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The global pandemic sputtered to an official end in May 2023. But the number of daily challenges, the velocity of change, levels of uncertainty, and amounts of toxicity haven’t decreased.
In fact, in the midst of a post-pandemic economic boom, we’re experiencing a new rolling wave of stress and burnout.
“Employee stress has climbed to record-high levels since the pandemic.” ~ Gallup, 2024
“95% of HR leaders find work to be overwhelming due to excessive workload and stress.” ~ Sage Research, 2024
“80% of senior executives predict that burnout will have a significantly negative impact on their employees in 2024.” ~ International Strategy and Risk, 2024
“Global perceived risk levels for the next 12 months are the highest ever recorded.” ~ The Perma-Crisis Takes its Toll, 2024
A Pervasive Threat
Stress has become our constant companion and a pervasive threat to our health, well-being, and personal performance.
We’re still coping with the fallout of information overload, decision fatigue, attention deficit, digital distraction, constant change - and now the steep rise in conflict, toxicity, exhaustion, and burnout.
This is seriously affecting our quality of life, our families and friends, our engagement at work, and our personal performance and productivity. It makes us physically sick, diminishes our intellectual capabilities, and destroys emotional intelligence. The foundation of our mental health is knowing how to manage it effectively.
Surprisingly, we haven’t seen stress and burnout subside in the post-pandemic era. In fact, reports show that they’re continuing to rise to new record levels. The good news is that we’ve come through a period of massive personal and societal upheaval that has focused our resources, delivered new science, and surfaced new solutions for preventing and overcoming it.
Critical New Work Competencies
Stress and anxiety are not only unpleasant and uncomfortable; they steadily erode our physical, mental, and emotional capabilities. They are crippling our leaders, impairing our teams, and leading to burnout. The inevitable workplace results are toxicity, demotivation, disengagement, absenteeism, and turnover.
Our personal abilities to manage stress, anxiety, and burnout are now critical work competencies. How can we lead effectively when we’re worried or anxious? How can we do our best work if we’re distracted or overwhelmed? How can we attract and serve clients or guarantee high-quality goods and services if we’re exhausted or burned out?
Dangerous Gaps
In this increasingly VUCA business era, the most dangerous gaps - and most promising advantages - are our personal capabilities for stress control, attentional control, and emotional control.
For leaders and high-performers, these are no longer optional traits. They are foundational skills that directly impact the success of their teams and organizations. Knowing this, you’d think that stress, attention, and emotional control would be core subjects in our public school system or, at minimum, electives in B-school. But they’re not.
A Billion Perspectives
So where do we go for help? Well, there are a half-billion search results for the phrase “workplace stress” and another half-billion for the keyword “burnout.” In there somewhere are all the conflicting opinions on medicines, mindfulness, and metaphysical cures - 50 years of research across 50 sub-disciplines of science - and yes, the most current, most relevant insights, and the most effective solutions from 3 years of emergency focus on mental health.
The problem is they’re scattered all over the web and buried in their own silos and bubbles. Surfacing what actually works can be a numbingly complex challenge.
But it gets a step simpler when we define stress management as a trainable business skill rather than a spiritual or therapeutic objective. And another to know that the brain can change and that the mind can change the brain - and that research has determined the effectiveness of specific physical, mental and emotional interventions.
Knowing this, we can surface science-validated neural training practices, index them by outcomes, and match those outcomes to applications that reduce stress, diminish anxiety, and prevent or moderate burnout.
A Workshop for What Works
This neatly sums up our own methodology for creating a unique three-hour workshop called New Science and Solutions for Stress, Anxiety, and Burnout. We hope you’ll be able to join us on Thursday, May 9, 12:00 - 3:00 pm EST to explore a comprehensive rollup of the newest research - how it all fits together - and the most effective, science-confirmed solutions for clearing the mind, quieting the brain, and calming the body.
The workshop includes a companion learning portal with self-paced materials, including an expanded view of key topics, a curated series of breathwork, mindfulness, additional neural training resources - and an optional deeper dive into journaled research, supporting articles, and expert videos.
About IOSM
The Institute for Organizational Mindfulness (IOSM) is a global non-profit association of human capital and operating leaders, educators, and coaches. We share a common mission to apply all-science mindfulness to create more effective leaders, a happier, healthier, and higher-performing workforce, and a safer, more inclusive, and more productive workplace.