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19Mar

4 Ways to Find More Ease as an SLP

Posted by: Jessi Andricks Categories: Burn Out Career Advice Gratitude Journal Techniques for SLPs Meditation Reduce Stress Self Care
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SLP Ease PinterestAs an SLP, you are probably more familiar than you want to be with feeling stretched a little too thin on a daily basis. You are trained in so many different aspects of communication (and swallowing), you probably have a pretty varied caseload (that is most likely way too big or way too small), and you are constantly between direct and indirect therapy services. Plus, you have become a pro at multi-tasking all day, every day.  All of this has become part of your routine (or soon will be if you are a student or CF), and it can, honestly, be quite exhausting at times. Or most of the time.

There are reasons for that.

Sometimes you might feel like you are loaded down with more work than there is time in the day. Other times you might get a new student or patient and feel like you just don’t have the skills or knowledge to fully treat them. And there will be times that you just feel run down and tired (or perhaps even sick), and you just don’t have the mental energy to do your work, but you still show up and do it anyway.

There is a ton of paperwork. Productivity levels change constantly in all settings. Caseloads are often out of your control. Multi-tasking causes you to do mental jumping jacks all day. You are physically and mentally exhausted. Add all of this together and you might notice that your outlook on your work, career and even your daily life might have shifted for the negative.

Being stressed and feeling stuck can cause your brain to start to work in overdrive to protect you. This is a beautiful and wonderful system that can keep you safe when you are in danger. But when you aren’t in danger, and life is just constantly feeling stressful, it only sets you up for more stress and more exhaustion each day. It stops you from being able to find more ease as an SLP, and leaves you feeling more and more stressed each day.

When you are chronically feeling stressed, your brain starts to stay on “high alert” to look out for threats and stress around you. If you have a stressful job, or lots of work piling up, stress is everywhere and your brain is constantly seeing it, signaling to your body to release hormones and keeping you in a state of anxiety and stress, which can eventually lead to burn out in your body (adrenal system), your energy (mental and physical) and your job.

To help shift out of this mode, you can do a few practices that help you to find more ease as an SLP, even when your day and schedule haven’t changed one bit. These practices are designed to help you calm the signals in your body that alert your brain to stress (deep breathing), help you to find space in your thoughts (movement), finding positive moments in your day (gratitude journal) and reducing the amount of task switching each day (no more multi-tasking).

Here are 4 ways to find more ease as an SLP, every day:

Gratitude Journal:

  • Helps you find some good in the day
  • Helps your brain to notice more good
  • Gives you a pause in the day
  • Write down 3 positive things from your day

Movement:

  • Clears your head
  • Blood and breath flowing
  • Energy lifts
  • Take 5-60 minutes to walk, stretch or move mindfully

Deep Breathing/Meditation:

  • Sends signal to bran and body to be calm
  • Decreases stress response
  • Gives you a break in your day
  • take 1-5 minutes to focus on your breath

Drop Multi-tasking:

  • More efficient work
  • More mental energy
  • Less strain on brain to constantly switching from task to task
  • Instead bulk like tasks together and check email at set times

When you incorporate one or all of these tings into your day, you’ll start to create new habit and patterns that help reduce stress, but also train your brain to be less affected by the stress that is around you each day. They teach you to manage stress better.

For more on stress management, make sure to check out the “SLP Toolbox” where you’ll find more strategies and tips to build ease in your day. You can sign up below for access.

Much Love,

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24Jan

Meditation for SLP Goal Setting and Visualization

Posted by: Jessi Andricks Categories: Goal Setting
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Meditation for Goal Setting and Visualization Pinterest

Want to set goals that will actually work (and evolve with you), but have no idea where to start? Give this goal setting meditation a try. You’ll visualize your goals, explore the “why” behind them, and then get to setting them.

 

Want more meditations? Make sure to check out the Meditation and Audio library, and subscribe to the monthly newsletter for a free meditation practice straight to your inbox, as well as access to the SLP Toolbox, where you’ll find more meditation audios, journal templates and more – including the “Goal Setting Guide“, a downloadable workbook that will help you explore, set and reach your professional and personal goals.

Much Love,

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3Sep

3 Ways for SLPs to Stress Less this School Year

Posted by: Jessi Andricks Categories: Burn Out Career Advice Reduce Stress Self Care
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SLP Stress Less Pinterest

With a new school year here and many of us already back at school and (yikes!) even seeing students already, you are bound to start having those dreaded, stressful thoughts that you left on your desk at the end of the year, start to find their way back to you.

Even if you are excited and feeling recharged form the summer break, you might find your thoughts starting to flicker back an forth between excitement and anxiety, the familiar pull that you know will eventually take over by the end of the year. I don’t mean to paint a dark and dreary picture for you, but to show that you are not alone in this. If you have ever felt the exhaustion of chronic stress or burn out, you know that it can slowly creep in and take over before you realize what has happened.

That is the bad news.

The good news is that this usually only happens because we go through the same cycle each year or excitement about the start of the new year and all that it could bring right on to the reality of the work it entails and then the sheer exhaustion it brings by Summertime. For most, this cycle gets slightly more difficult each passing school year, because the few months in the summer, where you could really take time to recharge and create some changes in your work-life balance, are spent ignoring the feelings while you relax for a few months, or you work like crazy in a PRN job or running errands all summer. (more…)

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20Feb

3 Simple Ways to Reduce SLP Job Burn Out

Posted by: Jessi Andricks Categories: Burn Out Career Advice
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Reduce SLP Job Burn Out Pinterest

In any field or lifestyle where you are primarily putting the needs of others before yours, there is a possibility of Compassion Fatigue and Burn Out. This is due to the fact that is can be exhausting and stressful to have someone’s needs, and sometimes life, depend on your skills and abilities. You constantly have to be focused, thinking and keeping them engaged in what you are doing. As SLP’s, this can be even harder because you are caring for people of ALL ages in so many different settings, where you are sometimes responsible for their ability to think and communicate effectively or perhaps even to nourish their bodies safely. It can be beautiful but draining work, that comes with the additional stress of productivity levels, paperwork and a lack of understanding from those around you. It can be extremely stressful and, when that stress becomes chronic or daily, it can become serious and turn into Burn Out.

Burn Out is recognized by the World Health Organization and is real. It is also manageable and treatable. If you are feeling overwhelmed by stress and anxiety, and think you might be heading toward burn out, there are things you can do to help reduce it. I’ve partnered with the ASHA Leader Blog today to share 3 simple, but hugely effective, things you can do to help reduce and prevent Burn Out as an SLP. (more…)

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17Jan

How To Create A Vision Board

Posted by: Jessi Andricks Categories: Goal Setting Reduce Stress Self Care
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Vision Board Pinterest (1)

Each year, I like to set an intention for the year – whether it is something small, like going to the beach more often, or something big, like paying off debt or starting a new training/school. Sometimes it is a simple mantra, like “expand” or “create joy”. This helps me to focus on where I want to go in the year, rather than what let me down or what I need to change from the year before. The intention is to bring in something more positive, so there are more positive shifts happening in my life throughout the year.

Similar to setting a goal, it helps me to make better decisions and gives me something to lean back on. With my intention in mind during decision making, I can make sure I ask myself “Is this moving me towards my intention for the year, or taking me further from it?”.  This strategy can work for new continuing education, certification or degrees; a new job or setting; or perhaps even a change in your lifestyle outside of work.

As January moves ahead, it is a good time to reflect on the goals and intentions you may have set for the year. You can start to see if you have been able to make shifts towards that intention you’ve set, or if that goal isn’t quite what you intended it to be. You can also see if your goals are already pushed back into the far corners of your mind as you make space for all of the “must-do’s” that are part of everyday life.

This happens really easily, and is one of the reasons why most of us either forget our intentions or just give up on them after a month or so. If you are feeling like your goals are already slipping away from you, or you are looking for a way to be more aware of them each day, you can try making them visual.

One way that I like to do this is to create a vision board. A vision board is a visual means of having your goals on display, around you, to see every day. These goals come as pictures, images, quotes, trinkets or anything that is meaningful to you. Having these items on display helps you to remember your intention, connect to it more often and feel as if you are really working towards it each day. It also helps give you more input to use when you ask yourself “Is this bringing me closer to my intention?”.

In the past, my vision boards have represented where I wanted my yoga practice and teaching to lead me, what I wanted to learn, how I wanted to develop my coaching practice and even what I wanted to do with our house once we moved. My boards usually focus on my career and personal goals or hobbies, as these are the areas I need the most clarity in, but they can really represent anything that you wish to work on.

Here are some examples of my boards in the past:

2012 Visions2013 Vision Board

A vision board is very simple to make and can be made for very little expense. It can be a fun project to do as part of your self-care on evening, or could even be a family night activity or part of a date night. If you run a business, this could be part of your business strategy sessions and planning for the year ahead.

How to create a vision board:

  • Grab some magazine or newspapers or flyers
  • Print out images or quotes that are meaningful to you
  • Find photos, pictures or even cards around your home
  • Paste or thumbtack them into your board
  • Place your board somewhere you see every day. If it is focused on your career, place it in your office. If it is focused on personal development, place it somewhere you work or attend to often. If it is relationship focused, or perhaps you made a board with your partner or family, hang it in your room or family space.
  • Each year, look back at your board and swap out things that aren’t meaningful or you have moved beyond with things for the new year.

That really is all there is to it. Once you create your board you are ready for it to work its “magic” and help you reach your intentions throughout the year.

Have you ever created a vision board before? If so, leave your tips in the comments below or in the FB group. If you want even more useful tools to help combat stress and burn out, make sure to sign up below for the SLP Toolbox.


You can also check out more on goal setting here. If you’d like to dive deeper in setting your goals and decreasing your overall stress, I’d love to work with you this year. You can email me any questions you might have to jessi@jessiandricks.com or schedule a phone/skype chat here. 

Much Love,

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2Jan

How to Set Goals that Evolve and Reduce Stress

Posted by: Jessi Andricks Categories: Burn Out Career Advice Goal Setting
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Goal Setting Pinterest

Goal setting is one of those things that everyone seems to be doing each January (and August if you work in a school). It is a way to harness the new timeframe, get solidified in what you want to accomplish and make a plan for it to come to fruition. Unfortunately, most of these goals are often left in the dust after a few weeks, or even days, and our year doesn’t quite have the impact we had hoped for. Or worse, we reach our goals but then are left to fumble through the rest of the year or not know what to do when the next year arrives.

The reason for this is simple.  Most of us are taught to set hard deadlines with our goals, and to set firm, measurable goals that allow us to see when we achieve the, much like the goals we set for our patients and students. While this can be helpful, it also has a major flaw. What do you do once the goal has been reached? (more…)

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