• So why is Real Time Pressure so important to keep track of when you’re a seafarer? What is the single biggest limitation that you have because you’re a seafarer that you don’t have anywhere else? “YOUR AT SEA!”
• So, what can you do about something on land? NOTHING! This might sound harsh but it’s the truth. Imagine what its like to work on the ISS (International Space Station)… They have families to, and if something happens “back on earth” they can’t do anything about it either.
• And what is the symptom that this can lead to? “FEELING POWERLESS!”
• Remember to keep track of your emotions and control them, don’t let them control YOU!

• With everything we’ve learnt so far in this module, here are 4 easy exercises you can do to help you recognise stress in yourself, others and to not let other people’s moods affect you.
  • Consider how you think about your emotions
  • Stop for a second, take a deep breath and ask yourself what are you feeling right now?
  • Remind yourself that your emotions can affect others too.
  • Remember that their pain is not your pain but be considerate and help if you feel something is wrong.

• Knowing the symptoms is obviously a benefit to knowing weather someone else is stressed or anxious, but this isn’t always necessary. The term ‘Jumping Atoms’ can sometimes be used to describe when one’s feelings or emotions are transferred across to another person. This doesn’t always mean that you were required to be face to face with that person because the emations can be passed along more than one person. Detecting this change in emotion due to ‘Jumping atoms’ is a very powerful tool to recognising stress and/or anxiety in other people.
• The downside to this is that before you can properly recognise symptoms in another person, you need to be able to recognise them in yourself first.
• The benefit of this is that once you are capable of recognising symptoms in yourself, you can start to understand and see the symptoms in other people, even if you don’t know that person to a personal level.
• To summarise. Detecting the signs of stress and/or anxiety in other people is only effective if you can already detect the symptoms in yourself first, have a very good understanding of symptoms or by knowing that person at a personal level.

• Real time pressure is a factor that has become an issue due to the evolution of technology. What do I mean by this?
• Years ago, if there was an accident on board, for example, “Jim hurt his leg”, you would send a letter to your family or friends to inform them of the situation. By the time the letter arrives to the recipient… well actually Jim is OK now.
• Things like the news, social media and the people around you are constantly feeding you with information that could trigger real time pressure at work, that’s why its important to stay focused.

 I know you would have heard this before, but… when its time to work, its time to work with no distractions.

• Making life at sea enjoyable isn’t that hard to do, you just need to put some effort in to it. Obviously there are restrictions to how enjoyable it can be since you are out at sea and there is only so much you can do. One thing to always remember is the positive side of things, what are the good things that you have on board? Ex: Amazing views every day, etc.
• During this module we will be taking a look at some daily activities that you can do by yourself or with your crew that can drastically improve your life at sea and make it more enjoyable.

EXERCISE:

• Take 10 minutes to list as many benefits of being out at sea that you can think of that you don’t have on land, for example; Amazing views! “We will make use of this list later on!” If you have not been to sea before, then make a list of the things you would be looking forward to if you where going to be out at sea.