Discussions - Recent Threads

(Australian Museum) Night Owls: An autism and sensory-friendly night out for adults

Heath Wilder — Fri, 05 Apr 2024 03:48:06 GMT

Hey folks,

Just walked to let you know about that the Australian Museum's Night Owls is back with one on tonight - I'll be there with (silent) bells on.

It's an event with sensory accessibility in focus. I went to the Sharks Event last year and blogged about it HERE.

Even if you can't attend (teleportation room is overbooked) they have a lot of great Accessibility resources to have a look at incl. their Visual Story and Schedule and a big accessibility page

Say "hi" or drop me a line if you pop on down.

Cheers,
Heath

INCLUSIVE EVENT

Night Owls: An autism and sensory-friendly night out for adults

Friday 5 April, 6pm - 9pm

Experience the AM after hours in a reduced sensory, tranquil, and supportive atmosphere. Plus, see Ramses & the Gold of the Pharaohs in lowered lighting, sound, and reduced capacity.

BOOK NOW

RE: (Australian Museum) Night Owls: An autism and sensory-friendly night out for adults

Heath Wilder — Sat, 13 Apr 2024 09:50:59 GMT

It's very cool. We are finally looking at more accessible performances at the theatre and I'm really keen on an organisations journey to making that happen and the governance of accessibility as a strategy.

RE: (Australian Museum) Night Owls: An autism and sensory-friendly night out for adults

Heath Wilder — Sat, 13 Apr 2024 09:46:51 GMT

Ramses was wonderful. I went after our Tessitura Regional meeting, and it was everything that you could hope it would be. I was talking with Tash about the unique visitor segments that it's pulling.

Museums and galleries are generally the easiest things for me to attend, and ironically theatre is one of the hardest. I'd much rather perform onstage than enter the foyer. Our Maritine museum also do sensory backpacks (adults and kids) which I'm keen to check out.

RE: (Australian Museum) Night Owls: An autism and sensory-friendly night out for adults

Laura Schneider — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 17:24:17 GMT

That is the super coolest!! Thank you for sharing - I forwarded to our accessibility group too. Love that it's for adults.

Also, Ramses was great - we had it in 2022. 100% worth seeing. Phenomenal visuals, very immersive. Hope it's doing well for them!

RE: Mental Health Monday (Quick Bite): Four easy ways to incorporate small mindful moments.

Jennifer Almgreen — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 14:41:29 GMT

I actually take the mindful shower a bit further and take cold showers once a day for about 2 minutes. I also am part of "Ice Cold Club" where we meet for breathwork and ice baths a few times a week. Keeping a daily practice of Cold Exposure has taught me how to calm myself down in a safe way and really improved my awareness and mindfulness.

Mental Health Monday (Quick Bite): Four easy ways to incorporate small mindful moments.

Heath Wilder — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 02:02:23 GMT

Mental Health Monday (Quick Bite):

Four easy ways to incorporate small mindful moments.

A Mental Health Monday (Quick Bite) from Mental Armour

Four easy ways to incorporate small mindful moments. Moments of mindfulness can help bring a sense of calm and peace into our day. These moments can help reduce feelings of stress, anxiety, and overwhelm. A common belief is that incorporating mindfulness into your day requires time, the right environment, or even a meditation track to listen to. It does not have to be this complicated.

Moments of mindfulness are simply small points throughout your day when you give yourself permission to check in with yourself, how you’re feeling, and what is happening around you in the present moment. Permitting yourself small mindful moments every day can make a massive difference.

Here are four easy ways to incorporate small mindful moments into your current schedule.

Household Tasks

So often we enter autopilot when doing the dishes or hanging up the washing. Try breaking this autopilot pattern and pay attention to the sounds, smells, and sensations that accompany each daily household task.

Mindful Walk

Try going for a walk without music or headphones. Listen to the birds, feel the breeze, pay attention to the flowers and colours around you. Really be present on your walk and see if you notice anything new.

Sit With A Cup Of Tea

Let your tea, coffee, or juice break be precisely that: a break. Take a moment to enjoy your tea, relax your muscles, and settle into the moment. Put your phone away and enjoy being completely present in this rest time for you.

Mindful Shower

Showers are another thing we tend to do on autopilot. Take this moment to pay attention to the temperature of the water, how it feels, and the smell of your shower gel. Give yourself this time as a moment to relax and rejuvenate.

What other ways might you be able to introduce small mindful moments? When else are you able to spend 30 seconds checking in with yourself, seeing what you need, and giving yourself permission to take a short break to reset your mind?

Shelly and Heath

RE: Mental Health Monday (Quick Bite): Four easy ways to incorporate small mindful moments.

Jashin Lin — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 16:29:59 GMT

You know, I think I'm going to try this when I'm unloading the dishwasher. It's one of the chores I struggle the most with - the wrong combination of repetitive, detailed, yet boring - and trying to distract myself with listening to music or background videos means setting up devices, navigating to apps or websites, etc. etc. that usually end up distracting me from unloading the dishwasher altogether. Maybe if I did the opposite and put extra focus on the motions and sensations of unloading, I could trick my brain into not feeling like it's dying every time I do it.

RE: Mental Health Monday (Quick Bite): Four easy ways to incorporate small mindful moments.

Heath Wilder — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 22:34:40 GMT

(Throwing back to last week's MHM) For a lot of folks, the be-still-and-focus-on-one-intention for x minutes can be impossible to overwhelming. Mindfulness can be any simple task where you are present and observant. Nature moments, cooking, gardening, knitting ...

I'd love to follow up where your list takes you 😃

RE: Mental Health Monday (Quick Bite): Four easy ways to incorporate small mindful moments.

Eron Huenefeld — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 19:04:55 GMT

I really like how simple and low-commitment these are. I want to make a list of similar activities for folks with physical accessibility needs like myself!

RE: Assisting people with access needs - disclosing personal details v access requirements

Jennifer Almgreen — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 16:04:42 GMT

Hi Olivia,

I completely understand how hard navigating these conversations with customers can be. It is something we're discussing regularly as well. One form of training that we have found to be effective, is adjusting training materials about dismantling microaggressions to be more specific to customer service. While the information sharing isn't necessarily intended to be harmful, the framework for interrupting those moments translates well and has also helped us when discussing both intentionally harmful discussions with customers, but ALSO unintentionally harmful discussions. Microaggressions were our starting point simply because they are often the acts that many are most unaware they are perpetuating.

There are a lot of resources on this topic that I don't necessarily recommend one over the other. We made materials based on a combination of them, and adjusted language to best fit our team and objective.

Assisting people with access needs - disclosing personal details v access requirements

Olivia Bowman — Fri, 05 Apr 2024 00:05:22 GMT

Hi all,

As part of our mission to better assist people with access requirements to attend the museum, festivals and events, we have detailed information online including physical and sensory considerations. People are also welcome to contact our booking and enquiries (ticketing) team to ask more detailed questions and organise specific provisions (e.g. using the viewing platform or wheelchair seating area; letting us know they need an alternate entrance so we can look out for them; needing transport from the car park to the entrance; booking a tactile experience).

We’re more than happy to provide this information and service about our venues and events, and have had many folks feel confident and comfortable to come along to our events and festivals because of the information and support we’re able to provide.

However, team members have reported that these conversations often include a lot of personal detail, including stories of trauma, that patrons feel the need to share as a justification for their requests. It can thus be hard to sift through the information to clarify what someone actually needs from us, and listening to stories of trauma, discrimination and injustice can be upsetting.

While remaining conscious of our own privileges and compassionate to people’s lived experiences, I’m interested to know if anyone has strategies to help customer service teams to steer the conversation to the information they need to serve someone’s accessibility requirements, while ensuring someone that they don’t need to justify these provisions and potentially relive their own trauma to secure them?

Any insights would be sincerely appreciated!

Warmest regards,

Olivia

RE: (Australian Museum) Night Owls: An autism and sensory-friendly night out for adults

Eron Huenefeld — Fri, 05 Apr 2024 19:18:47 GMT

Many many thanks for sharing! What an excellent example of how to do this. I've shared with my company's inclusion cohort for inspiration. <3

RE: Assisting people with access needs - disclosing personal details v access requirements

Heath Wilder — Fri, 05 Apr 2024 05:07:17 GMT

Hey Olivia - I was having this conversation in April 2022 with a very experienced friend and fellow MHFA'er. I'll investigate and follow it up. There is an art to the conversation but also some science, I remember an MHFA template I'll see if I can find in my manuals.

Also, I get the other side. Some of it is clarity in setting up the ask.

RE: (Australian Museum) Night Owls: An autism and sensory-friendly night out for adults

Heath Wilder — Fri, 05 Apr 2024 05:04:25 GMT

I should also state that Tash Dawson & Chanele Moss are exception humans, and Chanele is co-Chair of the Sydney Tessitura Community Group.

At our recent Sydney Tessitura meetup, they shouted us entry to the exceptional Ramses & the Gold of the Pharaohs exhibit. Highly recommended (and not just because I am an advocate for any culture that embraced cartoons as their main written language).

Mental Health Monday: Mindfulness: What is it and is it for me?

Heath Wilder — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 12:48:11 GMT

Mental Health Monday:

Mindfulness: What is it and is it for me?

What is mindfulness?

To be honest it was quite a few sessions after my shrink introduced that topic before I said “Hey, can we just be clear about what you mean when you say practising mindfulness”. Let’s start with the American Psychological Association's Dictionary ^[1]

Mindfulness n. awareness of one’s internal states and surroundings. The concept has been applied to various therapeutic interventions—for example, mindfulness-based cognitive behaviour therapy, mindfulness-based stress reduction, and mindfulness meditation—to help people avoid destructive or automatic habits and responses by learning to observe their thoughts, emotions, and other present-moment experiences without judging or reacting to them. —mindful adj.

We often equate meditation with mindfulness but it’s worth noting that meditation is a practice and mindfulness is a quality. Also, there are other benefits, practices and uses for each.^[2] If you are interested in pretty graphics then there is of course something for you at Information is Beautiful by none other than David McCandless, a name familiar to hardcore data-viz nerds ^[3].

There are also many different types of meditation. The meditation that we do at ND&MW every Monday (at 11:30am Eastern - plug plug) is a mindfulness meditation. You can also practise mindfulness informally, such as mindful walking, eating, swimming or even having a shower.^[4]

But is mindfulness for everyone?

The answer is yes and no. There are a couple of disclaimers in the Psychology field. For people with trauma, it may bring up some painful memories, so it’s worth checking in with your therapist & having a support buddy to check in with.

Also, quite a few neurodivergent folks have reported having had a hard time with meditation and mindfulness. Neuro-affirming and Actually AuDHD mental health professional Dasha Koleshik points out:

My thoughts will never stop, nor can I have a relaxing time “watching them go by” ... watching my thoughts would be like watching a Formula 1 race… yeah, not my idea of a chillaxing time either. Don’t feel like a failure. You’re still awesome, even if your brain doesn’t “switch off” or “go quiet” enough for you to “observe your thoughts”.^[5]

Sue Hutton unpacks the findings of the mindfulness research program at CAMH Toronto that “a large number of neurodiverse people have told me they are mindfulness drop-outs.”^[6] One young autistic woman described her experience “When I’m told to focus on sensations of my breath, I feel like there is a noose wrapped around my neck, getting tighter and tighter as I keep paying attention.”

As Sue says, the mindfulness practice developed in the 1980s didn’t have the modifications needed for a wide variety of brains. ND folk know very well that it’s a minority of health care professionals that accommodate neurodivergent clients. If you are someone with Aphantasia and not able to create pictures in your mind, then you may not find the visualisations in some meditation practices to be helpful. If you have different experiences of interoception, following along with descriptions of body sensations, like breathing, might not map at all with what you are being told.

So where does that leave us? Are neurodivergent folks left out? Not at all. As Sue points out

Mindfulness has something to offer the world. Neurodiversity has something to offer mindfulness.

Like in most other parts of our life, such as accommodations at home and work, individualising your practice of mindfulness can be the answer. If feeling your breathing is hard maybe adding a soft sound to the aspiration is easier to follow. If you have a racing mind and a sensitivity to sound, maybe noise cancelling headphones and a walk over the bridge.

I’m a big fan of swimming laps including slowing my speed to fit my breathing, whilst noticing my thoughts and the whole-body sensations as I swim through the water. Another curious one: it might not look like mindful meditation but cooking familiar recipes is also a mindful practice for me. I know a few bakers that would agree.

If you want to take it further, Sue has a follow up article of tips for neurodiverse meditation practice.^[7] No matter what your identity, whatever works best for you is best for you.

Thanks for following us on this mindfulness journey. Maybe we’ll see you at a Monday Meditation Meetup.

Shelly and Heath

Resources

Mindfulness APA Dictionary of Psychology, Apr 2018
5 Differences Between Mindfulness and Meditation Joshua Schultz, Positive Psychology, Jul 2020
What is Meditation / Mindfulness Good for? Dave McCandless Information is beautiful, Feb 2014
How to Take a Mindful Shower Grace Wood, Grace Wood Therapy - Austin TX, Sep 2018
Struggling with Meditation? You're not alone and it's ok Dasha Kolesik, While You Wonder, Aug 2023
Learning to Celebrate Neurodiversity in Mindfulness Sue Hutton, Mindful.org, Oct 2020
3 Mindfulness Practices for Neurodiverse Meditators Sue Hutton, Mindful.org, Oct 2020

Scholarships for TLCC Washington, DC

Shelly Binkley (she/her) — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 17:45:16 GMT

Tessitura is offering 10 scholarships to TLCC in Washington, D.C., including seven Diversity Scholarships and three Emerging Leaders Scholarships.

Scholars will be awarded complimentary conference registration. This includes:

All sessions
All networking events
All conference meals and refreshment breaks (except Tuesday evening, which is a build-your-own networking night)
Access to conference materials and presentations

Scholars will be responsible for their own travel expenses and lodging.

To be eligible for the TLCC Diversity Scholarship, you must:

Be a full-time employee at a Tessitura member organization
Be a member of one or more underrepresented groups in the nonprofit arts & culture sector*
Be able to attend the full conference (August 11–14, 2024)
Not be a previous recipient of an in-person TLCC scholarship

*Underrepresented groups may include, but are not limited to: Black, Indigenous, Latinx, or a person of color; LGBTQIA+, trans, nonbinary, or gender-nonconforming; having a disability; neurodivergent; religious minority; and other historically excluded identities.

To be eligible for the Lasting Legacy Scholarship for Emerging Leaders, you must:

Have 5+ years of experience in the arts & culture industry
Currently serve in a supervisor or managerial role
Demonstrate leadership skills and potential for leadership success
Be a first-time in-person TLCC attendee (including any TLCC Europe or TLCC Asia Pacific conference)
Be a full-time employee at a Tessitura member organization
Be able to attend the full conference (August 11–14, 2024)

All applications and letters of recommendation must be received by April 17, 2024. The Scholarship Committee will notify all candidates about its decision by May 10, 2024.

Learn more and apply now.

Axe-Con Neuroinclusive Content Design

Heath Wilder — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 14:50:03 GMT

Axe-Con Neuroinclusive Content Design

Laurie Cameron-Back

Axe con was on last week and there was a lot in there that was helpful both specific and broadly. To be honest it snuck up on me this year, which is to say that I didn’t get comms until it was a few days out. For me that’s ok. I’m on the other side of the planet and all sessions are in allocated rest time, but the advantage of Axe-Con is that the sessions are available to watch when I’m available. That’s a good accessibility feature. But it’s not the only one. Transcripts and slides of each talk are also posted to ease the follow-up.

There are always loads of great content but one of the sessions that I did find it’s ways into my chats was Neuroinclusive content design. It’s a broad topic that could be answered a bunch of different ways, and I’m of the neuro-spicy variety so I’m tricky to please.*

The talk unpacks Content Design in the broad sense to get an understanding of what the goals, skills and tools are, and why content design is uniquely placed to broaden accessibility. Subsequent to that, neurodiversity is laid out to get a sense of the breadth of human experience that we are aiming at including.

Designing for neurodiversity is designing for inclusion.

Reduce complexity

Be clear and consistent

Consider sensory experiences

Check your digital assets

Involve people

And the tips for designing for neuroinclusion? … lean into design.

Not only are there great tips in there, but they come from a comprehensive but usable structure. Each one of the key points is broken down further. Examples include tips on link text and why. Examples of reducing complexity and how to make writing easier to follow.

One of my favourite takeaways are

using Hemmingway App, and AI solution to help increase readability, and using Screaming Frog
Sentence vs title case and when to use them.
And my favourite: include ND folk in your testing.

Give it a watch. It was a good session and made great points for including neurodivergent and how.

Love to hear if you had any other takeaways from it or if you saw other things at Axe-Con that were helpful

Resources

Neuroinclusive Content Design - axe-con Laurie Cameron-Back, 2024
Session slides
Session Transscript
Hemmingway App

* more context than anyone's KPI

Axe-con 2024

Heath Wilder — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 09:37:19 GMT

Hey folks,

Just a little note that Axe Con is on tomorrow for 3 days.

Axe Con is a digital accessibility conference run by deque. They are a technology company that make free and paid digital accessibility tools at scale. The conference has a wide variety of speakers and registering allows you access after the conference (in case the event is on during allocated sleep time).

axe-con 2024 Digital Accessibility Conference | Deque

Cheers,

What to expect from a virtual axe-con 2024

Axe-con will run Tuesday, February 20th through Thursday, February 22nd, 2024, with talks from the top experts in the accessibility community.

Attendees will experience:

Three days of multi-track sessions based on areas of interest.
Interactive online sessions with Chat, Q&A, and Polling.
Live captions and ASL for every session.
Special virtual entertainment sessions.
Opportunities to win the always-coveted Deque swag.

RE: Axe-con 2024

Heath Wilder — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 10:37:43 GMT

🙂

RE: Axe-con 2024

Sarah Berryman (she/her) — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 10:32:24 GMT

Thanks for sharing Heath - this is great!!

Affinity Group Open House - Feb 21st

Shelly Binkley (she/her) — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 17:50:00 GMT

Hi everyone!

On Wednesday, February 21st at 11:30 am eastern there is going to be a virtual Open House about the 5 Affinity Groups.

Heath and I will be there to give everyone a description of the Neurodiversity & Mental Wellness group. We invite you to join us in representing our group, as well as hearing more information about the other four groups:

LGBTQIA+
Women in Tech
People of Color
People with Disabilities

The Community Chairs of each group will be sharing information about their group's mission, activities, and the inclusive space they foster.

Come learn how you can connect with others from similar backgrounds, discover shared interests and find your community within the welcoming affinity groups.

We would love to see you there, and you can register using this link: Tessitura Affinity Groups virtual open house (tessituranetwork.com)

Thanks,

Shelly

Mental Health Monday: Burnout through many lenses

Heath Wilder — Tue, 02 May 2023 05:01:04 GMT

You might hear the term “Burnout” talked about a lot and maybe you’ve felt that way yourself.

But what is burnout?

How does burnout differ between different communities?

And what can you do about it for your co-workers, friends and yourself?

Defining Burnout

The World Health Organisation (WHO) points out that whilst burn-out is included in the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) as an occupational phenomenon, it is not classified as a medical condition.^[1]

Burn-out is defined in ICD-11 as:

"a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterised by three dimensions:

•  feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
•  increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and
•  reduced professional efficacy."

However, as the boundaries between work and home have blurred throughout the covid years, the occupational distinction has also become less fitting. Evidence shows that burnout makes no distinction between paid or unpaid work and people undertaking unpaid home or care duties can also be impacted^[²^].

The Black Dog Institute and the UNSW School of Psychiatry^[^2a^] have carried out studies into factors that commonly concur with burnout, including:

Anxiety/stress
Depression and low mood
Irritability and anger
Sleep disturbances
Lack of motivation or passion
Lack of concentration, memory loss or brain fog
Withdrawal from others
Physical symptoms such as aches, headaches, nausea and low libido
Emotional fragility

It raises the chicken v egg question on whether these factors are a cause of or caused by burnout, or whether they are all a symptom of an underlying issue. The same researchers are also undertaking a followup study to further investigate the features of burnout and its relationship with depression.

Neurodivergent Burnout

In the neurodivergent communities, conversations about burnout are quite common. In fact many neurodivergent people come to uncover their uniqueness due to the burnout of trying to fly under the radar. The challenges of living and working in a society not designed for us can mean frequent overload that can push us into meltdown, shutdown, and burnout. Also life-changes can exacerbate challenges, for example transitioning from school to work, experiencing a mental health crisis, or the death of someone close^[¹³^]. Stigma can make prevention and recovery even harder.

So how does neurodivergent burnout differ from the WHO defined burnout?

A notable difference is in the causes of burnout^[⁶^]. Some of factors that lead to burnout for ND folk are:

Repeated sensory overload
Long term masking
Having social/sensory needs minimised by others due to appearing "fine" (i.e. “successful” masking)⁠
Not having access to the appropriate level of supports & accommodations ⁠
Difficult or unreachable expectations from family, school, work, or society
Executive Functioning fatigue following a number of stressors or transitions
When the overall load exceeds abilities + supports = burnout

But impacts of burnout can also present differently, including^[⁷^]:

Loss of skills
Loss of interest in dedicated interest areas
Emotional regulation issues
Added anxiety and depression

A study by Dr Dora Rainmaker at Portland State University^[¹¹^], involved interviews with autistic adults. Whilst her studies have been in the autistic population, the sentiment aligns with other neurodivergent communities. Findings included:

“... struggling with independent living, loss of self-belief, and being frightened that the loss of skills from the autistic burnout might be permanent."

Dr. Dora Rainmaker

The results also pointed to a "lack of empathy from neurotypical people, who had difficulty understanding or relating to the autistic person’s experiences.”

What can we do about it?

Policy

On a policy level, it may be good to know that groups such as the Black Dog Institute are campaigning for workplace reform through methods such as their White Paper^[⁹^]. Actions your organisation can take include:

Evidence-based training for managers regarding the resources available and actions they can take to recognise and respond to mental health risk factors in the workplace.
Building mentally healthy workplaces.
Taking immediate action on bullying, sexual harassment and assault.

Self-care

The most important way to recover is prioritising self-care as a protective measure against burnout and other mental health issues. However self-care is often the first thing that gets sacrificed to work demands and stress.

So what is self care?

“Self-care refers to the activities and practices that we deliberately choose to engage in on a regular basis to maintain and enhance our health and wellbeing. Regular practices may include exercise, reading, meditation, disconnecting from technology, or talking with a friend or family member.”^[^10]

“When you take time for yourself to rest, reset, and rejuvenate you will actually have more energy to meet the demands of daily life as well as reduce or avoid the symptoms of mental ill-health.”

Dr Jan Orman

But what does Neurodivergent self-care look like?

For Neurodivergent folk there are a few ways to recover in addition (or instead of) neurotypical burnout recovery. In fact it’s worth noting that many neurotypical recovery techniques and interventions can be ineffective or even more overwhelming. Social support can add to overload, and even mindfulness may need a special touch as described by Sue Hutton^[¹⁴^].

Neurodivergent affirming recovery methods can include ^[^{8, 11, 12}^]:

Deliberate reining back of tasks and responsibilities
Prioritising rest, recognising the necessity of healing, and equitable productivity
Careful unmasking where appropriate
Slow refocus on areas of interest and energy giving environments like nature
Outsource executive functioning tasks
Attending to sensory needs

Self-care Strategy

Prevention of burnout comes with increased awareness of needs and accommodation for those by workplaces, family and community. Clear boundaries and formal supports are also key to keeping the overload at bay.

The Black Dog institute has a comprehensive self care template designed so that you can craft a personal self-care strategy that works for you. It will guide you through the 4 steps of self-care planning:

Step 1 | Evaluate your coping skills

Step 2 | Identify your daily self-care needs

Step 3 | Reflect. Examine. Replace.

Step 4 | Create your self-care plan

You can download a copy HERE^[10]

Follow up

If you are feeling burnout, run down or depression it’s worth talking to a mental health professional starting with your doctor. But if you are feeling that that’s a big first step try reaching out to the people around you and in your communities. Talking can help and it can make that journey more manageable by taking it one step at a time.

Go well!

Shelly & Heath

PS– what to learn more? Check out this upcoming workshop on Autistic Burnout:

__

Resources

Burn-out an "occupational phenomenon": International Classification of Diseases World Health Organization (May, 2019)
Experiencing burnout? Here’s what to do about it BlackDog Institute (Feb, 2023)
1. Burnout diagnosis one step closer with new clinical checklist and predictor of which personalities are most at risk BlackDog Institute (Jul, 2021)
The Cost of Workplace Stress in Australia Medibank (Aug, 2008)
Importance of self-care planning | Black Dog Institute
Autistic burnout, explained https://doi.org/10.53053/BPZP2355 Spectrum News (Mar, 2020)
Autism and ADHD Burnout Recovery — Insights of a Neurodivergent Clinician Dr Neff, Neurodivergent insights (Jun, 2022)
“Having All of Your Internal Resources Exhausted Beyond Measure and Being Left with No Clean-Up Crew”: Defining Autistic Burnout | Autism in Adulthood (Raymaker et al., 2021)
Navigating Autistic Burnout: Self-care strategies to recover and recalibrate - Reframing Autism Justine Field, Reframing Autism (Jan, 2023)
Modern work: how changes to the way we work are impacting Australians’ mental health Black Dog Institute
Importance of self-care planning Black Dog Institute
CharWrites info graphics on Burnout recovery Char (Mar, 2023)
Neurodivergent Dawn on ND Burnout and Recovery Neurodivergent Dawn (Jun, 2022)
Understanding autistic burnout Dora Raymaker, National Autistic Society (Mar, 2022)
Learning to Celebrate Neurodiversity in Mindfulness Sue Hutton (Oct, 2020)

RE: Mental Health Monday: Burnout through many lenses

Heath Wilder — Thu, 11 Jan 2024 05:11:40 GMT

There was a new article on ADDitude last month on Rising from the Burnout: A Recovery Kit for Women with ADHD

Worth a read.

MHM: Mental Health Challenge

Heath Wilder — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 16:32:10 GMT

New Year Mental Health Challenge

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2024.

We really hope that you manage to meet your challenges and goals safely this year.

In order to kick off the year right with some active self-care, let's play some well-being Bingo. See if you can check off at least one in each coloured column and when you have ... BINGO!

Let us know how you are getting on.

Have a safe 2024,
Shelly and Heath

MHM Quick Bite - Holiday Selfcare Tips

Heath Wilder — Wed, 27 Dec 2023 00:45:57 GMT

Wellbeing Wednesday:

Holiday Selfcare Tips

As fun as the holiday season can be, even for the most festive it has it's limits. Whether it's trying to sustain an endless level of Holiday Merriment, the pressure of entertaining, or mountain of things you have to do on top of the usual overload - If you are like us at ND&MW Central then you might be running a little low on the Festive Cheer right about now.

Here's a little reminder from Dominee over at SelfLoveRainbow to allow yourself some space, call in for support when you need it, and that "it's ok not to be ok".

There are plenty of other good tips over there like your Circle of Control, self-talk scrips for when you are overwhelmed, and a Holiday Recovery Plan

Make space for messy feelings like grief.
Create your own holiday traditions.
Set realistic expectations for yourself and the holiday.
Keep your self- care routine or begin a new one.
Learn to say no without feeling guilty.
Keep your stress levels in check. It's okay to step back or delegate.
Make a plan and try to stick to it. Organization is key
Give yourself permission to let it be a normal day.

___

Stay safe and well
Shelly & Heath