human history. Facebook arrived in 2004 and changed the face of social media. Twitter arrived a couple of years later, disrupting the same industry by confining us to 140 characters. The iPhone arrived in 2007, which gave us mobile access to both of the above platforms, games, online banking and…well, everything you could think of and more.
However, amidst the incredible breakthrough and technological advancement, it is widely recognised that the digital age has thrown up challenges to our mental health and wellbeing that we’ve never faced before. Perhaps the most characteristic challenge being our total dependency on smart phones and our subsequent inability to ‘switch off’ by switching off our screens.
Remote access to your company hard drive, mobile access to work emails and the synchronisation of work and private calendars all contribute to the blurred lines between the professional and the personal. When work invades your private life, it can be incredibly challenging to carve out time to rest well and reflect productively on ‘where you’re at’.
How to recharge
I find it fascinating hearing about the different ways people take time out to recharge. Some methods – like mindfulness for instance – can be incredibly helpful. However, more often than not our rest times literally involve ‘switching off’, which is fine to a certain extent but can also leave us feeling like our life is simply ‘happening’ to us, rather than something we’re consciously living.
So we get home from work and kick back on the sofa with a decent TV series, or get lost in a good book before bed. We get away for the weekend and enjoy doing nothing but eating, drinking and sleeping. Ironically, some of us complain about staring at a screen all day, but then get home and switch our gaze between three screens for the rest of the night (TV, laptop and mobile in case I lost you!).
Sometimes we need to stay switched on in order to switch off.
I recently became painfully aware of this in my own life, during a period of gradual emotional and mental burnout. It became apparent that I wasn’t productively dealing with various issues I was facing, but rather choosing to soldier on living my life either in a state of ‘on’ or ‘off’. I was just about ‘on’ at work and just about ‘on’ with my wife and friends, though feeling pretty vacant and functioning with very little capacity. When I was ‘off’, I could usually be found in my own world, in the world of twitter, or in front of a screen in a world created for me by HBO or Sky Atlantic.
The wheel of life
It became apparent that an interruption was needed, and it was during this period of my life that I was reminded of a coaching tool that was introduced to me a couple of years a go.
Some call it ‘the wheel of life’; I prefer the ‘the balance of life wheel’. Regardless of what you call it, this is a simple tool that can be used as a self-coaching tool or as a peer-to-peer coaching method.
The exercise involves dividing your life in to eight defining segments as determined by you, e.g. work/career, social life, romance, health/fitness, family, leisure/fun, finances, personal development, etc.
Once you have mapped these out, you rate each segment out of 10 depending on how satisfied you are with each area, reflecting as you go on the reasons why you have landed on that given score.
Once you are finished, you will have a wheel, which – if you’re anything like me – will likely look something like this:
The idea is to use this illustration to reflect on the balance (or imbalance) of your life and to see which areas you may need to adjust in order that other areas might thrive.
Ask these questions
Here are some typical coaching questions you can ask yourself or your peer to take the exercise a little deeper:
- How do you feel about your life as you look at your Wheel?
- How do you currently spend time in these areas? How would you like to spend time in these areas?
- Which of these categories would you most like to improve?
- How could you make space for these changes in your life?
- What help and support might you need from others to make changes and be more satisfied with your life?
To wrap this exercise up, identify one action you are going to take having reflected on the state of your wheel. Sometimes the simplest interruption to our life rhythm can completely change the game and help to restore some balance to our often chaotic lives.
The point is this: sometimes 30 minutes spent in silence with a pen and paper can bring a greater sense of rest and perspective than an entire evening of the usual routine.
I’ve found that I enjoy the latter far more once I’ve invested in the former.
Feel free to get in touch with me directly on josh.jeffries@acre.com if you’d like to discuss the above, or if you’d like to explore some coaching through our assessment and development service, Acre Frameworks.
DIGITAL WORLD – the amazing and wonderful IOT just so often impaired by Computer Vision Syndrome or Screen Fatigue as we exceed our DSE work exposure limits (WEL) everyday.
As we approach the Silver Jubilee 25 anniversary of the ineffective UK DSE Regulations it is sort of sad that the ‘powers that be’ still continue to promote the occupational health myth that ‘it’s’ debilitating harm / injuries are nothing more than “TEMPORARY” even through the eye-strain alone lasts for three hours or more after you come off-screen.
Even though late night use operation is a causal factor in disrupting sleep patterns resulting in milder to more serious symptoms of sleep deprivation, tiredness, fatigue, cognitive deficit, increased error rates, mishaps and potentially accidents along with longer latency risks of life changing non-communicable diseases due to the stress impairing our immune system.
Does it have to be this way ? Is the inevitable evolutionary and predictable human stress related adaptation of becoming “one eyed and legless” in order to sustain seated immobility trapped in front of the ubiquitous standard black on white sub-optimally calibrated DSE or, are the ‘powers that be’ going to act, at long last, and accept that the equipment interface aught to or should be automatically Visually Risk Assessed and optimised, adapted or customised for each individual user operator ?
Since the demise and replacement of the old fashioned CRT green screen VDU with fully calibratable, if that’s a word, full colour display screen equipment, and now super slim, any size you like, flat screens, it has not followed or not been seen as an imperative custom and practice to do anything more than risk assessment the physical workstation ergonomics.
It just has to beg the question why ? When it has been known and a self-fulfilling prophesy that the loss in performance and productivity of DSE operators averages 20% and predictably the majority of users will manifest WULD’s & MSD’s, over time, resulting in additional costs of ‘down-time’ as a direct consequence of their continued presenteeism.
Perhaps, someone, anyone could shed some light or rational for accepting 30bn costs of CVS and resultant presenteeism simply because no one seams to want to challenge the denial and/or omissions to do anything about CVS Screen Fatigue in education or the workplace ?
Totally concur with the above post. Personally I have found a useful strategy: I turn off my WiFi at home shortly after arriving back to ensure I just download my personal emails, check them for a defined period and then switch off for the rest of the evening. This has improved my sleep quality and cost the vast sum of ………… well nothing actually! food for thought?
‘Personal Safety’ and/or occupational health seems to be something human resources and HR skip over, paper over the cracks and maintain denial that it has anything to do with them, especially as, ‘the powers that be’ managed to exclude the very thing it says on the 1993 DSE Regulations “Tin” treating display screen equipment as just part of the office furniture.
To paraphrase whether 1974 Act or later 1989 PUWER Act, 1990 EU Manual Handling & DSE Directive, 1993 as above or the killing off of the New 2012 EU MSD Directive no one wants to know about Screen Fatigue or CVS regardless of the weight of research or being declared a Global Pandemic when all anyone has to do is subjectively or intuitively customise their screen setting for their ease of access and visual comfort.
There any number of sites guiding you through the process from “My Computer My Way” to more objective interactive screen fatigue tool-kits but, so long as the victims of sub-optimally calibrated display screens fail to report the debilitating symptoms the longer Screen Fatigue will impair their wellbeing, performance and productivity exacerbating work-related stress.