EP#24- Conquering Work From Home and The Value of Corporate Wellness with Jess Geevarghese, Founder and Chief Wellness Officer of Wellspace TX

(gentle music) I think when people say that they're stressed out, like they've got a lot of responsibility, in some ways they're sort of projecting that they're important, that they've got things to do and they're really busy, and it is not a healthy culture to exist in. - That was Jess Givergis. Founder and Chief Wellness Officer of WellSpace TX. WellSpace TX is a corporate wellness company that works with a variety of clients from small nonprofits to large companies to improve their employees' wellbeing and foster a better workplace culture. I don't know about you, but after a year of living through the COVID-19 pandemic and being forced to work from home and do school from home, I personally feel kind of exhausted. And I'm very excited for when we can start to slowly return to normalcy. As much as it's been nice to have the convenience of my computer and being at home while doing school, it's definitely really hard to have that separation between your work life and your school life from your home and personal life. So in this episode, Jess spoke about how to better manage the work life balance or school life balance while we're all stuck working from home and doing school from home. Jess also spoke about some strategies to help reduce burnout and what to be on the lookout for to prevent burnout from happening. We also chatted about the transition out of college and into the working world, what are some important habits to adopt and how to better prioritize your wellbeing through that very transitional period of your life. Before we get into the episode, I have a brief message from my sponsor, Anchor. Hi, Jess. Thank you so much for coming onto everyday endorphins. Thank you for inviting me. Today, we're gonna talk about how and why we can incorporate wellness into a professional setting. Usually when we think about wellness, we think about certain wellbeing practices that we can take to take care of our mental health or physical health, but now there's this whole movement in trend towards corporate wellness and applying these practices in a professional setting. So to start off, I would love for you to define corporate wellness and talk about why this matters in the workforce. So at its best, corporate wellness is essentially instilling a culture of wellbeing into a company. So that is from programming to policies, policies like paternal leave, 24 hour nursing, nurse line for folks to programming like meditation for stress management and chair yoga that helps employees find a sense of mental rest and mental pause during their work days 'cause it's essentially it's nonstop these days and especially since COVID, it's even more nonstop. And I think it's really important to think about context here in the relative scheme of things. We have only been working in offices for less than a hundred years, you know. And so when you take a look at entire civilization of humans, it's only recently that we have transitioned into a world where we sit and we think and we barely move. And so I think it's so important for companies to be mindful and aware that, you know, it is not necessarily, our bodies aren't naturally sort of gauged for this kind of work on an ongoing basis. - Exactly, that's a great point that you bring up. And especially when you're in a work setting like at an office, you have your professional life and then you also have your personal life at home. And some of the practices that we do at home like getting a good night's sleep or having a nutritious meal, those are certain steps we can take to take better care of our health. But those things shouldn't be ignored when you're at work, when you're at the office. And so what I hear you say is incorporating some strategies or practices that attack well-being from a more holistic perspective because it's not like you have your separate personal life and your work life. It's approaching well-being from this integrative approach. - Exactly, right? And, you know, well-being, it's not just physical, it's mental, it's emotional. And we're bringing all of that to bear when we go into work or whenever we're on Zoom calls. We carry a lot with us and the more that we can learn ways to be able to let go and get ourselves unstuck from some of these things, the better. You know, the better for ourselves and the better that we can perform as employees. And then from a company's perspective, the more productive we are. And because that's what, you know, a lot of companies are looking for, you know, well-employees are healthy employees that get the job done and, you know, can focus. And so the companies bring me in for a number of reasons and one of that and one of the reasons is productivity. I work with a lot of lawyers and I teach chair yoga and meditation for stress management and resilience. And, you know, in the legal profession, it's really, you know, it's nonstop. And you don't learn professionally how to take care of yourself. You know, you create these coping skills as we do as kids or in high school or in college. And we bring that into the work that we go into and they may not be the most healthy. It's not the healthiest necessarily. You know, whether it's over indulgence in alcohol or, you know, food or, you know, some sort of escapist tendencies, maladaptive tendencies that don't necessarily go to the underlying issues of what's going on. I'm so glad you brought that up because a lot of my listeners are young adults. They're still in college or they're recent graduates and that transition between the schedules and the routines that you adopt in college or even in high school. How that, you know, greatly differs maybe from what it's like to enter the workforce. That's something I haven't even experienced yet. And as you're a wash you alum, I'm really curious to hear more about your experience in college and then transitioning into the workforce. Were there any certain routines that you needed to change or certain habits that you needed to adopt to better understand how to take care of yourself outside of the traditional K through 12 college education timeline? For sure. Definitely. I always, when I was a college student, I always said yes to everything. You know, whenever I got invited by a professor to, you know, work on a certain project or, you know, someone invited me to a student club and I'm like, sure, you know, it was just, I just kept piling things on, piling things on and into a certain extent to my detriment, right? Because we, to a certain, we only have a certain amount of bandwidth and it's, I think, what is really important is figuring out what is really important to you. You know, maybe you're invited to all these things and maybe they're very prestigious, but you've got to figure out what it is that is meaningful for you and then skillfully learn how to say no. That, I feel like that is the biggest thing that if I, I feel like there should be a class at Washu on this, how does skillfully say no to projects, to people, to engagements? And that's definitely something that I have honed, a skill that I've honed very well over the course of the years. It took a lot of work. I, when I graduated from Washu with my MBA and my MSW, I went into the work world and I came with the same set of skills that I took from Washu, which was just like, yes, yes, yes, work, work, work. And at some point, you know, when I started, when I first got promoted, I had a team that I was working with and I had a tremendous amount of more workload. And, you know, I dealt with it the best that I could, but it did not work out very well because my body started to revolt. At some point, you know, our body, I mean, obviously our bodies have a lot of wisdom. And if you push yourself too much, your body is going to say that is going to tell you something. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's our role, it's our responsibility to listen to our bodies. Yeah, I mean, I think you're touching on the intuition, the mind-body connection, having the ability to listen to what your body is telling you. And I think that's a physical manifestation of experiencing burnout. And so I want to definitely transition to burnout. But before we get there, I want to hear more about what happens if you don't say no. I think we live in this culture of maximizing productivity. And I'm still trying to figure out whether or not I advocate for that kind of lifestyle or I, or if I have certain hesitations around that. And I think there are a lot of benefits to living very productively and gaining a sense of confidence of getting the tasks done. But we're now kind of bred to have to and want to say yes to everything. And so I going back to that point that you said about learning how to say no, how to skillfully say no. I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about what that looks like, what happens when you overextend yourself and then how that may lead to burnout. Right. Well, so for example, when I when I started first started managing people and good amount of additional work onto my plate, I was just trying to keep up. Bringing work home, weekends, like going in on the weekends. And obviously there is a time and place for that. And I'm very much believed for in working hard. But for me, what that looked like is, you know, I kept on telling when I'm fine, I'm fine, I've got this, I've got this. And one day I went to work and I'm sitting there at my computer and I have my hand sort of like resting on my head. And I start to feel this like weird sensation in the back of my, my head. And I started to like move my hand around. And I was like, this feels really weird and soft. I don't know what that is. And so one of my colleagues was already at work. I just get to work really early. And I was like, Lauren, can you tell me if there's anything back here? And I showed her, and she gasped. And she's like, no, it's okay. You know, it's bad. And because I, and I was like, her, her first reaction was was obviously one of surprise. And it ended up, I had a bald spot, the size of a golf ball on the back of my head. And I was like, oh my gosh, I have no idea what that is. So I went to a dermatologist and he was like, it's alopecia. It's an autoimmune disorder that affects your hair follicles. And so you can have universal alopecia, which is where you lose all of your hair, or you can have these sort of little pieces where you lose hair. And it's like, it was a perfect circle. And so basically my body was starting to revolt on me through and how it manifested was in my hair. Wow. I mean, I just think that really brings to light how stress affects our body. I think we can flate stress with the product or the byproduct of working hard. Like in order to be working really hard to be successful, to be productive, you have to be stressed all the time. Is that true? No. No. I, you know, having worked in New York City for like 12 years or so, people wore their stress like a badge of honor. It was, and it was the same thing in college too. Right? It's like, I'm so stressed out. I've got, you know, five exams. And then I've got this right, my like thesis. And I just, you know, it was, it just translated into the work world as well. And I think that we need to be aware of what we're, you know, we're what we're holding up as important. And what we think is meaningful, you know, I think when people say that they're stressed out, like they've got a lot of responsibility in some ways, they're sort of projecting that they're important that they've got, they've got things to do and they're really busy. And it's, it is not a healthy culture to, to exist in. Exactly. And I also think going off of that point, we're really busy. We're also living in an age of divided attention with so much digital distraction. And I find myself victim to this where I have my email open all the time, but then I'll also be in class or I'll be attending to something else. But the minute an email pops up, I feel like I have to immediately get to it. And so maybe I think I'm multitasking and I'm being productive because I'm doing as much as I can all at once. But really the the time it takes to switch in between tasks is what's causing that perpetual lag and my actual attention and therefore decreased quality of my work, decreased quality of, you know, soaking in the knowledge I'm supposed to be gaining right now in college. Granted, you know, Zoom school has definitely been hard and I think we're all experiencing a lot of Zoom fatigue and burnout with just the shift in our day-to-day life. But I think that, you know, that speaks even more to the point that you're talking about that we're constantly feeling this need to compete about how busy we are, how many tasks we have on our plate. But in reality, if we can just really focus on keeping ourselves healthy, keeping our mind and our body healthy, that'll enable us to produce better quality output in our work. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, I don't want to downplay the importance of stress. So stress isn't necessarily a bad thing. It gets a really bad rap and the reason why we're here today is because our ancestors face stress. Right. So, you know, my family is from South India and there are wild elephants in South India. There are snakes, there are tigers, there's lots of wild animals. And somewhere down, you know, with my ancestors, they faced a they faced a tiger or wild elephant or snake. And their body went into this stress response mode. And with that stress response, you know, all of our, it's basically our part starts to be faster to get more oxygen into our blood so we can either fight, flight or free use. Right. We start to, if you've had, if you just have lunch, you know, all of that digestive energy has now stopped and now is going to your limbs so you can run if you need to run or fight if you need to fight, or freeze if you need to freeze. And so for our ancestors, it was very much a good mechanism to process threats. But obviously we don't see those threats, you know, wild elephants, and tigers and snakes anymore. But what has happened is that, you know, when we have that stress response, we have all of these hormones that get pumped into our, into our blood to engage in activity, to face that threat. And now it's, you know, emails and the light notifications on our phones. And it's happening. What used to happen not so often is happening constantly and chronically. So we have these hormones that sort of, you know, whatever a threat, a stress threshold is, we, we start to have this, this chronic sense of stress and hormones in our body. And over time, that reeks havoc on our immune system, our cardiovascular system. It just reeks havoc in our bodies. And while it's important for us to have the stress response, it's important for us to cultivate techniques and responses to be able to engage that relaxation response. I'm so glad you bring that up because at the core, stress is a physiological response. And that physiological response is actually enabling us, you know, to survive. As you said, like survival of the fittest going back to our ancestors. And now I think it's about not, I don't want to say like, abusing that stress response, but being able to allocate it appropriately. So instead of associating that stress response with every email that comes in, maybe shifting it towards things that are a bit more important, things that should actually in theory cause a bit of stress. And I think also stress can be beneficial in that there's that sense of urgency to get like an assignment done and that can also enable you or or To get it done exactly But then there's question about well how long should you wait to to schedule that deadline and start to to get the work done before The hitting that sweet spot, you know having that sense of urgency just enough to get you feeling motivated But not feeling too overwhelmed and too stressed that at the end of the day, it's just like debilitating and you feel like you can't get anything done Today's episode is brought to you by Roma Skincare Based out of Chicago, Roma launched a clean skin care line that covers all of your skin needs Proving that you don't need a million serums and eye creams to get better skin I love this product because it's sustainable made of clean ingredients and Roma keeps skin care simple Taking care of your skin is an important habit and I've noticed that when I'm keeping up with my wellness routines I not only feel physically better, but I'm able to adopt a more positive mindset So invest in your wellbeing Visit roamerskincare.com to receive 15% off of your order by using my code in Dorthens 15 [Music] On another note, I want to move to the work from home model that we're all doing in Zoom school from home and Just adopting to a new normal as we have been for the past year And so from your background as a yoga instructor and a meditation instructor and everything that you do with well space I would love to hear if you have any tips on how to Make the best of the situation how we can Engage in our work life mindfully while also trying to have that separation between work and home or school and home It's tough. I mean, it's been really tough to manage everything that we've had to manage and I think the important thing is to Figure out what it is that replenishes you for me that's going outside and walking You know, that's it's moving my body It's getting up from my desk and stretching or stretching on my you know in a chair Yeah, there's a there's a sense of movement that that helps me and I Think you know I really trying to create a little bit more demarcation between Your work and your personal life you know They are going to melt especially because we're we're basically working where we live and but you know Turning off your computer turning off your work email whether you know at a certain point You know whether it's seven o'clock or eight o'clock having a meal having a conversation Engaging with the external world like getting out of your mind into your bodies and engaging with other people and It's a lot tougher now. We don't have necessarily that physical engagement that we have had in the past to be able to deal with their stress, but even with zoom fatigue It's just nice to see someone Yeah, absolutely and what I hear you saying is really finding stability and also creating boundaries so that you can have that distinct Life from your work life and your home life when you're forced to do everything in the same space I've been taking most of my classes from my desk, which is in my bedroom, which is obviously in my apartment and It's challenging to get to campus sometimes especially in the really cold weather and so it's been challenging for me to have that distinction between my classes and my personal life and my social life which Obviously we can't really live to our fullest ability now because of COVID, but I really love these points about creating Stability is having scheduled meal times Finding time to work out in your schedule getting your body to move releasing indoor Tie it into the podcast, but really creating space in the day for yourself And knowing what to expect and then also having those boundaries Turning your email off is a huge one at a like a specific point in the night just Not checking your phone or not checking your computer. I want to talk a little bit more about like technology and how that plays into Boundary setting. So are there any certain practices you have to try to leave your work life At the table when it's time for your own your own personal life Yeah, I am I really tried not to check my email after a certain point. I think that's a lot of people with their work emails They Start to do have personal interactions on their work emails and I think as much as you can Sort of create that separation You've got your personal stuff in your personal email your work email on your work email and so you don't feel The need to go look at you know, oh did so and so respond on my work email and then you get into that rabbit hole You know put your phone to bed a friend of mine has sent me um a little Someone makes this I don't know where I'm guessing it's in the UK because that's where she's typically based to bed It's a little bed for your phone That you you leave outside your bedroom. You just you put the phone into bed and then you go to bed I love that. I think that also makes it kind of fun It's always a hassle for me to like put my phone on the opposite side of my room Because I usually charge it next to my bed and then I use my phone as my alarm clock Which is probably another good tip just getting the alarm clock Just buy my alarm clock Yeah, definitely Well, those are really good pieces of advice and I think it all ties into You know this idea of corporate wellness and and having these practices in a work environment And I know from everything that you've done with at well space You know, you've worked with clients like Spotify like Tiffany and co and I would love to hear you talk more about How you've seen your clients improve not only on a personal level but like at the organizational level from incorporating these practices into the company Um, so yeah, so I've worked with a lot of different companies and teaching meditation and also teaching chair yoga and You know as I was saying so in Texas where I live I work with a lot of A lot of law firms and I have a lot of like legal staff and lawyers coming in like rushing into the meditation sessions so they don't miss it and you can just see like sort of from when they walk in to Creating some space for them to just focus and attune into their breath tune into their bodies That when they when they end the meditation and they start to open your at well open their eyes You can see such a tremendous difference in just how their body is right how you know how How they're You know, we as we talked about before we hold stress in our bodies and when we can we can tune out of our minds and Into our breath into our bodies that allows us to create some space a little bit of pause and so they take that back into You know, they take that back into the workspace that sense of Equanimity calmness that they may have not had cultivated prior to you know They're probably running from a meeting and they're thinking about certain things and they're marinating on things and this creates that that space for them to be able to To let go into surrender the important thing is to think about when we think about like yoga principles in the workplace in yoga and the physical practice as well as in the mental practice. It's about at creating effort doing physical effort your your strengthening your stretching But you're also balancing that with a sense of surrender and letting go and you it's always about finding that balance You know whether it's in our personal lives and our professional lives It's finding that sense of balance between effort and surrender You know when do the work when you need your work and then let it go when you need to let it go I love that. I think that's a really beautiful way to describe the philosophy of yoga kind of in a really concise nutshell and Make that information digestible and also extend beyond just a yoga practice But ways we can bring it into other aspects of our life and I love that the anecdote you share about the lawyers just once they open their eyes Having that sense of calm because Then they're able to move forward with their day having that clearer mindset and if you have a clearer headspace you may Actually make better decisions because you're not feeling stressed or overwhelmed you actually you have that clarity And so if you can make better decisions on the professional level that can only benefit the organization as a whole in large. And also, after engaging in these practices, it becomes even more apparent that having that clarity of mind can actually help reduce experiencing burnout. And I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about what burnout is, what are some signs to be on the lookout for, and how we can actually reduce experiencing burnout in the professional world. Through characteristics, or three major characteristics of burnout include emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and also a decreased sense of accomplishment. So emotional exhaustion is just mental fatigue, I think we've all been there. Depersonalization is really about sort of losing your sense of empathy, becoming a robot and just without doing things, without engaging emotions. And then also this decreased sense of accomplishment just feeling like everything you're doing isn't doing anything, it's totally futile. And so when you put all those three together, it basically sort of encompasses what burnout feels like. And it is, it's not fun, right? So when you get stressed out and that stress becomes chronic, and you don't necessarily engage the resources that you have, or you just don't feel like you've got the resources to be able to address the stress, then that turns into burnout. And when we get stressed out, the stress will always end. There's a great quote by John Capitzin, who's the Godfather of mindfulness, which is you can't stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf. So stress is gonna keep on coming at you, whether you're 21 or 73, right? And everywhere in between. But if we've got the resources, or we engage the resources to be able to help us ride those waves of stress, then that allows us to skillfully move out of that sense of burnout. - Yes, I mean, this directly ties into the whole concept of a mindfulness practice. Were you recognized an emotion or a thought that comes by, but seeing it and not judging it, just seeing it pass and not attaching yourself onto it, not really identifying with it, but just noticing it go by and not judging it. - Yeah, so finding what replenishes you, right? That's the big thing, like figuring out what you can do, whether it's other people or things that you do by yourself that bring you back to that lens. I love that. And then also therapy, you know, normalizing therapy, if you're having difficult feelings, difficult emotions, difficult experience, talk to someone who's professional. And, you know, our friends are great, but, you know, they're not trained. - This is true, friends are not your therapist. They may help in therapeutic ways, but they're definitely not your therapist. But yeah, I totally align with that message. I believe in the importance of therapy and breaking that stigma around therapy and talking about mental health, mental illness. So I'm very glad you brought that up. And I think it just really, it speaks to the importance of just taking care of yourself and how that extends into living, you know, a better life in every aspect of your personal and professional life. And so if you can really start looking within, then you're able to thrive, hopefully in all areas of your life. - Definitely. - Thank you so much, Jess, for coming on to the podcast. Before I let you go, there's one question that I ask every guest, what is something that brings you endorphins every day? - It's not necessarily every day, but are you familiar with the concept of forest bathing or shinrin yoku? - I've heard of it, but I'm not super familiar with it, but I want to say it's connected to like nature walks and being outside. - Being outside, yes. So I worked with a clinical herbalist, and like maybe 10 years ago or so, and he introduced this concept to me. In Japan and Korea, doctors prescribe forest bathing as a stress reduction technique. And it's not about what, it's not a exercise, it's about just going out in nature and tuning into the natural world. So engaging your senses, you know, just looking at things without a distracted mind, you know, watching the water, I live near a creek, watching the water go by, looking at the ducks, feeling the sensing and feeling the tree, you know, just really using all of your senses to be present. And when you, and at least when I do that, it helps me tremendously to be able to, that's what I did today. I actually, I said no to a request that for someone for me to do something this afternoon, so I could go on a walk and essentially sort of spend time in nature and I watched and rebuilding their home. You know, it was, it was, it was perfect. It was exactly what I needed to restore myself and find that sense of balance. - Exactly, and that's a great example of everything we've been talking about, you know, having those boundaries and listening to your body and learning how to say no more skillfully. I really, I love that. I need to go on more walks. It's been kind of cold here, but I think with the weather getting warmer, it'll be nice to get back out until like Forest Park, for example. I love doing walks around Forest Park, but there's definitely a power and a beauty into just simple observation. And especially when you're out in nature, you're building that like kinesthetic awareness where your body is in space. So that definitely, I'm sure sparks a lot of endorphins. - Yes, for sure, for me, definitely. - Well, thank you again so much, Jess. I appreciate you coming onto the podcast. - Thank you so much. (gentle music) And so I think that's exactly what you described with that unfortunate story that you shared. I would have been incredibly frustrated and you know, rightfully so as you were, but it's those tiny things that happen that just really cause us a, cause an emotional response out of you. And then it can kind of like catastrophize into one big thing. And that's when a little trigger will just set you off. I mean, yeah, and especially now, like there's just such little to look forward to. And it's hard to find those smaller sparks of joy because there's just constant stress and there's a constant weight, I think, on everyone right now. Although I think we're moving into a more hopeful environment with the vaccine being available and a new administration and whatnot, I think, it's we're still, you know, we're still living through it all. And so I love your advice on just strengthening that toolkit to just ride the waves because stress is always gonna come, it's always gonna go, but it's how you respond to it, what you make of it and knowing to not attach onto it. (upbeat music) - Thank you for listening. If you liked what you heard, please follow, rate, review, everyday endorphins on whichever listing platform that you use to stream my episodes. Thanks again and I'll see you next time. (upbeat music)