You have agency over your health and wellbeing.
That was the key message from Dr Kellie Pritchard-Peschek at the recent Queensland Law Society’s annual Minds Count lecture.
The Brisbane health and performance strategist and coach delivered a free lecture on burnout prevention at Law Society House.
Kellie said after experiencing burnout herself – with a five-year recovery – she aimed to prevent others from “going down the same debilitating path”, via offering practical strategies to identify and address the symptoms.
She said burnout was caused by chronic workplace stress that had not been successfully managed, and it was a problem worldwide.
“Collectively we’re facing the challenge of burnout, individually, organisationally, societally and globally, and it’s impacting the way that we’re living and we’re working and it will continue to do so unless we start addressing the challenge now,” she said.
Attendees were encouraged to determine their individual health quotient by assessing their sleep, stress, recovery, exercise and coping mechanisms.
They were also asked to consider the six main causes of organisational burnout: unsustainable workload; lack of control/autonomy; lack of recognition and reward; lack of fairness and equality; poor relationships and community; and values misalignment.
“What does thriving look like to you?” Kellie asked the in-house and online audience before listing five strategies to help reach that state.
The strategies involved limiting certain lifestyle behaviours; regulating and reducing stress; leveraging the power of recovery; recognising sleep as a superpower; and reducing workplace risks.
“It may seem that we’re at the mercy of those factors but we do have some agency here as well,” Kellie said.
“That might look like speaking up and asking for what you need in terms of resources and support; it might look like communicating some of the prevalent issues that are arising that you’re experiencing; having the right conversations about it with the right people in the right channels … (or) setting boundaries where necessary, whether that be around workload or with people.”
She also encouraged leaders to role-model “really positive behaviours in the workplace that have a ripple effect to those around you”.
Kellie worked with professional athletes globally, including Olympic and Commonwealth Games athletes, for more than a decade before turning her attention to health and performance optimisation in the corporate world.
The lecture will be available from the QLS Shop soon.
The Mental Health Breakfast: Lived Experiences in the Law will be held on Thursday, 10 October. Find out more or register.
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