Insights from a top manager
After intense physical exercise, the body needs time to recover
Last week, I had an interesting conversation with one of our users, a high level manager. He had just spent a holiday in Austria where he did a lot of cycling and hiking with his wife.
From his monthly overview in the Mindstretch app, he noticed that his week was “orange” although he fully enjoyed this holiday. But it confirmed what he felt: the physical activity had been too intense for him and did not give him the recovery his body needed.
Finally I received the confirmation of what I had experienced for long: activities which most people say are relaxing, were costing me a lot of energy”
Mr. W.
Planning the day in function of the app info
Mr. W. has been following the evolution of his mental balance for quite some time now. He checks his Mindstretch app several times per day and tries to adapt his daily activities in function of the information from the app in order to maintain an optimal mental balance. In that respect he likes the Mindstretch principle of monitoring, showing a balance score for each day in the overview of the month.
I asked him how he got convinced about the value of Mindstretch and his answer was “finally, I received the confirmation of what I had experienced for long: activities which most people say are relaxing, were costing me a lot of energy”. In his career as a top manager in multinational companies, he had not been able to do any sports for 20 years due to the high mental load which permanently affected his body and mind (as a result of a deregulated stress system).
He admitted that, in those days, the mental load already increased days before a specific meeting or event took place and after the event, it took him several days before going back to his comfort/relax zone.
Calming down to perform better
Since he’s calming down professionally, he can again do physical activities without having this feeling of exhaustion. He also sleeps better at night as he has less things on his mind to worry about. With a clear mind his balance of mental health helps him to perform better. He does not have to avoid social contacts anymore which were too tiring for him before. As Mindstretch showed him the negative effect of alcohol on his sleep quality, he tends to limit himself to 2 glasses of wine in the evening.
One anecdote: playing cards with friends always resulted in orange peaks in Mindstretch. Since Corona came up, he plays cards in a digital way, using a card-app, with his friends at 4 different locations and suddenly, his graph shows green! So, even in playing a game, the way you play it can either be intense or relaxed for your brain.
Interested in Mindstretch?
Are you interested in using the Mindstretch app within your company for health prevention? Do you wish to guide your employees on both a mental and a physical level?
