Kind mind

Did you know that our bodies interpret critical and fearful thoughts the same way as an external threat? The full stress response is then triggered by our own thoughts and emotions. Fortunately, this works both ways – being kind to oneself switches off the threat response and puts the body in a state of safety and relaxation.

A growing amount of research shows that the way we relate to and respond to our own thoughts and emotions, and in particular self-kindness techniques, has a huge effect on how we feel and are able to act and react in different situations. The challenge is that many of us, no matter how compassionate we can be to friends, partners, children, and family closest to us, struggle with putting self-kindness into practice.

This spring’s theme is “Kind Mind”, in short: how to treat ourselves with the same kindness and compassion as we would treat a friend. With this theme, we want to create awareness about the health benefits of self-kindness strategies and inspire dialogue in our teams and organisations about how we can support and help each other in these difficult times. Four experts – two of them IKEA co-workers – will provide us with tools and show us how to use them during four online talks.

Join us this spring and learn how to use all this knowledge to stimulate positive emotion systems in your brain and influence your own wellbeing, individually and together with others.