Virtual fatigue refers to the exhaustion you feel after any kind of video call, conference or online meeting. It is also known as Zoom fatigue. Virtual fatigue can affect our productivity, engagement and well-being.

The more you know about virtual fatigue, the better prepared you are to recognize, understand and manage it.

How to manage Virtual Fatigue – 4 Strategies to help

1. Be mindful of the signs - Are you checking in with yourself?

2. Optimize your scheduling - What do you have control over? Figure out what works best for you.

3. Improve your environment - Is your workspace supporting you?

4. Take care of your physical and emotional needs - Are you conserving your energy?

Procrastination excuses are those explanations and justifications that we tell ourselves to convince ourselves to postpone, avoid or reschedule a task/activity/behaviour we want to do, planned to do, know we should do or would be beneficial for us to do.

We have become experts at using these excuses and it is a skill that we have learned to master through repetition.

Discover the most common procrastination excuses and specific ways in which you can start to manage them.

Disconnect to Reconnect.

Being successful in disconnecting from work, both physically and mentally, offers us opportunities to re-energize, re-charge our batteries and maintain our motivation.

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes…including you. - Anne Lamott

How do you truly disconnect, unplug and recover from your workday?

1. Acknowledge your daily accomplishments

2. Create a realistic plan for tomorrow

3. Celebrate the rest of your day

4. Make a commitment to disconnect

“Coming to accept who you are involves loving yourself because of your flaws, not in spite of them.”- Deborah Serani

Practicing unconditional self-acceptance is a process and it takes repetition, patience and understanding. But the rewards are so worth it! 

Acceptance can lead to a deeper, healthier and more positive relationship with your body, as well as to unconditional body-love and self-worth. 

Be gentle and kind to yourself as you try to put these strategies into practice and try to find meaning in connecting with yourself and your body.

Curiosity is the desire to fill a gap in our knowledge or the drive to learn something new.

It is related to an inquisitive way of thinking that includes exploration, investigation and learning. Curiosity is also associated with our personal development, and it facilitates a deeper connection to ourselves, others and the world around us.

Discover what benefits curiosity can bring and find specific ways to cultivate it in the relationship with yourself, with the ones around you and in your life.

Our needs, desires and dissatisfactions are important. Expressing and fulfilling them means achieving a greater sense of balance while staying congruent and authentic with ourselves. This is not a simple process as it involves balancing our needs with the ones of the people around us. For some of us, this can be a continuous source of cognitive dissonance and distress.

Once you understand and accept the limits of your responsibility in a relationship, the fact that you cannot know what other people are thinking or accurately predict how they will act and the idea that emotions eventually decrease in intensity, you will set yourself free, and you will be more authentic in the way you express ourselves.

We show ourselves self-compassion and understanding for who we are, what we have been through and what we are facing right now. We remind ourselves that we are life-long learners, and we are still working on developing our skills and abilities.

Our inner dialogues are meant to be constructive, supportive and motivating. Positive self-talk and self-compassion act as a buffer between negative life events and our emotional functioning in general.

Gratitude is a strategy through which we express our appreciation for what we have in our lives. Like any other useful tool or technique, in order to fully enjoy its benefits, we need to practice it and transform it into a habit. We do this by raising our awareness and by setting the specific goal of looking at what is working in our lives and noticing even the small things that we sometimes take for granted.

Lack of energy, motivation and boredom can happen to each of us, whether it lasts a day, a week, or a more extended period. We’re only human and our resources and energy are limited and heavily influenced by what’s happening in our lives.

The important thing is to focus on managing the factors that contribute to your lack of energy and on finding strategies that work for you to recharge your batteries.

Practicing these six strategies in your daily life will help you improve your energy levels and wellbeing. Be sure to apply these habits mindfully and to look at the progress you make every day.

Most of us procrastinate from time to time. And it is perfectly normal.

Very often we convince ourselves that we need to put off a task, postpone it or rescheduling. We find justifications and excuses that can be very clever and credible.

Procrastination has its roots in our way of thinking and feeling. It is useful to know why this type of behavior happens and how we can deal with it.

• Why do you procrastinate?

• What excuses do you use to postpone a task or a goal?

• What strategies can help you in stopping your procrastination?

Take a tour of Positive Emotions!

Let’s reflect together on our positive emotions!

• Which positive emotions do you experience often in your life?

• Which ones would you like to cultivate more?

• How connected are you with your positive emotions?

The beauty of kindness is in its simplicity. And the amazing thing is, it influences both the giver and the receiver. If you need extra motivation for doing kind acts, think about these inspiring benefits that it can bring to your life.

The Kindness Challenge - Bring kindness in your life in a mindful way!

Plan and put into practice two acts of kindness every day. One directed towards yourself and one towards someone else in your life.

At the end of each day, spend some time to reflect on the impact your kindness has made on yourself and others.

How can you manage your negative emotions and stop struggling with them?

Having more information about your emotions is an important step in learning how to manage them. But you can only do that if you try to move away from your impulse of avoiding what you are feeling and take a positive step towards letting your emotions manifest.

Allowing space for your emotions means acknowledging what you are feeling in a specific moment. It comes with the realization that you, like everyone else in this world, might experience negative emotions from time to time, and that is perfectly normal.

Stress is a fact of life. There is no way to avoid it altogether. Sometimes we anticipate its arrival while other times, it surprises us without any warning.

How does my stress manifest? How do I know I am stressed? How would I look, feel, sound when I am under stress? How would I describe my stress?

The best thing we can do for ourselves in the face of stress is to ensure we know how to manage our response to it. Thinking about this in the present can help us feel more in control now and in the future.

These are just a few of the explanations why you might be struggling with your negative emotions. Take a few moments to reflect what is true for you and how you are approaching negative emotions.

We want to be in a place where we make space from our negative emotions, understand why they are there, acknowledge the lesson they are trying to teach us, integrate them in our lives along with the positive ones and work towards having a balanced emotional life.

Why do we need negative emotions?

Nobody likes to feel bad or to experience negative emotions. We look for please and try, at all costs, to avoid suffering. Why wouldn’t we? Anger, anxiety, shame, guilt – they all make us feel very uncomfortable. And we try to push them away, avoid them, suppress them or just hope they will go away.

What are you missing when you run away from negative emotions?

How writing things down can be helpful!

The purpose of the journaling is to be able to identify and analyze your thinking, emotional and behavioral patterns, but also to find ways to adapt, change and manage them.

Writing promotes self-awareness and self-understanding, as well as personal development, unconditional self-acceptance and goal achievement. It can also lead to releasing tension and bring clarity about the situation you are in or the problem you are facing.

Self-doubts are most often just negative thoughts that your mind may use to stop you from making changes and to keep you within the comfort zone.

Self-doubt thoughts might come from childhood and early experiences, from different attempts in the past that we might have not been so successful in and are reinforced by repetition. It's doesn't matter where these thoughts come from, it matters how you deal with them when they come into your mind and start affecting how you feel and behave.

Prevention is better than intervention!

For optimal mental health, it’s vital to establish and maintain positive mental health habits which act as a buffer against negative life events and inevitable stressors. When you reflect on how you’re taking care of your mental wellbeing, try to consider new habits that might be helpful for you.

Need inspiration? Below you can find five simple and effective ideas for improving your mental wellbeing.

What is keeping you in your comfort zone? What are some of your obstacles, reasons for why you stay? Why is it hard or uncomfortable to step outside of it?

The more you know about where your comfort zone ends, the greater your ability to understand yourself and to start to make changes will be.

Understand why you stay in your comfort zone, what are the benefits of stepping outside of it and discover 5 practical and fun activities to start with.