Suffering From Emotional Residue?

Caroline Holmyard
Written by Caroline Holmyard

In our last article we explored the notion of Holistic Wellbeing, what it means to the individual and how it is affected and influenced by Workplace Culture.

Here we are going to try and explore an issue that can impact on (Holistic) Wellbeing – Distractions leading to Emotional Residue.

Distraction comes in broadly two forms.  Cognitive Distraction can occur in the workplace when switching tasks or switching between different forms of tech or platforms.  And Emotional Distraction which contains an Emotionally triggering response. 

So how to overcome Emotional Residue?

As a starting point we’re going to link this to Safety (of body, health, employment, family and property) and Esteem (confidence, respect of/from others, achievement) layers of the Maslovian “Hierarchy of Needs” Pyramid. These layers need to be successfully negotiated and managed if an individual is to achieve sustained happiness, freedom and life satisfaction.

But as we said Cognitive and Emotional Distractions get in the way, and act as obstacles and blockers to managing Emotional Residue.  And are barriers to happiness.

If someone says to you they feel “overwhelmed”  or things are seeming “a bit much” the chances are they are experiencing these barriers, or blockers, a relived trauma or a combination of all. These are feelings, emotions and or moods that frequently remain “live” after they have been experienced. Emotional Residue can be transitory and relatively short lived or it can be more deep seated, embedded even, and periodically surface.

Like Workplace Culture this subject area is both wide & deep!

A quick and understandable explanation of Emotional Residue is overwork and then taking that overwork home.

Microsoft, celebrated their 50th birthday this month, tell us that we now have over three times more meetings now that we did ten years ago. Meetings though are just that – meetings. No real work gets done! So, we now must squeeze our work into a more concentrated timeline and that is not always possible. Work, and overwork, accumulates and the stress is ported from the office to the home.

Meetings aside there is an endless list of other types of distraction. Time stealing needy colleagues who tap on the door and say  ”Have you got a minute?” And it never IS a minute. Your own tasks fall further behind and or are done badly. Further, the modern workplace often requires us to frequently switch tasks; often triggered by an unscheduled call where you are asked to do something straight away. And so it goes on. 

Unmanageable work volume – and an oppressive work culture – are key factors here, however, the quality of experience in the workplace also has a massive impact. A difficult meeting, a workplace shouting match, perceived pressuring by a colleague or manager really turn up the stress dial and it is this type pf stress that does not leave the body easily or quickly. Come 5 o’clock you tidy your desk and take your bag and your emotions home with you. Being at home then becomes problematic as you cannot unhitch the working day from what should be a happy-at-home emotional state. The cloud you bring home will be sensed by family members and lowers their own mood and emotional profile. 

It is extremely difficult to leave a bad day at the office at the office. Stress and worry, like pollution, does not respect borders.

Gloomy eh?

Yes it is.

But there are solutions and we’ll come to them soon.

And if allowed to go unchallenged and unmitigated it heads towards a condition called Allostatic Load which is where stress begins to have a negative physical impact on the body. This was identified by Dr Bruce McEwen and Dr Eliot Stellar in 1993 so none of this is new. The body becomes literally worn and torn, and is subject to bio-chemical change, by repeated and sustained excesses of emotional residue.

OK, we’ve done a bit of a lightning tour of some of the theory and the factors that can cause Emotional Residue.

How do we counter and mitigate this?

What do we need to do?

Confidence – yes, we’re back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – can enable us to push back on our work load. And confidence can help us say to your needy colleague that you are busy and can’t break off just now. Not always easy though.

We can prioritise tasks and plan our time as best we can to be efficient – both are excellent disciplines. Further, we can try and avoid distractions and time stealers where possible. Learn to decline meetings where appropriate. Put your phone on silent or, better, turn it off for a few hours whilst you get your head down and plough through your to do list.

Doing all that already and still feeling under the cosh?

Find your solution!

Try this.

Try using the NoWorriesApp – a free to download and free to use 100% private and confidential personal self-help tool that enables users to recognise, manage and ease worry.  By reflecting on a worry and making a small change decision to manage it, you can ease it and feel a little happier.

The guided self-help journey is like pulling a thread – it helps rationalise concerns and worries. When you move from rumination to an intentional decision, you may find things are actually better than they seem at first glance. Such discoveries yield a welcome dopamine hit. The NoWorriesApp can nudge you to become more resilient and increasingly self-reliant as you resolve concerns yourself. It’s agency over worry.

We all need to recognise that we want to rise up our friend Mr Maslow’s pyramid to achieve a sustainably happier and more satisfied life state. Avoiding distractions that cause and embed stress and worry will help us. And, importantly, preventing Emotional Residue evolving into Allostatic Load is critical.    

Handled & managed properly there is joy to be had & light to be seen.  

References

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