Maintaining a Healthy Mindset in Hospitality: Strategies for Success

Sarah Kettel
00:00:09

Talking Hospitality

Timothy R Andrews
00:00:18

Welcome to our podcast Talking Hospitality. I'm Timothy R. Andrews and this is my co host Sarah Kettel. How you doing?

Sarah Kettel
00:00:25

I'm good, how are you doing?

Timothy R Andrews
00:00:27

Awesome.

Sarah Kettel
00:00:28

Talking Hospitality on is a podcast looking at issues within hospitality solutions and inspirational stories within the sector. The podcast is shared on all major platforms on audibles, iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, YouTube.

Timothy R Andrews
00:00:41

Episode 6 Mental Illness Recognizing the Signs and Tips on preventing it this is the third and final part of our three part miniseries focusing on mental health.

Sarah Kettel
00:00:53

Welcome back to Susan Grandfield Mind Coach from SusanGrandfield.com It's great to have you back on the show. Susan. What are the signs someone can recognize if they may be suffering from anxiety or depression?

Susan Grandfield
00:01:05

It's probably different for everyone, but the main thing I would say is if you are starting to notice that you are worrying more than you used to, you're finding yourself caught in a train of thinking that feels uncomfortable and it feels different. So some people worry quite a lot, so that wouldn't be necessarily different for them.

But if you notice that you're becoming your thinking is more focused on negatives and worries and concerns. I think the other thing is to really tune into how the body feels. The body is an amazing source of wisdom.

It knows things before our brain does, so it's giving us constant signals. So if you're finding it difficult to relax, difficult to switch off, whereas previously you were able to, that would be a sign.

So as in physically relax and kind of sit down and not have to be always doing things. Tension in the body. So if you're holding tension, sounds a bit specific.

But you know, if you start to notice your problems with your digestive system and the reason I say that is because the gut has a lot of wisdom, has a lot of nerve endings in there. So it's really in tune with how we're feeling and the environment we're in.

So if you're starting to feel that bit of your system is just not working so well, that's a sign. Overeating or under eating.

When you notice that your normal patterns of behaviour are different and you're not consciously choosing them to be different, there's a chance there's something underlying there. Sometimes it takes someone else to point something out to us before we realise it.

So someone close to you might say you've been doing this a lot or you've stopped doing that. So just notice changes I think would be the. Would be a key thing and then just really tune into how the body feels.

And if you used to exercise a lot and you're now not exercising because you feel lethargic, or sometimes people go the opposite way and become obsessive with things like exercising. And that's a way to kind of burn off energy. But I don't think there's a kind of finite list. It's different for everyone.

Timothy R Andrews
00:03:09

What can we do for ourselves?

What are your tips for staying mentally healthy ourselves and going to work every day with, you know, with the right mindset and just feeling okay about things generally?

Susan Grandfield
00:03:20

Yeah, sort of.

Most important advice that you know, if you, if you Google that, you get this advice from lots of different sources is maintaining a good balance in all aspects of our lives. So eating healthily as best we can, but at least eating regularly, that's a challenge in the hospitality industry with the hours that people work.

But as best you can, having a, you know, a routine in terms of your eating and making sure you're getting enough sleep, again, that's a real challenge. It doesn't have to be eight hours, not everybody needs eight hours sleep. But just getting some decent amounts of sleep, getting outside.

So being in nature is so, so important for physical and mental health. So at some point in your day, you know, if you can walk to and from work rather than getting on a bus or the tube or whatever.

So I think there's things about maintaining that sense of balance. So your well being is made up of mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, financial, well being. There's all different elements to it.

Giving yourself the best opportunity to deal with whatever the day throws at you. So making sure you're fueled, you're well slept, you're hydrated, all of those kind of things.

From a mindset point of view, if you do all of that, it makes having a more positive or optimistic mindset easier. You know, if we're hungry and we're tired, it's more difficult to think positively.

But things, but assuming those things are in place, you know, I definitely don't subscribe to the thing of just think, think positively because sometimes in situations it's quite difficult. For the last few months, it's been quite difficult to see what the positives are.

I've practiced mindfulness for many years and I use mindfulness as a, as really an underpinning to all the work I do with my clients.

And one of the first things I say is if you can accept and allow whatever's happening, you know, so like it's already happening, whatever the challenge or difficulty is, instead of trying to fight against it or make it different. Can you just go, okay, here's what's going on right now. So I don't know if I'm going to have a job next week.

I don't know, you know, what the future is for me. I don't know what kind of customers I'm going to encounter today. Because we have this imagination that concocts this worst case scenario.

That's really.

If you go in for your shift and you're already thinking about the difficult customers you might encounter, the boss that's going to yell at you, the fact that this might be your last shift because they haven't told you what hours you've got coming up, you know, we can create a really doomsday scenario. So I think the thing is going, what do I know today?

Be present with whatever you know right now and kind of take it each day in each moment at a time. And I guess the other thing I'd say about mindset is to recognize that everything ebbs and flows so everything moves on.

So if things are really challenging right now, they're not going to be like that forever. One way or another, it will move on.

So again, that thing of, okay, today is really challenging, this moment is really challenging, but it will change. And it just allows a little bit of, a little bit of relaxation around it, which then means the thing moves on.

You know, whatever the difficulty is, moves on.

It's very easy to get caught up in our own, you know, what's going on for me, and we all bring, you know, we all have our family situations as well, but when we come to work, we're all in it together. I think that's one of the things I found most helpful for people when they get stuck in a mindset that feels really heavy and difficult.

They're not the only person somewhere else in the world and probably not far from them. There's someone else who's feeling very, very similar, if not the same.

And there's something about just knowing you're not the only one who's going through it that helps. And I think something about this pandemic is that there's been nobody in the world who hasn't been affected by this.

And somehow that just makes it a little bit easier to cope with. Sort of theme whenever we're talking about mental health in any scenario is communication. It's just got to be about talking about it.

And it doesn't mean, you know, doing it in a way where people get upset. But it can be just that thing of checking in with people, checking, check in on your boss as well.

And they may not tell you anything, but at least they know that there's, you know, that there's that human connection there. And rather than just saying, how are you? And then we don't really listen to the answer.

I don't know whether that's just a British thing that we do, but it's like, how are you? And then you move on. It's like checking in and going, so, how are you today? What's going on?

I definitely think that speaking to somebody that you already know and trust and just sharing, sometimes all it takes is to be able to just say what it is you're thinking and even just saying it out loud, it doesn't seem quite as bad. When we keep things in our head and they keep going round and round and round. That's when they become really big, feel like really big issues.

So I'm not saying that just talking out loud makes things better, but it often just is a gateway into feeling a little bit of release and then, you know, and then you can take it from there and get more professional help if needed. But, yeah, connect with people around you, I think, is definitely important.

I think one of the key things really is the point about whatever it is you're feeling is okay. And whatever it is you're feeling, you're not alone. I think that can be one of the biggest challenges when we're experiencing mental health problems.

And I think it's important to say that we all have mental health. It's just like where we are on that particular scale of it being good or not so good on any particular day.

So we all have good days and we all have days where we're not feeling so good. And sometimes we get stuck maybe in that not so good part of the scale for longer. But you're never alone.

Other people are experiencing it too, and it will pass at some point. I just feel that's really important. There are ways that you can.

You can get to know your own mind better and you can actually start to train your mind. Just like you go to the gym and you flex muscles to.

Or you train muscles to get stronger, you can actually get better at training your mind to not be so focused on the negative stuff or the stuff that makes you feel not so good and take a much more kind of, I guess, pragmatic view of the world and not get caught in the place that can sometimes make us feel a bit stuck. So it is possible, it is possible to move towards the end of that mental health scale which says I feel good most of the time, it is possible.

Sarah Kettel
00:10:02

Susan, do you have any resources on your website?

Susan Grandfield
00:10:07

Yes, I've got some resources on my website that people are welcome to have a look at.

So there's a section in there on relaxations and meditations which, you know, really short people can, even if they've never done it before, go on there, that might help just to switch off at the end of a, end of a busy day.

And I've written various blogs and things which might just give people some different perspectives people might find interesting to have a wee look at.

Sarah Kettel
00:10:30

And where can they find that information?

Susan Grandfield
00:10:32

Yep, it is www.susangrandfield.com an organisation like mind.org. you know, lots of resources on there as well.

Sarah Kettel
00:10:44

Thank you very much for joining us.

Timothy R Andrews
00:10:46

Thank you.

Susan Grandfield
00:10:47

Thank you. Bye bye. Bye bye.

Timothy R Andrews
00:10:50

So if you are struggling with your mental health right now and you do need some help, you can contact Samaritans. You can call them free on 116 123

Sarah Kettel
00:10:57

You can also call Hospitality Action on 080-882-0282 and the website is hospitalityaction.org.uk.

Timothy R Andrews
00:11:13

Remember, you are not alone. Thank you for listening. Please share, subscribe and like. We look forward to you joining us in the next episode of Talking Hospitality

Available on iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play and YouTube. Talking Hospitality.