Stress Management

Staff who feel great have the potential to perform really well. Stress is endemic in the world today. Many people speak of managing stress, yet people remain in a state of high stress and spend a lot of time and money reducing the symptoms of stress instead of handling the causes of their stress.
Body Brilliance offers a unique philosophy on stress….. on what it is and some well tried effective tools for reducing it. Stress exists inside our thoughts and until we can be the observer of our thoughts and find ways to separate from our thoughts we are unable to free ourselves from stress. Simple breathing exercises, body awareness development, relaxation techniques and visualisation are just some of the tools a workshop with Body Brilliance will give you or your staff. This skill can be taught in a workshop format or experientially through weekend getaways. Body brilliance will format the structure according to your specific needs.

Work-life balance
People all over the world are struggling to find balance in their lives…. Doing enough work to get ahead, but still having enough time and energy for their families and their personal lives to thrive. Usually work wins and even if people make adjustments that shift this for a time, they struggle to keep the balance on a sustained basis. Finding balance is a dynamic process and it involves conscious living. People have to become aware of their programming and understand why they are tempted to put their own needs last instead of making them a priority. People are shown that their work thrives when their personal lives are in order and when their bodies are in balance, but the internal message of “more is better” or “quantity rather than quality” needs to be shifted, before people are willing or able to shift their actual behaviour.

Sometimes we get on the treadmill and have no idea how to get off, or are too afraid to get off in case we fall off the corporate ladder which feels so precarious to us. Becoming aware that when we expect to be appreciated for what we do and acknowledged for our efforts, and when we give ourselves the acknowledgement we deserve then we do not have to damage our health and exhaust ourselves to manifest success. We are more able to enjoy the work and produce our best because we are not working with exhaustion or from a place of fear and heightened anxiety. Many successful sports men and women report that they have manifested much of their success through visualisation and self talk, and that when they doubt themselves they do not perform their best. Overtraining they say is counter-productive. Business people need to be made aware of the same concepts….. when they are overworking and not in balance, they will be far less likely to perform their best and they will need longer to do the same task. They may drive the success they seek away from themselves.

Body Brilliance offers workshops to assist people to understand their mindset and their fears and through this attain a more heightened level of self awareness. The workshops give people the where-with –all to make choices aligned to their own well being. They teach delegates to ‘watch themselves’ and see themselves from the outside, so that they are able to be objective about the way they operate. They will also work on physical balance, this being based on the premise that when we are better balanced physically then we are also more balanced in our lives, or conversely if our lives are out of balance then this imbalance will manifest in our bodies. We can intervene on either plane. This is done through fun exercises using simple inexpensive equipment that can be purchased enabling people to continue the work at home. The awesome spin off is a strong core and everyone knows the advantage of having a strong core.
People often land up feeling resentful towards their companies when they are living out of balance and this resentment adds to the negative effects produced. Enabling them to see this resentment and deal with it is also part of the process. The body stores this and Body Brilliance will help people to see this energy in their body and work with releasing it, getting the physical feedback when they have and being aware for the future when the problem or a similar one re-presents.

What can Body Brilliance do for your company?
People are the biggest asset of any company and most businesses today are aware of the need to look after their staff’s physical and emotional needs and never more pressingly than now. Body Brilliance has a unique approach of combining these needs and approaching them from a combined place. Living and working in the world today is a challenge for most and there are pressures and strains coming from all sides, not least of them being overstimulation of the nervous system through the media, the ever developing telecommunications systems and the constant competition for attention. So the approach which can be custom made to fit your specific needs involves:

1. Posture analysis… an in depth understanding is developed of how to stand and sit for health and also an understanding of why poor posture patterns develop. A changed attitude or way of seeing the self or the world can make an instant difference to someone’s posture. Sad, despondent, dejected people are more likely to slouch than confident, happy self assured people. Ergonomics is discussed and people are shown how to minimise the strain they place on their bodies at work. They are taught ‘pause exercises’ to be done at their desks which can counter the stresses and the muscle imbalances that develop.

2. Understanding of core muscles, what they are and how to use and work them is created through a workshop type, fun exercise session, using inexpensive tools and props. Some easy to do, massively effective exercises are taught and perfected for ongoing use at home. People from numerous companies have reported that several months after workshops that they are still remarkable more aware of their bodies and their cores (ABSA, Keybase, BOE, Phizer, Merck among others)

3. Stress management is covered in detail….. people are encouraged to define stress as they see it and to discover much to most people’s surprise that the best way to mange stress is to define it each time it is experienced by naming the emotion it describes: overload, fear, uncertainty, insecurity etc. The next most effective way to manage it is to understand what thoughts are causing the event or experience to feel stressful and to change those thoughts. People are taught tools for doing this. Lastly they are taught effective breathing techniques and to work with the physical results they find in their bodies. People are encouraged to connect with their body consciousness and to work on a mind-body plane to let go tension and bring about relaxation.

4. Mind quieting and visualisation is taught. People are taught through breathing techniques and relaxation to focus in the moment and then are taught to use visualisation to find a ‘safe place’ where they are not judged and do not have to perform and to rest there for a while. They are taught to use their imaginations to create solace and rest. This works on the fact that the brain does not ‘know’ the difference between something done in reality and something done in the imagination and it secretes the same hormones and neuro-transmitters in response to an imagined experience as to an experienced one. So an imagined swim with dolphins or run on he beach can produce powerful relaxation.

5. People are encouraged to look at what exercise is fun for them and to engage in that .

6. A graph is drawn of people’s energy levels and the graph is interpreted and suggestions made on how to work with stabilising the energy levels at a consistently high level. This workshop may include nutritional analysis as well as time management, sleep patterns and much else.

This is just a teaser of what can be done for your staff and their well being. Can you really afford to neglect this?