What's on your to do list?
The work of a Respiratory Healthcare Professional is never done, and we know how busy you all are. But do you make time for yourself? Are you looking after your own wellbeing? Last year, 12 million working days were lost to work related stress, anxiety and depression and increasingly employers are looking to innovative ways to support staff. However, only limited efforts have been made to explore the impact of creativity and culture on supporting and caring for the workforce.
This week is the London Arts in Health Creativity and Wellbeing Festival, with events all over London and beyond. The festival is partnering with 64million artists, a cultural and arts organisation which aims to unlock the power of creativity in everyone. They have set us all a challenge to get people talking about creativity’s potential to tackle workplace stress. We are taking part in the festival creative challenge, making sure that health and happiness get a rightful place on our To Do lists.
You can read more the creative challenge on the Festival website. Below is a brief summary.
To Do lists are often filled with our most urgent and pressing tasks, the jobs that we prioritise and think are the most important things to get done. Why is it then that things to enhance our health and wellbeing rarely make it onto our lists? Working long hours with a seemingly never-ending schedule of duties, it’s easy to find ourselves neglecting our emotional and physical wellbeing, even though we may recognise it has an effect on the quality of our lives. It’s time to de-stress, reclaim your time, and remember the things that put a smile on your face.
Send photos of your completed creative challenge via the Twitter hashtag #CreativityandWellbeing to be part of the online event.
Challenge: make a To Do list with a difference and write something that you’d like to include that never makes it onto your official list. Perhaps you’d like to learn a musical instrument, take a long walk in the countryside, enjoy a sunny seaside holiday, cook a meal for friends you haven’t seen in ages, learn how to craft your own jewellery, knit a scarf or decoupage a piece of old furniture, take a dance class, join that local amateur dramatics group or community choir.
Allow yourself 5 minutes to consider the possibilities for your reimagined To Do list. It could be as simple as having a lie in at the weekend to read the latest Pulitzer Prize-winning novel or sitting down to relax with a freshly squeezed juice from the place that you’ve always wanted to try – anything that puts your health and happiness first and makes you feel good.
To get you started, here is LJ's to do list and her doodle (appropriately themed!).
