Spotlight on Wellbeing - Knowing when to Press Pause

0:05
and thank you for joining us today in our first session for the defence well-being week
0:11
uh my name is kate heather smith and i'll be the facilitator for this session today so firstly just to open the
0:17
session i'd like to welcome ange lambert one of our panel members here today from turangawaiwai to
0:24
open this session for us with the karakia thank you ange
0:57
so the the theme for this well-being week that we have running within defence is press pause um we know that 2022 has
1:04
been a busy year already and um this week provides us an opportunity to pause get in with how we're going check
1:10
checking with those around us and how they're going as well so have you got a lot of things on the
1:17
go are you a bit worried about big things coming up are you wanting to make sure that you're fighting fit
1:23
across all the domains of health or are you wanting to learn more about tools and resources that we've got available for you within the nzdf
1:31
this webinar should be really helpful for you thank you for listening
1:36
so in this session today we're going to hear from our wonderful panel members thank you again for being part of this
1:43
um so our panel members today have offered to share share their thoughts and their experiences across our theme
1:49
which is press pause and the importance of nurturing all our domains of health
1:56
so when we talk about the domains of health we're referring to our te whatever farm model of health
2:01
and this is a model that we use within defence the panel members will also talk about
2:07
knowing when it's time to press pause and share their tips for maximizing health and where you can go for a
2:14
helping hand throughout the session today we will always be referring back to our new new defense
2:20
health hub website hutahi hiyora
2:25
so firstly today i'm just going to introduce um to pharaoh
2:31
our maori model of health that i mentioned before that we use within defence so as you can see on the slide this
2:38
model has four equal sides which represent physical well-being mental and emotional
2:44
well-being spiritual well-being and social well-being so this model shows that all
2:52
four pillars are critical to health and they're all interconnected
2:57
um all these pillars must work together and to bring balance to our lives and to
3:02
ensure holistic wellness so each of our panel members today will be focusing on one of these pillars of
3:08
health or a combination of these pillars and the importance of nurturing all these pillars to bring health and
3:15
wellness so firstly i'd like to welcome warrant officer jason rapana
3:21
so he's the warrant officer of the people capability portfolio and jason's going
3:26
to talk about the importance of taking the time to press pause and focusing on
3:32
self-care thank you jason
3:39
uh yeah um
3:58
uh um it's great to be part of this uh well-being uh kopapa and the initiatives
4:04
uh that have come with the order uh it's great to see and firstly
4:11
i just wanna say that it's okay to prioritize your own well-being
4:16
it's 100 okay and this is what uh this is about uh for everyone you know uh life gets a bit uh
4:23
tough sometimes you know whether it be mahi whether it be the stresses around mahi uh in defense where you might be
4:29
covering three or four hats uh home life uh culture uh the complexities around family
4:36
teenagers and and what life brains and uh it is important
4:41
actually stop and pause and reflect a rest uh and chicken
4:47
on others and that's a critical part of it too um but certainly for yourself and it's
4:52
about finding a balance and in my time and experience in um to my toeing it has been a few times
4:59
that i've had to sit back have a rest and really reflect on where i'm going and what i'm doing and that work life
5:04
balance now i just want to sort of uh talk about uh what kate talked about was
5:10
uh the concept being spiritual physical uh mental social and with whanau
5:17
and the phenomena that foundation that that sits on um
5:22
you know perfection is the enemy of good and so you can't
5:27
cover everything off but certainly within those uh taha uh you can actually find really good
5:33
nuggets that um will help you uh and um tools to help others uh within
5:39
wellbeing um so uh i just said to finish you know it's about finding a balance it's about
5:45
stepping back it's taking pause it's for you and your whanau and just so we can keep on top of that game so uh thanks
5:51
very much kia ora okay
5:59
kyoto jason thank you very much for that um so bob passing over to you so you're our chief
6:05
medical officer here at the new zealand defence force um it would be great to hear your thoughts about the importance
6:11
of monitoring uh physical health as a key foundation for our overall health and wellbeing
6:16
thank you bob and we've got some slides from you
6:34
okay thank you um kia ora everyone
6:40
physical well being consists of two main factors
6:46
cardiovascular fitness and illness prevention whilst we're serving in ncdf
6:52
this allows us fuller employment beyond then said df it allows us wider
6:57
employment opportunities greater leisure activities and longer life
7:06
um there's a picture which hopefully will come up of an american medical officer
7:11
by the name of kenneth h cooper in 1960 when he was aged 29
7:18
kenneth cooper was water skiing when he experienced chest pain palpitations and shortness of breath
7:24
he was rushed to the local hospital for investigations and they told him that he wasn't
7:29
suffering from a heart attack but he was overweight unfit and his heart was under
7:34
strain he was told that if he didn't make changes to his life he was likely to have a heart attack in
7:41
his 30s or 40s and be dead by the time he was 50.
7:46
dr cooper decided to change his lifestyle and focus his medical work on
7:52
research and fitness and helping people gain healthier lives and live longer
8:01
at that time in the 1960s most people accepted that they'd reach a peak of physical performance in their 30s
8:08
and then there would be a slow progression as they grew older and we see this deterioration in health
8:14
today due to these diseases such as obesity premature heart disease and type 2
8:20
diabetes dr cooper challenged this and taught
8:26
that if you follow some basic health rules you can remain healthy for far longer with good physical function into
8:33
your 60s 70s and 80s and he described this as squaring the curve
8:40
so here are kenneth cooper's rules to health
8:47
this first rule is don't smoke most people understand that smoking's bad for their lungs but it's also the
8:54
most important factor in early heart disease no amount of smoking is okay
9:01
vaping may be useful as a way of stopping smoking but vaping is also potentially harmful
9:07
so don't smoke don't vape moderate alcohol
9:12
what does this mean well current guidelines in new zealand our women should drink no more than two
9:19
standard drinks a day and no more than 10 standard drinks a week and for men
9:25
three standard drinks a day and no more than 15 standard drinks a week with at least two alcohol-free days a week
9:35
for many people in new zealand they drink far more than this
9:40
the sooner we make changes to our drinking the sooner we can reap the benefits
9:48
your medical staff can explain what moderated drinking might look for you
9:55
eat healthfully most of the time
10:01
the basics of healthy eating are drink plenty of water eat plenty of vegetables and fruit
10:08
eat some cereal and grains eat some dairy and lean protein
10:14
try and avoid processed food salt and sugar most of the time acknowledges that we
10:21
all eat unhealthy food occasionally the key is not doing it too often
10:26
if you've got a medical condition or you're training at a high level you might need a more specialized diet and
10:32
again your medical staff can give you more detailed information
10:38
maintain an appropriate weight it can be difficult working out what an
10:43
appropriate weight for you is it will depend on many factors like your sex age genetics and the type of
10:52
physical activity you want to perform for all of us though excess body fat
10:58
leads to early reduction in physical performance and an increased risk of heart disease
11:06
stress management i know one of my colleagues will probably talk about this
11:11
but a moderate degree of stress can help keep us on our toes and improve performance but too much stress can
11:18
affect physical as well as mental health and is a major factor in heart disease and early death
11:23
there are practical ways that we can manage stress identifying the main cause of the stress is often a good start and depending on
11:31
the cause there are some practical ways of dealing with both work and family stress
11:36
our occupational psychologists and doctors can help you find ways that may help you
11:44
finally get regular health checkouts checkups are important to detect early
11:50
signs of disease and address them before they become too serious
11:55
our regular force personnel currently get health checkups every five years from the age of 35.
12:02
if you're in a high risk group your doctor may arrange for checkups to either start earlier or be more frequent
12:11
today there are lots of health advice out there being advertised particularly
12:16
regarding nutrition and diet and it can be confusing and contradictory
12:22
however kenneth cooper's seven rules have survived over 50 years and are still a
12:27
useful guide to healthier living today
12:34
since his health scare in the 1960s kenneth cooper has continued to research fitness and particularly childhood
12:40
obesity in the united states he was successful in getting physical education reintroduced into american
12:47
schools this year he's 91 years old and despite his poor health and his health scare at
12:54
age 29 is still mentally fit and physically active today
13:01
and for those of you into cars you'll see at 91 he's also driving an aston
13:06
martin thank you very much kate
13:12
thank you bob so that's yeah provided us with some really good reminders about the importance of physical health and
13:18
monitoring it over time and taking the time to press pause to really focus on that so thank you for that
13:26
so carson uh so you're one of our defense psychologists um and we'd just like to
13:32
you know hand over to you now to discuss the importance of mental health and what are some of the important important
13:38
areas that we need to focus on within that thank you carson
13:45
kyoto kate now
14:01
i'm a defensive psychologist currently in the health directorate uh researching our mental health system
14:08
so te taha hinonaro is a topic that's really close to my heart and so in five minutes or less what i'd
14:15
like to do is just remind us about a couple of principles to do with the mental health continuum so the topic
14:22
that i'm sure that we're all really familiar with here at defence which is great this idea that mental
14:27
health is not fixed in fact it can fluctuate depending on what's going on in our lives
14:32
and what i like to do is just take this idea a little bit further and relate it to the performance cycle that we're
14:37
quite fond of within psychology it's one of our coaching tools prepare perform recover so that's this
14:44
idea when you look across any area of high performance what you find is that people who take this seriously they
14:51
honor these particular cycles of getting ready for something difficult really reaching into doing something
14:56
difficult and then inevitably getting fatigued and then going into a recovery space catching your breath
15:02
and then the cycle repeats so the idea here in defense of course is we want to live most of our lives in the
15:09
green zone we want to stay in a healthy space of course but we're really interested in high performance we're a high performance organisation and of
15:15
course we want to reach you to do difficult things from time to time as part of our mahi now if you consult your own experience
15:21
much like myself what you'll notice is that if you've had a difficult pt session you've been on a difficult
15:26
exercise you've been on a deployment what inevitably happens when you've been doing the business for a while it's
15:32
going well you're doing difficult things but you get fatigued okay and what typically
15:37
tends to happen in my experience the folks that i work with is that actually you don't just go from reaching into the
15:43
high performance zone back to the green actually you probably go back into the yellow zone where you are fatigued right
15:49
and that's normal in terms of training that's what we're looking for we're trying to induce fatigue because when we recover from that we grow back stronger
15:57
so we can't stay in the blue zone we surge into the blue zone and then we go into the yellow we want to recover back
16:03
into green back to baseline and the cycle repeats now let's talk about what happens if we
16:10
stay too long in the yellow zone so what we notice is that a lot of performance problems end up being
16:17
recovery problems right so you'll see that half of the yellow zone is okay normal natural
16:24
healthy fatigue and you can recover from that but what i find is if you start staying in the yellow zone for too long
16:30
you start to lose your healthy sense of perspective and what starts to happen is you spend too much time in the yellow zone you're
16:37
not recovering accurately and now you're trying to surge into the high performance zone it can quickly go from being okay to not
16:43
okay very quickly you end up in the orange of the red zone where you really need to start getting some professional support
16:48
okay so what can we do well what i find is like in any area of our lives if we
16:54
want to try and improve things just like if you're trying to improve your physical performance in pt you want to be a little bit deliberate
17:00
about it so it pays to have a plan so if you're someone where you've got like you know duncan says you've got
17:07
your sleep diet and exercise all dialed in what i find in terms of your well-being it's a really solid
17:12
foundation kind of like the base of your pyramid from which you can start building on other mental skills training
17:17
right and i've always said if you want to train your mental fitness in the same way that you train your physical fitness
17:24
it's really smart to have some kind of attention training practice like mindfulness
17:30
where you can start to learn how to pay attention to your thoughts and feelings and instead of being yanked around by
17:36
your difficult thoughts and feelings you can start to notice them start to unhook from them and have a little bit more
17:41
choice about what types of thoughts and feelings you pay attention to and what you react to if that's a good fit for you and you
17:48
want to try um training your mental fitness with mindfulness i highly recommend the headspace set uh it's
17:53
one of the best entry-level mindfulness apps on the market with access to it for free you can download it and access the
18:00
details uh for that are on the defence health website so if that's the right
18:06
choice for you highly recommend it so mental health it's not fixed
18:11
fluctuates depending on what's going on in our lives the high performance cycle prepare perform recover is a really
18:16
great way of thinking about what phase of this performance cycle are you in we tend to under invest in our recovery
18:23
right we need to pay a little bit more attention to that and we can train our mental fitness in the same way that we
18:28
train our physical fitness by being deliberate about it having a plan mindfulness is right for you highly
18:33
recommend that we implement some way training our attention so that we can do the things that we need to do and stay
18:40
healthy and honor each phase of the high performance cycle
18:51
model thank you carson
18:57
so yeah that's really um highlighted to us the importance of mental and emotional health and um you
19:03
know there's some really great tips that you had there for us and um in that area so thank you
19:09
now i'd like to pass over to tony nicholson who's our national manager at social services within the nct
19:16
um and tony's going to speak to us um on to taha whanau
19:22
and that domain of health so thank you tony for joining us today
19:27
thanks kate kiyora tatou my name's tony nicholson i
19:32
work in the health directorate and i'm the social services manager for defence
19:38
i'm here to talk about the importance of our social and family whanau connections
19:43
to our overall well-being so kate's described to ferrari tapafar and how our social and family
19:49
connections form one of the walls of our foray we're hardwired to have these social
19:55
connections with social beings and through these social connections we build a sense of belonging
20:01
when we have the sense of belonging we feel that we're well we're able to contribute to our family to our teams to
20:08
our work and from the sense of well-being we get a sense of satisfaction with life so it
20:14
makes us feel well in general we have a good vibe with things in general
20:20
i wonder if you could just press pause for a moment take a moment to think about the times when you've had
20:26
success or when you've had something really awesome to celebrate what did you do
20:33
no doubt you shared it with someone your family your friends those who you work with and the same happens when we celebrate
20:40
milestones like birthdays if we have a new child if we start a new job complete a course or achieve a
20:47
sporting goal we generally end up spending these celebrations with other people because
20:53
it's other people that fill us up and give us that sense of well-being
20:59
when we have these social connections we develop a sense of or an element of teflon or a protective
21:06
factor for our health and well-being there's a lot of research that gives
21:11
evidence to this effect people who are well-connected socially may live longer and have less chronic
21:18
health issues like cardiovascular or obesity the findings are similar for mental
21:24
health with social support and belonging being a buffer for depression and
21:30
other poor psychological health however we do need to be mindful that
21:35
the converse is true where we are involved with relationships that involve conflict
21:41
that can be harmful for our wellbeing and mental health
21:46
social connections have a role in protecting against decline in our cognition and potentially boosting our
21:53
immune system making us less susceptible to illness for our teenagers in our whanau having a
22:00
supportive family and being connected with our school community is predictive of healthy adjustment
22:06
later in life the connections contribute to positively to education and wellbeing and basically
22:13
set us up for life in the long term having these social connections doesn't
22:18
mean that you need to have a huge social network it's more about the um
22:24
the perception that you have of the social connection so the value that you put on them and the strength of those social
22:30
connections on the other hand it's important that you're also able to care for others so
22:37
one that you have those close connections and feel supported by people around you who are close to you and
22:42
likewise that you're able to care for others who are around you if our social and family connections are
22:50
now furry it's not strong it weakens the other walls of the foray we need all the
22:55
areas of our well-being walls to be in harmony for us to have good health
23:00
i wonder if you would like to press pause and have a look at some of the awesome resources on our health website
23:06
putahiro that can help you in this space on the social and wha now or taha papu
23:13
taha whanau pages you can find heaps of information about relationships keeping connected
23:20
parenting and how to manage time apart to name a few we want you to have all the tools
23:25
available in your kitty so you can manage your wellbeing and gather support before things get too big so jump in and
23:31
have a look and let us know what you think
23:37
thank you tony that's provided us some really helpful insights into this pillar of health
23:43
so now on to the last pillar in our phototypifa model of health that we've
23:48
referred to frequently throughout today is
23:54
which is our spiritual well-being so we're lucky enough today to have um a
23:59
few speakers on this so we've got um chaplain tony brooking sharing his insights first followed by
24:06
andrew and ange from turanga wai marai so thank you very much to all three of you um
24:12
i'll hand over to you first tony
24:54
absolutely um great uh to be a part of the panel today and just
25:00
like to support and endorse all of the uh great um comments and uh
25:05
words of the uh previous uh speakers um
25:11
for me is one of the walls that we often um
25:17
don't really take much notice of in our well-being now um i'd just like to support um
25:23
squadron leader grim's words around how we go about exercising those
25:30
particular walls now we spoke of uh going to the gym perspectively and how you go about exercising your physical
25:37
side how you go about exercising your relational opportunities
25:42
and how that supports your health how we go about um looking at our um
25:50
and those resources that uh have already been presented today
25:56
my question for us now is how do you exercise how do you exercise the spiritual wall
26:04
in your house if we're looking at ensuring that we're providing the best opportunity for
26:09
well-being uh as a person as an individual but also as a collective how do we go about exercising that and i'm
26:16
not talking about religion however i am one of many padre that we have available
26:21
to us in our camps and basis are those padre and our role really is around
26:26
supporting your spiritual well-being in a way that you best understand it for
26:31
yourself the majority of us of course um come from religious backgrounds actually one of us
26:37
and we are all christians at this particular point however that doesn't restrict us
26:43
from helping you investigate ways in which you can exercise that spirituality
26:48
for yourself about finding that little why within yourself and how you nurture
26:54
them it's often again like i said earlier the um the wall itself is something that we
27:00
don't often focus on in our busy lives our busy lives we might again unless you go to the gym
27:06
and exercise our physical side but when one of the walls in your house is weak
27:13
um can your house stand up if one of your walls is weak yes it can
27:19
but the vulnerability provided in that particular area of your life can again
27:25
as we've already heard expose the other areas of your health um to deterioration
27:31
so i'd like to um look at the spiritual world from a christian perspective as doing things
27:37
like uh contributing to my wider community um providing best examples of
27:43
how i would think christ will live his life amongst us they can also present itself in other
27:49
ways other religions or through other means of spirituality about being good
27:55
to each other some of the simple things that um if you're good to your neighbor wouldn't
28:01
the world be a better place if we could all just get that right um on that note
28:07
um again access to uh spiritual support on your camps and basis uh please contact
28:14
your padre on or your chaplains within those particular areas um they are very
28:20
skilled and are supporting us all in those areas we also provide um
28:26
i suppose our main role pastoral support to your tahawidu and that pastoral support comes in many ways and avenues
28:33
and as i said i will do our best to ensure that we provide you support and
28:39
finding the best way if you're a little bit weak in that wall to support growth
28:44
health and some form of exercise in your tahoe
28:50
kyoto
29:03
thank you tony i'll pass on to anaru and and
29:10
nakaito
29:28
thank you very much kate for the invitation it's a it's a real privilege and honor to be here presenting on this
29:35
panel today so i'm carrying on from uh
29:53
um you can break it down further as well but for me waitu is um energy it's
30:00
essence it's my essence it's having a balance between physical
30:05
and metaphysical um it's my being so
30:11
for me how do i look after my waidua or how
30:16
what are things that can affect my waiter so for me it's about um
30:22
it could be things with regards to the other parts of my faith so for example if
30:29
if my whanau aren't well my wairua becomes unwell as well so
30:35
also if i'm around uh if you're around negative people and their energies can
30:41
be projected onto you that could affect your waidua also so keeping our fare
30:46
intact and well balanced is a good way to look after your waiter
30:53
some of the things that i do for my wairua is one i try and keep myself in a good
31:00
routine so in the morning i will takutaku which is my um my incantations
31:05
to start my day um i'll also do urukuroa which uh states
31:10
of maori meditation and andes as well as the headspace app there's a good app um called orokuroa
31:18
so i practice that every morning as well as well as breath work so
31:24
taking um doing breath breathing exercises and breath work also helps
31:31
to regulate your body and balance your energies as well another thing i like to do is to
31:37
reconnect to my whakapapa and um so making sure that my um
31:46
my maori um space and my my maori wealth and health
31:53
is well looked after so for me it's about reconnecting to tau maori making
31:58
sure um learning about history and protocols tikkana and kawa
32:07
reconnecting to my ancestors and my tibuna and my geological genealogical
32:13
connections so for me being connected to tau mari is
32:19
huge for my wife also being connected to tita to the
32:24
environment so looking around at the environment and seeing what it's doing at the moment
32:31
we're coming into winter so the environment itself is quite um there's a low energy um especially in
32:38
this week during these luna phases so the environment's
32:43
changing so i expect that my waidua would would change as well so just knowing
32:50
myself and knowing what my energy levels are and how i can rebalance and and
32:57
um make sure the flow of my radar is um as
33:02
intact and um and my essence is um as flowing you know
33:08
so it's all about balance for me for wairua so some of the things i can suggest is
33:14
maybe looking at meditation apps like headspace like
33:20
um if you're on your basis and camps please contact your service marae
33:28
um and you have the air force tournament here at oahakia for air force on each
33:35
base we have maori liaison offices so if you're wanting to reconnect
33:40
through the to the tournament through there as well but um an important thing too is
33:47
make sure that you're surrounded with like-minded people people who can lift your energies um people who have the
33:54
same purpose as you who are on the same wavelength um and just
33:59
surround yourself with good things that can lift your spirits and lift your way so um nami here i hope that was um
34:07
a bit informative and helpful but um i'll i'll pass it over to um for his input
34:17
uh [Music]
34:32
north and i currently work here at te turdanga huawei of the air force uh
34:38
turango y um so uh before a hui um engine i talked about what waidua is to us
34:45
and uh you know why do what to me is like uh energy um i don't
34:50
really see it as spiritual but to me it's like energy um uh they're different things that can um
34:58
take take out energy and and different things that can give us uh energy
35:03
um um so uh for me um i think it's important to have our other
35:10
three taha in place and and thriving for alta hawaii to be at a good place
35:16
for example you know like going to the gym is very important for me and those days when i
35:23
don't go to the gym it really affects my weight and it puts me in a low space
35:28
so um or or having a good relationship with my kids or um my whanau my friends um if
35:35
i don't have that then that affects my waidua um so that's how i see why do i um
35:43
um yeah there's uh it's just a a balance of all the taha
35:49
um to really um um just uh really um i think of the world
35:58
yeah just just basically balance between the all uh all the taha um that really
36:03
helps our way to uh yeah thrive so uh that's
36:08
that's it for me really uh yeah
36:16
thank you thank you that's that's really um really insightful from all of you to um
36:22
really focus on and the uh of that pillar um when we're taking time to to press
36:29
pause so thank you all for your insights on that um so now on to lance so lance is our
36:36
warrant officer of the the navy um so as a leader role model and someone
36:41
who's been in our organization for um some time it would be great to hear your thoughts lance about the importance of
36:48
pressing pause so i'll hand over to you thank you
37:08
hey thanks tony um and thanks to the awesome panelists it's been really cool um to listen and remind ourselves uh
37:16
about this area of our work and life right and existence that we often forget
37:21
about and particularly the wairua which was a good reminder just on some
37:27
some stuff that i could you know probably get back into which is uh yeah which is awesome thank you i thought i'd share just a quick
37:33
personal example and it may touch on it will touch on i think most of the areas that we talked about here um and it's a
37:39
situation that that happened a while back um while i was this rank uh maybe eight
37:45
years ago or something and i i think it's as i look at it and
37:51
have helped people since then it's a it's a common situation because i was in
37:56
a place as many of us are a work where i was wearing three to four hats as many
38:01
people do and within that situation there an added challenge came in uh from work which was
38:08
linked to the afda armed forces disconnect uh linked to a whole bunch of people support and everything else so
38:14
whilst doing the three or four hats providing necessary support and the amount of people grew
38:20
under that another straw was thrown in that piece and at home um my
38:27
partner of the time and i with two kids were weren't doing so well so um
38:32
we're in the middle of all that we we separated and i found myself so busy uh with work that i'd worked during the day
38:39
then work at night um then work during the day again i ended up having uh i think it was one hour sleep at the end
38:45
of it i was doing about one hour sleep at night during that time i lost 10 kgs in about seven days so it was complete burning
38:53
out my partner and kids walked out the door and i recall looking over at them
38:58
but as too i had to finish what i was doing as they walked out the door um and the final final straw of this
39:04
whole period i i guess was a prolonged period of it um but i was sort of throwing a quick
39:09
lifeline at some point so i had to go to the doctor to the medic for something and i'll never forget the blood
39:16
um pressure that they they took and it was something in the region of 176 over 112
39:22
and the comment of the nurse was hey man you've hit the wall and you have to stop
39:27
and i've said i said something then that or thought something then that we all have i'm sure
39:33
was that that belief of on the single point of failure so i can't stop and i have to keep on going so so i did keep on going
39:40
but at one point in time right at the end of end of all of this as i i ended up in front of my computer
39:48
i couldn't get what was in my brain to my fingers to connect to the keyboard to tell the uh to put onto the screen so
39:54
i recall distinctly pushing my keyboard away uh and calling up the devonport naval health service and said hey man
40:01
i need help i'm not in a good way and i have to say um the support that descended and immediately i got two
40:08
hours with the doctor and there was a bunch of follow-on services i i think that the reason i
40:13
wanted to bring up this that quick snapshot was that he asked me a question and i i've reflected on this ever since
40:21
and his question was what do you love to do what do you miss what are you doing
40:27
now wow that's that's a good question and i i love pt as i talked about earlier i hadn't trained uh properly for
40:34
a long time maybe a year i love to play guitar played for 35 years or something
40:39
i hadn't touched the guitar for about two years i loved surfing hadn't been surfing i had to reflect on my
40:45
connections my social connections i hadn't been out with friends for over a year or connected with anyone so
40:52
and when we as we went through this discussion of two hours um two hours with the doctor
40:58
um i actually came up read complete red on the health continuum
41:04
so um so the and that was talked about before but
41:09
that was my my moment to to reflect on i need a pause and thankfully the system recognized that
41:15
too and gave me that pause and i took time out i was actually given three weeks um three weeks um
41:22
sick leaves i call it where i just handed all my hats over and just walked away literally
41:27
um and i must i have to say that i was probably good after two or three
41:32
days because just that the immediate release of the pressure
41:38
within a very short period of time had an extremely positive effect i remember meeting up with friends on the second
41:44
day and laughing like i've never laughed for five years or so and connecting like i've never connected before
41:51
everything tasted better i could smell things i started to sleep
41:56
i got some great support i was given support external of the um
42:02
of the system as well with a civilian professional and that was done because i've also acquired a uh unhealthy
42:09
drinking habit as well which which i took care of so so all of that none of that would have
42:14
happened um if i wouldn't have okay let's be honest i didn't i did recognize it but didn't act on it and i
42:21
needed some other but but the second time around i recognized it i reached out for help got
42:27
the help and um i guess the key is just took the time out and now so how does that affect me now
42:33
or what do i do now is um i've like i'm like i've got a partner who picks me up and says when is the last time you
42:38
picked that guitar up oh yeah good point so i go and have a jam she makes sure i go surfing with surfing this weekend
42:45
um and we just spend time together and i just enjoy enjoy finding that balance i'm liberal so we're scales right so
42:51
don't always get it right but it's always that constant battle to try and try and figure that piece out so i just
42:56
wanted to share that story because i i think it ties in um it's a bunch of what we're talking about
43:02
i think it shows the importance of um self-help and and checking yourself out
43:07
and the importance of having those around you check you out as well and i've done this on several occasions since
43:14
and uh reached in when i've seen the same things same patterns that i was living um happen so uh kyora thanks for your time thanks
43:20
kate for all this just awesome to be with these great panelists and um yeah thank you
43:28
great thank you lance it was um a really great story that you've shared with us and as you see um a really great example
43:35
of the importance of pressing pause and knowing when's a good time to do that so thank you very much
43:40
so finally i'll hand over to laura barnes from our integrated wellness team and she's going to share with us
43:47
some of the highlights from our defense health website and some tools and resources um that are
43:55
available there and within the nct so thank you laura well thanks kate um cured everyone um
44:03
i'm laura buns i'm one of the senior wellness advisors um here with defence
44:09
health um so as as we've heard from our speakers today um each domain of tafaditafar is
44:16
interconnected with one another and so it's really important as everyone's highlighted to make sure that we're
44:22
taking time to nurture all four domains of to maintain our well-being
44:27
and our well-being isn't stability so how we're going is going to continuously
44:32
be impacted by life's triumphs and also its challenges and all of us are going to move back and forth along this
44:38
continuum of wellness at different points in our lives and that's totally normal um but when we are feeling like we're
44:45
not at our best or we might be struggling with something the fact is is that things don't normally fix
44:50
themselves as much as it would be nice sometimes if they did um but taking active steps in order for
44:58
us to improve our situations is one of the best things that we can do but sometimes we might find ourselves
45:04
thinking that we want to take action or we want to start making a plan but we're not really sure where to start
45:10
um our new external facing defense health website
45:16
um has a range of self-checks and self-management tools it's also got some really helpful advice and resources
45:23
which can bridge that kind of initial starting point for you if you want to make a change um there's a range of self-assessment
45:29
tools for you and this helps you check in on how you're going you can come back to these at any time to track how you're
45:36
getting on and to see your progress from those results and there's also problem solving goal
45:42
setting and action planning guides and to begin setting out some of those small changes that might make a really big
45:48
difference to how you're feeling um now's also the perfect time just to take a minute um and just think about what do
45:56
i really need in terms of self-care at the moment so do you have health concerns that might need some focus or
46:02
are there areas that you've been thinking about making some improvements to and we've got a range of self-management
46:09
tools as well and they provide some really simple realistic strategies to help you
46:14
navigate um the challenges that life can throw at us sometimes um
46:20
the pause that you take might also make you realize that actually you could do with a helping hand from someone else
46:26
or maybe there's someone in your life at the moment that you care about um and that you're a bit worried about um but
46:32
you're not really sure how to approach the situation or um what the best support to give to them
46:38
is um the biggest thing i could say is that you don't need to wait until
46:44
things feel really bad before you seek help um reaching in early to all of the
46:49
support services that we have available can make a big difference in aiding your recovery
46:56
the website puts both internal and external support services all together
47:01
in one place so the knowing how or how to contact has become
47:06
a lot easier for everyone and so when you take a moment um when
47:11
you want to yeah reset press pause um i encourage you all on
47:17
your own time just to visit the website and just to have a look on what's on offer there
47:22
um also i encourage you to uh check out and join the webinars across the rest of the week um and
47:28
you'll get to hear some more great advice um tools and lived experience stories
47:34
unless i've done today um but for now um i'm going to quickly um play a short video with you and then
47:41
you can hear about um you can hear from some of our people about their experiences with using the
47:47
site and the support that they've gotten from um
48:01
hi i'm caroline and i am a reserve in the new zealand army i've had a really exciting opportunity this summer to work
48:07
within the defence health directorate and one of my projects has been helping develop the new defense health website
48:13
it's really exciting because this is an external website so anyone can access it
48:24
we've designed it to be a one-stop shop for all things health and well-being there are some unique and engaging
48:29
features to the site that we're really excited to share with you guys here are some interactive self-help quizzes as
48:34
well as some fitness videos some personal stories and a massive reserve of information on so many different
48:40
health topics ultimately it's just a safe space for you to learn engage and help yourself and your peers i've
48:46
reached out to a few people to review the site and speak about what stood out to them here's what they had to say
48:51
hey i'm soph and i'm a private in army reserves and a recent graduate of ohio university personally i found there's
48:57
lots of resources on training gaining physical fitness and how to pass that next witness test there are also
49:02
walkthrough videos detailing different exercises and recovery that show the technical side of things to help prevent
49:07
injury with unilife stress and anxiety are a given especially around exam time but on
49:13
the new defense health website there's a range of resources that can help you achieve goals and manage stressful times
49:19
there's also some amazing personal stories that i would highly recommend checking out to give you a fresh view on how to deal with life's problems
49:26
all civilian employees have access to health providers including nzdf social
49:31
workers chaplains our sexual assault prevention and response advisors as well as our gender and pacifica networks nzdf
49:40
4u wellbeing support is an amazing resource that nzdev have made available to us
49:45
please visit the nzdf health hub for more information
49:51
[Music]
50:04
great thank you laura so yeah thank you very much to our panel
50:10
today for being involved in this discussion and we really appreciate the insights the
50:16
stories and the information that you've shared with us today and overall just reminding us the importance
50:22
of pressing pause on the screen here you'll see um just a small summary of the support
50:29
that's available within the nzdf and as laura mentioned all of this information
50:34
and how to contact each of these support services is available on our defence health website
50:41
um so i'll now pass back to our chapman tony brooking uh just to close out the session today and thank you for joining
50:48
us again just to support and address all
50:53
the words and opportunities uh to exercise um all of your rules and your
51:01
um
51:06
foreign although there are four walls in your house there is only one house so the better we look after that house
51:13
the more we are chucking all of those walls uh the better and uh the more
51:19
our well-being will be supported by them
51:34
and thank you very much have a great day
51:41
don't forget to check out our website
51:57
you