Training firm Drumnosis has developed an unusual way to tackle stress in the office through rhythmic drumming. Nicole Holgate finds out exactly what it involves and what the potential benefits might be. Drumnosis teaches teams and individuals within businesses to achieve more by doing less using a combination of drums and hypnosis. It came into being as a concept in 2006 when head trainer and founder Mark Smith began practising as a hypnotherapist. Having been a professional drummer for more than 20 years, he immediately noticed a crossover between the discipline of learning an instrument and the self-control required to deal with anxiety.
Personal assistants are one of Drumnosis’s preferred clientele, because they are often given a large number of tasks and required to take on multiple roles within their working environment. The course has taught many PAs to do less and achieve more by teaching simple and repeatable techniques that have everyday applications in both the workplace and in personal life. These encourage calm, assertive control in order to help your workday become a pleasure.
The technique is based on the idea that neurological overload is the greatest cause of worry and emphasises that multi-tasking is the largest reason for this. Overload is caused by being given too much information or too many jobs to tackle. Your brain naturally reacts to this influx with a fear response, causing anxiety. Drumnosis offers ways to tackle and resolve this stress. It aims to help you understand and eliminate the tasks that make you aggravated by getting rid of them, delegating them or learning to deal with them. This can provide greater wellbeing within offices, which will in turn reduce sick days and increase staff morale and productivity.
Tried and tested
Anne Reynolds, PA to the Managing Director at Drake & Morgan, went to one of Mark’s stress management seminars and was part of an audience of around 30 attendees. Anne feels that the laid-back nature of Mark’s approach made the audience comfortable and open to his comments. She really appreciated the humour mixed in with the more serious messages about how to avoid stress.
“It was revelatory to realise that instead of trying to do lots of things at once we achieve more by doing things one at a time,” she continues. Mark illustrated this by showing that drumming is a lot of smaller actions that only appear to be one continuous action. This taught her that it is more effective to keep careful control of what you do and in what order you do it, instead of multi-tasking.
Now when she is at work, Anne keeps the slogan “do less and achieve more” in her head. “It reminds me that I am in control of my workload, it’s not in control of me.” She adds that she would recommend it to other administrative professionals as she found it a fun way to convey an important message.
Now, in the face of pressure or looming deadlines, she has a newfound confidence in her abilities, something any PA would be happy to increase. “Instead of worrying about things, I think of my output as an impressive drum solo,” she adds. Her conclusion: “Stress, what stress?”
Drumnosis is available as half-day and full-day workshops, as well as team-building sessions and individual training. A half-day workshop starts at £600; individual seminars are assessed on a case-by-case basis. The company is also offering readers of PA Life a free 10-part stress management guide. Visit bit.ly/4drums to fill in your details and have one sent to you. For more information visit drumnosis.com
