Building and maintaining our mental health is a year-round pursuit, and Thrive is one of many mental health initiatives at UBC. Each year, when we work together as partners in promoting mental health literacy, everyone can thrive and enhance the capacity within each of us to feel motivated, enjoy life and be ready to take on life’s challenges.
This year, Thrive takes place from Oct. 29 – Nov. 2. We encourage all departments, units and faculties to consider becoming a Thrive partner. You can help expand positive mental health among UBC faculty, staff and students by planning an event, promoting Thrive Week, or getting people talking in support of mental health. Explore your path with the “Thrive 5” and find out the many more ways you can engage with Thrive.
As part of Thrive 2018, UBC departments, unit and faculties are also invited to participate in the Not Myself Today (NMT) initiative.
NMT is an evidence-informed workplace mental health initiative that helps to build greater awareness, reduce stigma and foster safe and supportive cultures.
This is UBC’s fourth consecutive year participating in NMT. Consider joining our community of Not Myself Today partners to champion this initiative within numerous UBC workplaces during Thrive Week. By registering as a partner, you will receive access to toolkits and resources that you can use to inspire positive mental health in your workplace and among your colleagues. Visit www.hr.ubc.ca/nmt to learn more about this year’s Not Myself Today initiative and to register your department, unit or faculty.
Photo Credit: UBC Thrive and UBC Student Communications
Office Ergo Rep Training | August 15 | 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. (Location: Point Grey)If your department is looking for more efficient response and support with regards to ergonomic issues for staff, consider taking the three-hour Office Ergo Rep Training. Learn basic ergonomic risk factors and assessments as well as proper computer workstation set-up, and get resources to take back to your unit. Find out more and register now.
Part 1 – Seasonal Nutrition: Diet & Stress | August 16 | 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Explore ways you can eat to beat stress. Learn how diet and dietary habits affect your reaction to stressors and how stress affects food cravings. Discover how simple diet shifts can assist with stress management. Find out more and register now.
Part 2 – Seasonal Nutrition: Summer (and beyond) Health Tips | August 23 | 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
This session expands on how stress affects food cravings and how to navigate summer festivities with ease. Learn about the simple dietary choices you can make to assist you this summer. Find out more and register now.
Not Myself Today is a national campaign focusing on helping workplaces achieve better understanding of mental health and to reduce stigma. As part of Thrive 2017, the Not Myself Today campaign will be implemented within numerous departments for the third year. UBC departments can easily take part in the campaign during Thrive Week (October 30 – November 3) using tools and resources to educate and engage their staff and faculty.
Join us to learn about the campaign: how your department can get involved, discover support tools and resources, and learn about mental health. Find out more and register for the info session now.
Join us for a guided tour of the Nitobe Memorial Garden, a traditional Japanese tea and stroll garden located at UBC Vancouver. Enjoy nature while socializing and learning about the many unique features of the garden. Limited spots available. Find out more and register now.
Optimize your computer work environment to improve comfort and reduce the risk of injury. This one-hour tutorial combines a presentation and a practical session, giving you hands-on experience adjusting typical office equipment. By the end of the tutorial, you will know how to set up your chair, keyboard/mouse and monitor to promote neutral working postures. Find out more and register now.
I recently attended a conference with health promotion and human resources staff from colleges and universities across Canada. What an amazing opportunity! Nothing beats engaging with people who are incredibly energized and passionate about the work that they do.
Some of these colleagues I met for the first time, while others I have had the pleasure of developing personal and professional relationships with over the past five years. Though we may only see each other in person once a year, we have created a strong and supportive community of practice.
The theme of relationships came up repeatedly in our conversations and made me realize how the strength of our relationships relies heavily on managing our own expectations. Our thoughts, assumptions, biases and frustrations can often interfere with our ability to create and maintain healthy and supportive relationships in life and in the workplace.
Here are a few examples that I feel help to illustrate this.
If I trip over a power cord in the office, who can I blame? I might curse the cord and whoever left it lying on the floor. If I see someone else trip over this cord, I might think “slow down!” or “what a klutz”.
Also known as the fundamental attribution error, attribution bias is where we place emphasis on internal factors to explain someone else’s behaviour without considering external situational factors (as we might to justify our own behaviour and actions).
Think about someone with whom you have interacted or experienced a challenging situation recently. Remember that moment and think back to the emotions you were feeling at the time (frustration, anger etc.).
Now, imagine that you went to sleep last night and woke up this morning to discover that you had switched places with this person.
Put yourself back in that challenging situation, but as the other person. What emotions are you experiencing now? Is there a reason for your behaviour?
Momentarily taking ourselves out of our own experience to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes helps create empathy. Trying to identify with someone else’s feelings and emotions can help us better understand their behavior and perhaps approach a situation or relationship differently.
Take a look at the posters below. They come from an anti-stigma campaign from Healthy Minds Canada.
It’s obvious that we would never treat people with heart disease and cancer this way. However, the stigmas that persist around mental illness is very real and these posters expose a double standards that exist. They are a great example of how we can place our personal assumptions and judgments on others, creating a false basis for the relationship before it even really begins.
This month’s newsletter theme is healthy relationships and I hope that these examples will help you to look at the way that you approach your relationships with others going forward. Supportive and nurturing relationships are key to our individual and professional success.
Be curious, be open and be understanding.
All my best,
Miranda
Our Community of Practice! (June 2016)
Attend our upcoming session to learn more about the 2016 Not Myself Today Campaign:
Not Myself Today Information Session, July 12 @ 12pm
Learn about the campaign and how your department can be involved; discover support tools and resources; learn more about mental health and become involved in fostering safe, open and supportive work environments.
UBC’s Health, Wellbeing and Benefits team has a great line up of free activities and events coming your way this summer. Sign up today for programs including Office Stretches & Workouts, Celiac Disease & Gluten-free, Learn to Meditate Three-Part Series, Not Myself Today, Ergo Your Office, Eldercare and plenty more!
Are you thinking about going gluten-free? Is going gluten-free actually healthier for you? This workshop will focus on the myths and truths of the gluten-free diet, and delve into celiac disease and non-celiac gluten sensitivity.
The facilitators of the session are Val Vaartnou, President of the Canadian Celiac Association (Vancouver Chapter) and Nicole Fetterly, Registered Dietitian and Nutrition & Wellness Manager in UBC Student Housing and Hospitality Services. All staff and faculty are welcome to attend.
For more information and to register, click here.
The three-part Learn to Meditate series is back by popular demand for summer 2016! Wendy Quan will provide an introduction and basic concepts of meditation and mindfulness techniques. This three-session course, tuned for the working environment, is designed for those both new and experienced in the world of mindfulness meditation.
For $35, you can learn to cultivate personal resilience, learn techniques to reduce and manage stress, and gain confidence to practice meditation and mindfulness. For more information and to register, click here.
Not Myself Today is a campaign focusing on helping workplaces achieve better understanding of mental health and reduce stigma. As part of Thrive 2016, the Not Myself Today campaign will be implemented within numerous departments for the second year. UBC departments can easily take part in the campaign during Thrive week (Oct 31 – Nov 4) using tools and resources to educate their staff and faculty.
Join us to learn about the campaign and how your department can get involved, discover support tools and resources, and learn about mental health. For more information and to register, click here.
Optimize your computer work environment to improve comfort and reduce the risk of injury. This one-hour tutorial combines a presentation and a practical session, giving you hands-on experience adjusting typical office equipment. By the end of the tutorial you will know how to set up your chair, keyboard/mouse and monitor to promote neutral working postures. For more information and to register, click here.
Join Home-to-Home, a seniors advisory and assistance business, in this one-hour session on eldercare planning and management. Participants will learn how to develop eldercare plans related to housing, how to avoid crisis situations, access resources, budgeting, legal considerations, and gain a greater awareness of eldercare options and resources. For more information and to register, click here.