RECOVER: Bonus 1 – It’s up to you…
RECOVER YOUR WELLBEING outlines 7 conversations you can have with your teams. Each topic is evidence-based and can be applied right away to improve the wellbeing in your team.
This is the first of three bonus videos that complement those 7 conversations and is titled, ‘It’s up to you…’ There is a simple attitude that will help you get more out of life and work. And has been proven by neuroscience to be the only thing you can do, that will make you more intelligent. Has that got you wondering?
This video has been shared with the NHS Leadership Academy with the kind permission of A Kind Life whose mission is to spread kindness in healthcare. These short videos give you a taster of A Kind Life’s approach to creating kinder cultures.
Transcript
So there’s an attitude that you can choose to bring into this work, which will enable you to get more out of it. What do you think it might be?
Actually, let’s ask this question first. Would you like to be more intelligent? Even more intelligent than you already are? Well, I’m not sure that’s possible, Tim I’m pretty smart already.
Because this same attitude you can bring in that will enable you to get more out of the session has also been proven by neuroscience to be the only thing you can do that will actually make you more intelligent.
What might it be? I imagine you’re turning this over in your head. Is it openness? Willingness to learn? A positive attitude to what you hear?
Well in a way, it’s all of those things, but neuroscience calls it curiosity.
So what happens when we’re curious? We open ourselves up to new ideas, new ways of thinking, new ways of looking at the world. Neuroscientists describe this as exposing the brain to novelty, and the brain loves novelty because it means we’re learning. So it rewards us with a spike of a chemical called dopamine, which our reward system. Now dopamine does lots of great things, but there are two in particular.
Firstly, it stimulates neurodegeneration, the growth of new brain cells.
Secondly, it increases what’s called synaptic plasticity. So the synapsis are the connexions between brain cells, and plasticity means more flexible, fluid, quicker connections between brain cells and having more brain cells with better connections between them is clearly going to make us more intelligent.
So let’s bring in an attitude of curiosity. Curious about what you hear from me, maybe even curious about what you hear from yourself, which might be subtly different to what you thought you might think.
Having now watched the video, please take a moment to reflect on the following questions:
Q: What key piece of learning will you take from this video?
Q: How will you put your learning back into your professional practice?
Q: How did this video make you feel?
Please feel free to share your reflections in the comments section below.