Inspiration Let’s talk about stress!

We all know the say­ing prac­ti­ce what you pre­ach”. Let’s now see it in action!

Mar­tin visi­ted us a few weeks ago and show­ed us how we can incre­a­se our mobi­li­ty in the work­place. You can read all about it here.

Back then, we said, that we were always working around the clock not only on our cus­to­mer pro­jects but also on our­sel­ves. Liter­al­ly. That is why our dear col­league Mara recent­ly took part in a stress-pre­ven­ti­on work­shop. And, as it could­n’t be other­wi­se, she wants to share her expe­ri­ence and fin­dings not only with us, but also with you.

Inspiration October 28, 2021 Pascal Jodocy 4 min

A stress work­shop

It is a peace­ful Satur­day after­noon in Octo­ber, the sun is shi­ning, the tem­pe­ra­tu­re is 20 degrees and the­re is not a sin­gle cloud in sight. Ide­al for a walk in the park or a nice cold drink in the sun.

Not today, not for me. For mon­ths I have been tel­ling mys­elf I have to car­ve out more me time. I wan­ted to medi­ta­te dai­ly, impro­ve my yoga prac­ti­ce, read lots of books, ride a bike, swim, and so much more. Howe­ver, somehow some­thing always comes up or the Net­flix offer is just too ent­i­cing. I was also often over­whel­med with all I sup­po­sed­ly had to do to sim­ply relax. The con­se­quence of it all: I never even tried.

During the last yoga class in one of my favou­rite stu­di­os in Colo­gne I saw the noti­ce Let’s talk about stress”. The work­shop descrip­ti­on fit exact­ly what I wan­ted to do: under­stand my stress.

And the­re I was. The sun was shi­ning out­side, and I was sit­ting insi­de in the cosy yoga stu­dio to talk with stran­gers about stress for four hours on Satur­day and ano­t­her six hours on Sunday. What can I say? It was ama­zing!


How did the work­shop go?

To begin with, the six par­ti­ci­pants intro­du­ced them­sel­ves using the keys on their key­chains. When exp­lai­ning which key I use what for, I immedia­te­ly reve­a­led a lot about mys­elf and my ever­y­day life. That was ok becau­se we all did that.

The next two days were then fil­led with a good mix of theo­ry, prac­ti­cal exer­ci­ses for rela­xa­ti­on, various yoga ses­si­ons and lots of tea.

We dealt with what stress is and how it can affect our body. We also exch­an­ged ide­as about our per­so­nal psy­cho­lo­gi­cal and phy­sio­lo­gi­cal reac­tions and set rela­xa­ti­on goals that we want to pur­sue.

I have also set mys­elf a reso­lu­ti­on: read at least 10 pages every evening out of the spe­cia­li­sed maga­zi­ne Neue Nar­ra­ti­ve, a novel, or the pho­ne book – it does­n’t mat­ter. But what hap­pens if some­thing comes up? What if I spon­ta­ne­ous­ly go to the pub for an after-work beer with friends or the Net­flix offer is again an insur­moun­ta­ble tempt­ati­on?

Qui­te frank­ly: I still mana­ge to read 10 pages no mat­ter what! I first set my goals small in order to crea­te a rou­ti­ne that I can inte­gra­te in my ever­y­day life.

In addi­ti­on to a few goals, what else did I take away from the stress-pre­ven­ti­on wee­kend for mys­elf and my job?

  • The­re are situa­tions in which I just feel over­whel­med.
    Even if it sounds tri­vi­al: The con­fir­ma­ti­on that I am not alo­ne with this fee­ling has given me posi­ti­ve ener­gy for my ever­y­day pro­fes­sio­nal life.
  • I belie­ve we are very open as a com­pa­ny. We talk about many things and con­scious­ly crea­te spaces for them.
    Howe­ver, this is not enough. In the future, I will speak to my col­leagues even more clear­ly about how I feel and what con­cerns me. I can­not find the solu­ti­ons to my pro­blems alo­ne, but in a team.
  • Pro­gres­si­ve mus­cle rela­xa­ti­on or PMR for short is a rela­xa­ti­on method that I redis­co­ve­r­ed for mys­elf over the wee­kend and which I will do with the team at the next oppor­tu­ni­ty. (1)
  • And final­ly: The next inter­nal SAPE­RED work­shop is alrea­dy being plan­ned and I will pre­pa­re and share a few of the topics I have lear­ned with our team. I’m curious to see which takea­ways we as a team will take from it.

(1) What is PMR?
In PMR, indi­vi­du­al mus­cle groups are brief­ly ten­sed one after the other in a cer­tain order. The ten­si­on is then released. The dura­ti­on can then be varied. For examp­le, short peri­ods over lar­ge mus­cle groups such as hands, arms, legs, etc. or lon­ger peri­ods over indi­vi­du­al, smal­ler mus­cle groups star­ting with the litt­le fin­ger and ending with the litt­le toe.


It is with plea­su­re that we award credits to:

Whe­re did the cour­se take place?
> https://​kom​jun​.de/

Who ran the cour­se?
> Marc Böh­me https://​berg​auf​-ws​.de/
> Mir­ka Baa­den https://​mirk​ar​ma​-yoga​.de/

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