As Covid-19 continues to spread ruthlessly across the globe, governments have enforced lockdowns in countries to slow the infection rate. And this has meant restricted movements of people and work from home. As the globe’s population practises self-isolation and social-distancing, the lack of the familiar can lead to further stress and mental health issues. Establishing coping mechanisms to deal with anxiety and depression during these times is crucial. Healthcare practitioner and counselling psychologist, Nkateko Ndala-Magoro, through the South African Depression and Anxiety Group’s Facebook platform, lets us in on five self-help strategies to deal with depression.



Get active: “It is hard I know to stay active while you are confined. The benefits of staying active is the release of feel good hormones that are in contrast with the hormones that exacerbate depression. Being active also helps regulate your heart beat; for people suffering from anxiety, the regulation of breathing might help with the severity of the anxiety/panic attack.”



Take time to sleep: “I know people are already feeling like they do not have any more positions of sleep because of sleeping too much during lockdown. I encourage that people get as much quality sleep as possible in this time. Sleeping has benefits on our health and wellbeing in general, let alone on our mental health on many levels.”



Read: “Keep yourself busy by reading. There is a wealth of information in books. There are many online platforms including Amazon, which have made available e-books for free. Read self-help books and fiction to escape the reality; and any other books that interest you.”



Learn a new skill: “This will also keep you interested as mastering something new takes a lot in terms of focus and energy.”



Connect with loved ones: “Connect with your loved ones via video chats. Journal and work on things you have been meaning to work on to give you a sense of accomplishment.”

Man self isolating at home

5 Ways To Cope With The Self During Isolation

Email and smart phones can be stressful. Academics are calling this constant work connection&nbsp;“technostress”. Consequently, many European countries are now offering employees the&nbsp;“right to disconnect”.



The way email is used is complex, it cannot simply be labelled as “good” or “bad” and research shows that&nbsp;personality, the type of work people do and their goals can influence the way they react to email.



Good practice with email use is not just about limiting the amount of emails sent, but improving the quality of communication.



Here are ten tips to reduce the stress of email at work:



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">1. Get the subject line right</h4>



Use clear and actionable subject lines.



The subject line should communicate exactly what the email is about in six to ten words, to allow the recipient to prioritise the email without even opening it. On mobile devices, many people only see the first 30 characters of a subject line. So keep it short. But make it descriptive enough to give an idea of what the email is about from just the subject line.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/health/2018/12/17/burnout-stress-lead-more-companies-to-try-a-four-day-work-week/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Burnout, stress lead more companies to try a four-day work week (opens in a new tab)">Burnout, stress lead more companies to try a four-day work week</a>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">2. Ask yourself: is email the right medium?</h4>



Are you in the same office? Could you go and speak to the person? Could you call? Often these other forms of communication can avoid the inefficient back and forth of emailing.



Instant messaging and video calling platforms like&nbsp;Slack&nbsp;and&nbsp;Skype&nbsp;could be more appropriate for quick internal back and forth messaging. Also, remember that most of the advice below applies to all types of electronic communication.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">3. Don’t email out of office hours</h4>



Research shows&nbsp;that out-of-hours emails make it harder for people to recover from work stress.



Try and influence your company culture by avoiding sending or replying to emails outside your normal working hours.



Management should lead by example and avoid contacting their staff outside of their normal working hours.&nbsp;Some workplaces&nbsp;even switch off email access to employees out of hours. Consider implementing this while keeping a backup phone system for emergency contact only.



New research&nbsp;has also shown that just the expectation of 24-hour contact can negatively affect employee health.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2019/03/02/a-career-secret-weapon-thank-you-notes/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="A Career Secret Weapon: Thank-You Notes (opens in a new tab)">A Career Secret Weapon: Thank-You Notes</a>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">4. Use the delay delivery option</h4>



Some&nbsp;people&nbsp;like integrating their work and family lives and often continue working from home during their off-job time. If you are one of these people, or if you work across time zones, consider using the delay delivery option so your emails do not send until the next working day and do not interfere with other people’s off-job time.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">5. Keep it positive</h4>



Think about the quality of email communication. Not just the quantity. Changes to email use should also focus on the quality of what is being sent and take into consideration the emotional reaction of the recipient.



Research suggests&nbsp;that conflicts are far easier to escalate and messages to be misinterpreted when communicated via email. Therefore, if it is bad news, think back to rule #2: is email the right medium?



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">6. Try ‘no email Friday’</h4>



In order to shift company culture and get people thinking about other methods of communication than email, try a&nbsp;“no email Friday”&nbsp;on the first Friday of every month, or maybe even every week. This is an initiative suggested by experts from the&nbsp;National Forum for Health and Wellbeing at Work, and is being used by businesses&nbsp;around the globe. Employees are encouraged to arrange face-to-face meetings or pick up the phone – or just get on top of the many emails they already have in their inbox on that day.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/lists/2018/12/18/the-12-biggest-career-crashes-of-2018/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="The 12 Biggest Career Crashes Of 2018 (opens in a new tab)">The 12 Biggest Career Crashes Of 2018</a>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">7. Make your preferences known</h4>



Research has shown&nbsp;that not only too much but also too little email can cause stress due to a mismatch between the communication preferences of different people. Some people may like being emailed and cope much better with high email traffic than other means of communication. For these people, reducing the amount of emails they receive may cause more stress than it alleviates.



So consider people’s individual differences and make yours known. Add your preferred contact preferences to your email signature whether it is email, text or instant messages or a phone call.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">8. Consider a holiday ‘bounce back’</h4>



Having a backlog of emails that builds up over the week appears to be one of the&nbsp;most commonly mentioned sources of technostress&nbsp;for workers. Think about setting up a system where emails are bounced back to the sender when someone is on holiday, with an alternative contact email for urgent requests. This would let you come back to a manageable inbox.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">9. Have a separate work phone</h4>



Make this the only mobile device you can access work emails on, which gives you the freedom to switch it off after work hours. Also consider turning off email&nbsp;“push”&nbsp;(this is where your email server sends each new email to your phone when it arrives at the server) and instead choose a regular schedule (such as once per hour) for emails to be delivered to your phone (this also increases battery life).



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">10. Avoid late night screen time</h4>



Research suggests&nbsp;that late night smart phone use reduces our ability to get to sleep and also leads to constant thoughts and stress about work. This in turn reduces your sleep quality. Make the bed a phone-free zone to improve your&nbsp;sleep hygiene.



<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113670/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important">



-The Conversation



-Ricardo Twumasi; Lecturer in Organisational Psychology, University of Manchester



-Cary Cooper; 50th Anniversary Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health, University of Manchester



&#8211;Lina Siegl; PhD Researcher, University of Manchester

GettyImages-1004712242

10 Rules Of Email That Will Reduce Your Stress Levels

Work four days a week, but get paid for five?



It sounds too good to be true, but companies around the world that have cut their work week have found that it leads to higher productivity, more motivated staff and less burnout.



“It is much healthier and we do a better job if we’re not working crazy hours,” said Jan Schulz-Hofen, founder of Berlin-based project management software company Planio, who introduced a four-day week to the company’s 10-member staff earlier this year.



In New Zealand, insurance company Perpetual Guardian reported a fall in stress and a jump in staff engagement after it tested a 32-hour week earlier this year.



Even in Japan, the government is encouraging companies to allow Monday mornings off, although other schemes in the workaholic country to persuade employees to take it easy have had little effect.



Britain’s Trades Union Congress (TUC) is pushing for the whole country to move to a four-day week by the end of the century, a drive supported by the opposition Labour party.



The TUC argues that a shorter week is a way for workers to share in the wealth generated by new technologies like machine learning and robotics, just as they won the right to the weekend off during the industrial revolution.



“It would reduce the stress of juggling working and family life and could improve gender equality. Companies that have already tried it say it’s better for productivity and staff wellbeing,” said TUC economic head Kate Bell.



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">OVERWORKED</h5>



Lucie Greene, trends expert at consultancy J. Walter Thompson, said there was a growing backlash against overwork, underlined by a wave of criticism after Tesla (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSLA.O">TSLA.O</a>) boss Elon Musk tweeted that “nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week.”



“People are starting to take a step back from the 24-hour digital life we have now and realize the mental health issues from being constantly connected to work,” Greene said.



A recent survey of 3,000 employees in eight countries including the United States, Britain and Germany found that nearly half thought they could easily finish their tasks in five hours a day if they did not have interruptions, but many are exceeding 40 hours a week anyway &#8211; with the United States leading the way, where 49 percent said they worked overtime.



“There has been work creep. Because you always have the technology, you are always working, so people are getting burned out,” said Dan Schawbel, director of executive development firm Future Workplace, which conducted the survey.



Schulz-Hofen, a 36-year-old software engineer, tested the four-day week on himself after realizing he needed to slow down following a decade of intense work launching Planio, whose tools allowed him to track his time in detail.



“I didn’t get less work done in four days than in five because in five days, you think you have more time, you take longer, you allow yourself to have more interruptions, you have your coffee a bit longer or chat with colleagues,” Schulz-Hofen said.



“I realized with four days, I have to be quick, I have to be focused if I want to have my free Friday.”



Schulz-Hofen and his team discussed various options before settling on everybody working Monday to Thursday. They rejected the idea of flexible hours because it adds administrative complexity, and were against a five-day week with shorter hours as it is too easy for overwork to creep back in.



Clients who call on a Friday hear a recorded message explaining why nobody is at the office.



<figure><iframe loading="lazy" src="https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-31/html/container.html" width="0" height="242"></iframe></figure>



“We got an unexpected reaction from customers. Most of our clients did not complain. They were just jealous,” Schulz-Hofen said.



Grey New York, an ad agency owned by WPP (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=WPP.L">WPP.L</a>), launched a program in April to allow staff to work a four-day week for 85 percent of their full-time salary.



Schawbel expects the idea to catch on in more companies and countries, but probably not his own: “I think America will be the last country to give us Monday mornings off because we’re so used to this way of working.” -Reuters



<ul><li>Emma Thomasson</li></ul>

gettyimages-78722617-170667a

Burnout, stress lead more companies to try a four-day work week

Searches for the term ‘fatigue’ have increased by over 100% in the past 12 years. Globally.
The gradual but steady increase for this term is because the consequences of our culture’s obsession with work are becoming harder to ignore.
In fact, three Johannesburg-based psychologists reported to me an incredible 70% of their practice is filled with people needing help with stress and work-related anxiety. Mental health spend has increased by more than 80% since 2011 and according to <a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2017/12/01/bank-on-this-man/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Discovery Health</a>, depression contributed to over 40% of the mental health issues the country is experiencing.
Working a 40-hour-work week isn’t enough anymore for corporate South Africa. Eighty hours a week was the status quo for South African management consultant, Munene Khoza, and many of her colleagues at her previous consultancy position.
She’s now an entrepreneur and company founder at MINT, and remembers long days and nights.
“That was definitely the company culture,” she explains, “And I can confidently say it was not limited to the company I worked for. A lot of the time, the service offering from management consultancies is much of a muchness – they all help businesses to address complex problems. So one of the main ways to differentiate themselves is completing projects in a shorter space of time. And that of course means longer hours for the consultants.”
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/investment-guide/2017/11/24/jumping-corporate-ship/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Jumping The Corporate Ship</a>
For Olivia Sitshwele*, her demanding work environment exacerbated an underlying autoimmune disease to the point she was medically boarded and forcibly booked off work for eight months. Her current position at a new company is so much more demanding than her previous role that on top of the medications she needs for her illness, she is also taking nine different medications to help with work-related fatigue.
Long working hours can increase and validate self-esteem and a sense of self-worth for some.
This is true in South Africa, where being perceived as hardworking is a primary driver for much of the beleaguered workforce. With 48,000 jobs lost in 2017’s first quarter alone, according to Stats SA, a very real fear of the business folding or being out of work also plays a part in the working hours dynamic – because, in the end, those long hours are about the impression they create, rather than the work they produce.
The data shows that working, quite literally double, the amount of hours available in a working week, like Munene and her colleagues did, does not necessarily make you more productive.
If anything, the more hours a nation works, the less productive they are. A 2017 study by Expert Market ranked 35 countries by productivity, using GDP per capita data divided by the average number of hours worked by the nation. Mexico came in at number 35, with a yearly average of 2,255 hours. Compared to that, Luxembourg (number one) and Norway (number two) had respectively 1,512 and 1,424 hours a year on average – 32% less than Mexico. The United States came in at number six with 1,783 hours a year, and no African country was listed.
“Working longer hours is not the solution to our productivity woes,” states the study, “While many of us begrudgingly put in overtime hours to get more out of each day, the data suggests that such effort could be doing more harm than good.”
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/11/15/is-hypnotherapy-the-answer/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Is Hypnotherapy The Answer?</a>
Munene describes her own experience: “As a management consultant, getting complex work done for client in record time was the aim, so very often time not overworking was frowned upon – as if your head wasn’t completely in the game. It is a little dramatic to say but I suppose I worry that if I don’t put in the hours that my business may fail and that would feel like professional and social suicide.”
With modern technology and emails on your phone, it’s harder to draw appropriate boundaries between work and home. Governments in France and South Africa have stepped in to help, legislating limitations on the use of “electronic leashes” (so named by French politician Benoît Hamon), allowing employees to switch off without penalty between certain times of the day.
Johannesburg-based clinical psychologist, Julia Halstead-Cleak, the director of Adult Services at the Day Clinic and MD of the Oxford Healthcare Centre, says this culture of work has emotional, relational and even physical consequences.
Somatic symptoms like chronic neck and backache, constant headaches and irritable bowel syndrome are all signs of overwork and are caused by the sympathetic nervous system – which runs the fight or flight response – working overtime.
“Core emotions express themselves physiologically,” says Halstead-Cleak, “and there is a huge culture of success in South Africa, where even children need to be successful and are put in occupational therapy, tutorials and extra-curriculars to fill their parents’ needs to stand out.”
Difficulty sleeping because of constantly running thoughts, an inability to feel pleasure, emotional distance at home and fatigue are all common signs that work is becoming a damaging force in your life. Because of the massive and growing impact of work on emotional well-being, Halstead-Cleak is opening a corporate healthcare facility in 2018 to specifically help with symptoms of overwork, stress and fatigue.
Long days in the office are about what those hours say about you. As The Guardian says, citing the ridiculous work hours by America’s top CEOs: “Today’s top executives are devoted work-worshippers, nearly to the point of perversity. Apple CEO Tim Cook told Time that he begins his day at 3.45AM. General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt told Fortune that he has worked 100-hour workweeks for 24 years. Not to be outdone, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer told Bloomberg News that she used to work 130-hour workweeks.”
“If conspicuous consumption involves the worship of luxury, conspicuous production involves the worship of labor. It isn’t about how much you spend. It’s about how hard you work.”
How many hours did you clock before you let yourself read this article?
*not her real name 
<h2>HOW TO DEAL WITH SYMPTOMS OF OVERWORKING</h2>
Feeling fatigued, plagued by aches and pains, and unable to find joy in anything? Julia Halstead-Cleak, Johannesburg-based clinical psychologist and director of Adult Services at the Day Clinic and MD of the Oxford Healthcare Centre, and Richard Middleton, a senior group facilitator at her clinic, share their tips on managing anxiety.
<ul>
<li>Massage: The skin is the body’s biggest organ, and massage can help release the tension it holds.</li>
<li>Mindfulness exercises: This helps with those constantly running thoughts and anxiety that prevent a good night’s sleep.</li>
<li>Breathing exercises: Long out breaths are the key to releasing tension, and are particularly helpful if you’re having a rough moment during the day.</li>
<li>Understand your symptoms: Your body is sending you signs that it’s unhappy, and that things can’t continue in this vein. Re-evaluate and re-assess your work-life balance if you start experiencing ongoing distress to this extent.</li>
</ul>
&#8211; Written by Samantha Steele

Over 80 Hours A Week At Work?

Depression and anxiety are highly stigmatized in the boardroom and top executives have become masters at keeping it locked down, going to extreme lengths to hide such problems.
In the fast-paced corporate world, if you are falling apart, you dare not show it. But is that a good thing?
Recent research has shown many successful women are victims of stress as they strive to balance work and family. But even as children and careers collide, women need to prioritize their wellbeing.
Take 40-year-old successful corporate woman and mother of two, Nicci (surname withheld for confidentiality), who says she experienced “a ridiculously heightened sense of anxiety” possibly linked to post-natal depression after the birth of her first child.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-6303" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_178716563-300x214.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="214" />
“I was 36, I was trying to run a business, a home and look after my baby. I remember feeling isolated, alone and incompetent, and being an established business woman, that was a terrible feeling,” she says, echoing the thoughts of many like her.
“I have learned there is no such thing as the perfect balance between a career and motherhood. This is a myth propagated by the media and there is no way women are achieving this holy grail. There are times when you have more time for your career, then something happens and bang, you have to pay more attention to your family. It’s also important to note that a man who has a successful wife often simply assumes he will also have the perfect wife and mother and it is our complicity in this which adds to the pressure. We, as women, try and do it all,” says Nicci.
Dr Colinda Linde, Chair of the Advisory Board at the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG), and a practicing clinical psychologist, feels modern working women have no role models when it comes to managing the demands of a career and family life.
“Even if our mothers worked, few had careers which resembled those of today and the demands of parenting have also changed, with children’s schedules often as busy as those of their parents. In a dual income household, it mainly still falls to the woman to run the home. This leads to feeling divided and not really being present in the moment – when you are at a school event, your phone is still beeping and when you are at work, your home or issues with your children may also be on your mind,” says Linde.
Over time, this leads to stress and burnout. She says while women learn to rely on other women such as housekeepers or mothers to help with child-rearing, they tend not to expect their partners to take on domestic responsibilities.
“There is a trend emerging where men are doing more to help in the home than their fathers did, by a significant amount, but it is still a relatively small part compared to the typical female portfolio of duties,” says Linde.
&nbsp;
Falling Off The Cliff
Richard Hawkey from Equilibrium Solutions, who has worked with Linde and has conducted substantial research, reveals findings where anxiety, depression or burnout, while highly stigmatized as a sign of weakness, are more than common, with women more affected than men.
Hawkey, who calls himself ‘the recovering banker’, says he slipped into severe clinical depression in 2010 after 15 years in a top position in the finance sector.
“As a senior manager, I had no idea how damaging stress was, or that if you are a Type-A personality (achiever, driver, controller), there isn’t necessarily a slow decline to warn you the cliff is approaching – you simply fall off the end one day. I was happily married, with great children and a house in the suburbs, along with all the trappings of success, so how could I have a breakdown and become depressed?”
Since then, he has recovered and is finishing a Master’s degree in Applied Psychology, and also set up his company Equilibrium Solutions, which in partnership with several doctors, has designed Vitals Software, a confidential online stress self-awareness and management tool.
He gathered and analyzed data from 2,500 respondents surveyed via this online resource. Most were white-collar workers, 98% from South Africa.
Hawkey says key findings, such as 37% complaining of unexplained chest pains were “worryingly high”, as was the 50% of respondents ‘living for Fridays’, highlighting high levels of apathy
and demotivation.
He adds women consistently scored higher than men in the manifestation of various symptoms.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-6305" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_172980497-300x262.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="262" />
Hawkey says the situation may well be worse than indicated by the findings, as anecdotal evidence reveals executives are self-medicating, won’t use Employee Assistance Programs and will take two weeks of leave pretending they are ‘going on holiday’, but in fact are booking into a psychiatric unit.
“This anecdotal evidence is quite terrifying. Executives will pay for such treatment with cash and will not use their medical aid in order to keep the problem hidden,” he says.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 350 million people across the globe suffer from depression, with less than half receiving treatment due to a number of barriers, a prime one being the social stigma attached to mental disorders.
&nbsp;
More Pressure For The Top Brass
While women trying to balance a career and family are expected not to show any weakness, Hawkey adds that women in the upper echelons of management are particularly under pressure, as they have to appear tough and if from a historically-disadvantaged background, have to prove themselves beyond tokenism, while at the same time shoulder the burden of family.
“My advice to women who are feeling overwhelmed is to speak to someone you trust. It’s important to know you are not alone,” he says.

Tag: Stress

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

5 Ways To Cope With The Self During Isolation

10 Rules Of Email That Will Reduce Your Stress Levels

Burnout, stress lead more companies to try a four-day work week

Over 80 Hours A Week At Work?

Don’t Worry, The CEO Gets Depressed Too