How do you manage your mental resources at work ? Try My Mental Training Pro’s self-evaluation tool !

04 May How do you manage your mental resources at work ? Try My Mental Training Pro’s self-evaluation tool !

Even in a world where information overload has become the norm, it is still possible to preserve your well-being and improve your performance at work. The key is to learn how to use your natural mental resources more effectively, which is exactly what the self-evaluation tool on My Mental Training Pro’s special app is designed to facilitate.

Do you sometimes – or often – feel overwhelmed at work? Well, that’s normal, says Gaël Allain, who is the scientific director of the My Mental Training Pro app and a cognitive psychologist. “We’re living in a world that is so filled with data that it’s ready to burst, but we’re equipped with brains that aren’t capable of processing more than three or four bits of information at a time.” Is that a problem ? “Not as long as we are realistic and don’t over-estimate our abilities,” Allain says.

We need to recognize our limits and, most importantly, implement effective strategies to overcome these difficulties. The self-evaluation tool in the My Mental Training Pro app has been designed for this very purpose! It’s based on a 27-item questionnaire, which anyone can use to assess their day-to-day mental hygiene, pinpoint areas they need to keep an eye on, and highlight and reinforce healthy practices.

Featuring personalized results

Our test evaluates the way respondents manage their mental resources in three key areas: concentration, mental revitalization, and inner composure. The first of these, our ability to concentrate, has a major impact on our effectiveness. “Interrupting something you are working on so you can tackle a different task results in a 30% time loss, emphasizes Allain. “You should organize your schedule so you work in short bursts, without being interrupted, and focus on one – and only one – task at a time. Furthermore, contrary to popular belief, maintaining focus does not mean sitting at your desk for hours on end. Our attention curve decreases rapidly; after 30 minutes, the ability to concentrate plummets by 30%, and after only one hour, it drops by 50%.”

This leads to the second area of mental revitalization, which requires you to schedule regular breaks and recovery periods, during which you allow your mind to “wander”. “The times when you don’t appear to be doing anything actually make it possible to absorb new knowledge and solve complex problems,” Allain explains. Hence, the importance of promoting and distributing such moments at appropriate intervals throughout your workday.

Finally, the third dimension to be aware of is inner composure. “Stress makes us hot under the collar and generates invasive emotions, which, in turn, consume enormous amounts of intellectual resources,” says Allain. “If you want to maintain comfortable stress levels, it’s important to learn how to manage your emotions, which will also help pacify your professional relationships and boost your collaborative abilities.”

A program custom-designed for your needs at your disposal…

Once the self-evaluation has been completed, the My Mental Training Pro app provides individual users with a customized program for developing their concentration and fostering mental revitalization and inner composure. The program consists of approximately 20 short sequences to help you to quickly implement strategies to improve your well-being and intellectual performance. It also contains instructional videos in YouTube format with tips and solutions for managing your attention resources. In addition, it features audio exercises for working on specific skills (focus and concentration) and promoting personal development (sophrology and emotional management), as well as physical well-being (mini-stretching sessions and ergonomic advice). The ultimate goal is to recover not only your intellectual health, but also your physical health.

In addition, our interactive system has additional sequences : “There are twenty-minute audio tracks with white noise and concentration-promoting soundtracks that will help you maintain your focus. We’ve also designed short games and stories to rest your mind in between shifts. We also provide anti-stress and positive-thinking exercises to calm you down if you feel your temperature rising.”

In short, it’s a comprehensive program, packed with the tools we all need to improve the way we manage mental resources – quickly, and with long-lasting results !

Try the self-evaluation questionnaire ! 

Interview-article written by Business Digest in association with Gaël Allain and Jean-Christophe Beau