WISH VIP Fortnightly Bulletin – Edition 19

It is interesting to note that from one perspective, physical survival, people have never been safer in most developed countries. Yet, fear levels are off the charts.

What are people fearful of? Let’s make a list.

Rising interest rates

Covid-19 re-visiting (or another virus)

Environmental Armageddon (especially young people)

Rising Energy Prices

Capacity to ever own a home (Younger People)

War – Russia and China

Nuclear War – Russia and the US

Terrorism – Not like it was pre pandemic.

Lockdowns

Their Children’s Future

Fear does something strange to people. It creates ruminating thinking and stimulates an ongoing, low level stress response, which can result in adrenal fatigue, exhaustion, and sickness.

It can also lead to alcohol and drug abuse (recreational and prescription). The ripple effect can be family breakdowns, violence, and illness. Children eventually became innocent victims of what could turn out to be a terrible situation.

So, from a workplace perspective, what actions can you take to help people remove these fears from their lives? You may not see it as your role, and perhaps it is not. But if you do it well, you will bring stability to your workforce, reduce claims, and dramatically improve culture, productivity, and harmony.

In most cases, what people are fearful of is a scenario being created in their own imagination, formulated form their own impression of current events and circumstances.

But then you hear some different things. For example, did you know that the earth is 15% greener than it was in 1980. Apparently this is due to elevated atmospheric carbon. In drier areas, like central Australia and the fringes of the Sahara Desert, due to the higher atmospheric carbon, plants do not need to open their pores as much to breath, which means they lose less water and can thrive. Nobody predicted that.

If we have the viewpoint that Mother Earth is completely helpless and at the tragic effect of careless humans, then we will believe that she will slowly die under our feet. But good old Mother Earth has some tricks up her sleeve.

The challenge we have is that Politicians use extreme environmental arguments and rhetoric to win elections. They throw out extreme fear and then ride up on a white steed with all the answers. But do they really. Already, across the globe, as countries sign up to extreme targets, targets that are still being robustly debated by scientists, we see energy prices skyrocketing.

After having been deeply concerned about the environment myself for years, I am buoyed by the brilliant work of Bjorn Lomberg.

This 90 minute Podcast Interview is worth listening to, perhaps during one of your commutes. You will find it helpful and you may feel it appropriate to share it with employees whoa re concerned. Some of your employees have teenage children who feel a sense of hopelessness due to what theya re hearing about the environment.

As you may have seen in my last edition of Wish VIP, I covered a lot of strategies for creating financial stability. You may wish to share some of those with your team.

It is also helpful, I believe, when you are holding meetings or toolbox talks, to raise the issue. Remind people that if they have financial concerns, to talk about them. If they are in mortgage distress, call their lender. If they are struggling to pay energy bills, call their provider.

Often people sit in a state of inaction, frozen in fear and unable to do anything. It is so important to break this cycle and begin the conversations, to get support and not feel like they are alone.

Your role might simply be to open the topic up and allow some discussion.

But even if you place all of that aside, many young people, children and teenagers, did not do well at all. And many are still suffering from the effects of lockdown. This means their parents are dealing with the situation. All is not well in some homes.

So, we have three factors that are clearly creating distress. One is the hangover some people feel from the lockdowns. The second is the impact it has had on some children and teenagers. And third, many people fear more lockdowns. Every time a medical person steps in front of a TV Camera and begins delivering stern warnings, some people have a reaction based on fear.

It is good to support people to bring these into the light. Otherwise, they simply play out in people’s minds whilst at work, swinging from optimism to pessimism to outright catastrophe.

Perhaps Ike Eisenhower was right when he warned of the tyranny of the US Military Industrial Complex. I guess we are left to guess about that one, but it is amazing to see how quickly a new war emerged once the US and its allies withdrew from Afghanistan.

There seems to be a constant state of war. But when one of the combatants becomes a superpower like Russia, it creates further distress. Your employees are getting on Social Media and some are even venturing into the Dark Web. They are finding things to fear. I am not sure what to do about this one. But the bottom line is probably this.

“None of us really know what is going on over there. The media have proven themselves time and again to be aligning themselves with either a corporate or government narrative, so we may never really know. All we can do at this end is keep working to bring peace to our own communities.

It is good to know however, if we study history for a moment, these border dispute type wars have been going on in Europe for over 1000 years. This is not the first time Russia and Ukraine have locked horns.

And a second piece I learned not long ago. China is more dependent on food imports than any other country, by far. If the current sanctions being placed on Russia were applied to China, 500 million people would starve to death within a year.

So why have China not attacked and overthrown Taiwan? Probably because they just cannot afford to do so.

If your people are unaware of these things, then they fear things that may never eventuate.

Fermented foods have so many benefits. Gut health is the primary benefit which then underpins things like immune function, digestion, brain health and general organ health. Further, fermented foods provide a rich source of Vitamin K2, which helps remove plaque buildup in artery walls, the main cause of heart attacks.

Recently Simon published a booklet called “Plant Based Ferments.” It provides fabulous recipes and simple “how to guides” for anyone to get into their own fermenting.

As a fun activity, you could run a competition in your workplace for the best Kombucha or Kimchi. You can find the guide here.

WE have a new poster in production. This one teaches your people how to go about developing a strong personal immune system. It is laid out like the main care poster, with each panel describing something that can be done to improve immunity, for example, Vitamin D supplementation.

Within the panel there is a QR Code. When you scan the code, it opens a video with a Doctor of Integrative Medicine giving more instruction about that particular area of building immunity.

Stay tuned….

Don’t forget your Poster series. This is a perfect, low-cost Wellness Program for your workplace.

1. The Power of Care

2. An Interactive Guide to Building Immunity

Education in work workplace is key. The posters can deliver education in the background as you work on other things. And don’t forget, the Posters give you valuable content for Toolboxes and as openers for meetings.

Now with Letter Sizing for US Based Businesses.

To learn more, or order posters, click here.

And you would like to receive it directly, please subscribe to Wish VIP Right here.