At FD Consultants we have been offering our Trademark half day ‘Stress Management and Resilience Building’ workshop for several years. Since the pandemic, this workshop is in great demand. We have offered these courses to organisations within, the humanitarian sector, emergency first responders, mental health charities, and tech companies (exposed to traumatic material), or any organisation where workload is stressful and intensive. Organisations have been navigating so much uncertainty over the last few years. As human beings we like to feel in control and prepared. The pandemic has made us all feel more stressed and that things are ‘out of our control’. Our workshop helps people manage uncertainty and focus on things we have control over. During the pandemic organisations are speaking more openly about mental health. We have found that organisations are reaching out for the preventative services (such as our training programmes), as well as our crisis support services. We would ideally recommend this stress management workshop for all staff as part of their induction. Staff need to be given the space at the very outset to build strategies for managing stress, and to recognise the signs in themselves and their colleagues. We want to encourage organisations to build into their framework preventative measures to best support their staff. Our workshop helps to create a healthy and resilient organisational culture. By giving staff the tools to recognise the signs of stress, trauma, burnout or compassion fatigue, we enable them to reach out for support when necessary. Research has shown that the earlier someone gets support, the quicker they will recover, and this can prevent long-term illness. “There is so much uncertainty, including returning to the workplace, juggling lots of responsibilities, and worrying about my health. This course provided me with techniques to recognise and manage my stress and anxiety better during this time.” Our half day stress management workshop enables participants to recognise the signs of stress, identifying stress triggers, understand the physiology and neuroscience of stress, and appreciate our survival response. We explore common thinking patterns of stress and the specific stress factors within each organisation. We offer our ‘RESPECT Resilience Model’ which has helped thousands of people to develop tools and techniques to manage stress and create a personal wellbeing plan. “The trainers are professional, knowledgeable and have a wealth of experience.” If you or your organisation would like more information on any of our courses, then do get in touch with us today. Check out our website www.fdconsultants.net or email us directly [email protected]
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Beth Glanville: Beth is a UKCP reg. psychotherapist/counsellor and EMDR practitioner, specialising in psychological trauma, and is co-editor of the online journal Contemporary Psychotherapy. She is an associate psychotherapist with FD Consultants and works as a psychotherapist at Transport for London’s Occupational Health Department, and also has a private practice in Surrey. As we move into a new ‘stepped up’ phase of managing the coronavirus pandemic you may be feeling stressed and/or anxious. This is a very normal and appropriate response to what is unfolding around us. Nobody was prepared for this unique situation, and the uncertainty surrounding absolutely everything will impact us all. General anxiety Managing the media: It is important to ensure that you have the up-to-date information you need relating to Covid-19. But it is also important to manage your exposure to news and social media, and any other websites etc. relating to the virus, as it is easy to become overwhelmed. It is not helpful to keep reading the same information, or to constantly track rolling news or live updates, unless you have reason for doing so. You could try limiting how many times a day you look at information or limiting the amount of time you spend on social media or news sites. Managing thoughts: Most of us, when we feel anxious, experience racing and/or negative thoughts, and find we can get ‘stuck in our head’. Simple distraction techniques can bring us back to the present, such as making a cup of tea, focusing on the view out of the window, doing a chore, stroking a pet, or talking to someone. Breathing exercises can also help with managing anxiety and escalating thought processes – see the link in the ‘resources’ section below. Reaching out: Reach out to friends, family, and colleagues for support, and remember that your line manager is there to support you. This is a new and unprecedented situation for everyone and there is no ‘right’ way to handle it. Support the important people in your life, but also allow them to support you. If you are already accessing counselling do try and keep appointments where possible. Working from home Structure and routine : It can be easy to fall out of routine and lose structure when you are working from home, which can impact negatively on our mental health. Our energy and motivation levels may slip and we can feel lethargic, or start to feel low. In order to minimise this simple things like avoiding staying in bed late, getting dressed as if you were going out and maintaining a good routine around work, chores, breaks, and start and end times to your working day are effective. Ensure that you fully power down when you finish work, and resist the temptation to keep checking emails or ‘just get that last thing done’ to avoid your own time being eaten into. Remember to take regular breaks during the working day too – it can be easy to let this slip and sometimes we have to force ourselves to down tools and have that cuppa! Stay connected: We can easily take the social side of being in a workplace for granted, however plenty of research demonstrates the importance of connection to others to good mental health, and sometimes we don’t realise how valuable social connections are until they are no longer there. Make sure that you stay connected to your colleagues, as well as to your friends, family and contacts outside of work. Schedule phone calls or virtual catch ups, check in on each other, hold team meetings virtually, or try coordinating a coffee break with one of your colleagues and have a FaceTime catch up while slurping! Eat well and keep active: Spending a lot of time at home can greatly increase the chances of mindless over eating, either for comfort or for ‘something to do’. Poor eating, combined with less exercise, impacts on our mental and physical health. Plan meals and keep healthy snacks in stock and be mindful about what – and when – you are eating. Try and maintain some form of exercise regime as well, in line with governments recommendations about using gyms and being out and about. Doing a few home-based exercises or going out for a daily walk around your local area, assuming you are able to do so, will impact positively on wellbeing and mindset. Sleep: When we are anxious our sleep is often one of the first things to become impacted. Ensuring good sleep hygiene such as maintaining a good routine of consistency around bed time and getting up, avoiding large meals in the evening and being structured and active during the day can all help impact positively on sleep. On the other hand, some of us sleep more when we feel stressed or under stimulated. If you are aware of a tendency to do this try and avoid staying in bed late or taking too many naps, as this will impact negatively on sleep later on. There is more information on sleep hygiene in the resources section below. Support for those in difficult living situations: Some of us will be living in challenging situations. Homes may be cramped, may not feel safe, or may be overcrowded. People living in house shares may feel particularly under strain, especially if there are difficult relationship dynamics in the space. It may be worth thinking about whether you can stay with a friend or family member over this time. When at home try and keep curtains and windows open, where appropriate, to let in light and fresh air. If possible, move around your space and avoid spending all your time in one room. Try and avoid working in the bedroom where possible. Self-isolating: It is likely that you will need to self-isolate at some point over the next few months. It is important to be prepared for such an eventuality through keeping food, essentials, and any medication you require in stock, but do try to avoid panic buying and stock piling. When self-isolating try and keep to a regular daily routine, get as much natural light and fresh air into your space as possible, and if you are feeling well think about getting some form of exercise at home, maybe through YouTube programmes or fitness apps. Even doing a few yoga stretches each day can be immensely nourishing for the body. It is also important to keep your mind stimulated. You may well still be able to work which helps with structuring the day, and around work perhaps you can make your way through that pile of books you’ve always been meaning to read, catch up on life admin, have a clear out, or get in touch with old friends. You may have a creative side you’ve been meaning to indulge, or maybe this is the time to take up meditation. This could be a golden opportunity to slow down and catch up on yourself. Of course we still have Netflix and box sets, but try and not let your day be filled up with TV, especially if you are feeling well. Scheduling each day can help with sticking to a routine, and it can be a good idea to plan out each day the night before. You could use the activity scheduler in the resources section below. Further information about taking care of your mental health at this time -
For organisations looking for employee psychological support, FD Consultants are the trauma specialists and well-being service who will best deliver a reliable, quick, and bespoke support system in the workplace. FD Consultant’s team of accredited specialists will offer ongoing support to help manage stress, prevent burnout and provide specialist trauma care where required, enabling your staff with the tools to cope, and recover more quickly. Get in touch with us today I was fortunate to start 2020 in Kerala, South India on a working holiday. My 5am alarm clock was music and chanting coming from the nearby Hindu temple. I would take an early morning stroll, before the heat of the sun zapped my energy, through the local village to the fishing port. Here time seemed to stand still, as I watched the fishermen rhythmically lowering and rising their large fishing nets into the water, intuitively knowing when the time was right. Watching these men created a pause moment deep inside myself. As the nets rose, I took a deep inhalation, as the nets lowered, I took a completed exhalation.
I have had so many clients say to me in their assessment sessions, I feel like I haven’t breathed properly for years. How precious our breath is and how we take it for granted. It is our life source and so much healing and good health comes from breathing properly and mindfully. One exercise I teach participants in the stress management workshop is to take a deep breath in and make the out breath longer than the in breath. This activates our parasympathetic nervous system and helps us to relax. For one client it took a full month before she could make her out breath longer than her in breath, which showed me she had been living life in the stress lane for a very long time. At FD Consultants we offer a half-day ‘Stress Management and Resilience Building’ workshop. We recommend that “ALL” staff who join an organisation where workload and work pressure is high, and there is a risk of being exposed to traumatic material, whether directly or indirectly, should attend this workshop as part of their induction. Staff need to be informed and prepared to what they may be exposed to in the workplace, build strategies for managing stress, and recognise the signs in themselves and their colleagues. We want to encourage organisations to build into their framework preventative measures to support staff. This can improve an organisation’s culture and create a healthy and resilient organisation. By giving staff the tools to recognise the signs of stress, trauma, burnout or compassion fatigue enables them to reach out for support when necessary. Research has shown that the earlier someone gets support the quicker they will recover and can prevent long-term illness. I had time to digest a healthy dose of reading material whilst away. One of the books I read was ‘Joy on Demand’ by Chade-Meng Tan. Chade-Meng believes ‘we can develop major mental skills like the ability to access joy on demand, and in doing so, improve every single aspect of our lives. The mental equivalent of physical exercise is meditation’ (Tan, 2016). By learning techniques to calm the mind, we can be more prepared during stressful times, and keep ourselves mentally well. Another book I enjoyed reading was ‘Momo’ (Ende, 1984) a beautiful story about where time comes from. It is full of poignant messages about what we value in life, ‘time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart’. In the story “time thieves” strip humans of time, humans start working harder and faster, and avoid at all costs sitting in silence. It is not until we learn to sit in our own silence that we can change unhealthy patterns, as the noise of ‘doing’ drowns all other reason out of the mind. I have heard people attend our workshops stating that they never have time for themselves, as if it is something they have just come to accept. We need to listen to our self-talk and hear the warning signs loud and clear. If we are saying we never have enough time for ourselves, then something has to change, or we will become ill. It took me a week into my break before I could fully relax. I found myself feeling ‘guilty’ and saying to myself ‘I should be doing more’. One of the topics we cover in the stress management workshop is the eight common stress thinking patterns, the eighth being ‘should’, ‘ought to’, and ‘must’. Many Keralan people that I met seemed to have a wise soul. Lakshit, a life coach, said to me one morning ‘the more you chase the money, the unhealthier your lifestyle becomes, and the more you have to spend on putting yourself right again’. His statement reminded me of the stress cycle, the longer we are in it the harder it is to see, and the more difficult it is to break. He also taught me to focus on the ‘experience’ I offer to people. My dream is to setup a retreat, but at present I can’t work out how that can happen financially, but an experience can be gained anywhere, anytime through human connection. His statement helped me to reframe my thinking by bringing my mind back to appreciating the present, rather than stretching too far into the future. Another beautiful soul I met who manages a small Airbnb by cooking, cleaning and driving his Tuk Tuk, Mr Jobin said, ‘I love my job, I constantly see the scenery change around, it refreshes my mind each and every day.’ Enjoying being in the moment and connecting to nature are such simple and rich resources for calming the mind, and don’t cost us anything. If you want to find out more about our workshops, please email [email protected]. Try to give yourself the gift of time, even for one day, and listen to your integrity when sitting in your silence. Fiona Dunkley (Founder of FD Consultants) For organisations looking for employee psychological support, FD Consultants are the trauma specialists and well-being service who will best deliver a reliable, quick, and bespoke support system in the workplace. FD Consultant’s team of accredited specialists will offer ongoing support to help manage stress, prevent burnout and provide specialist trauma care where required, enabling your staff with the tools to cope, and recover more quickly. Mindfulness in the workplace is one of the most important trends that businesses are paying attention to. As part of a series dedicated to mindfulness we explain how implementing these practises in your organisation will make for a more productive and harmonious workplace. For HR leaders who are contemplating different strategies to help foster a healthier, happier and more productive workplace, here's a look at three key benefits of incorporating mindfulness into your work culture. 1. Better Emotional Intelligence Emotional intelligence (EI) affects the workplace at all levels, and mindfulness can help improve EI, according to Harvard Business Review (HBR). Mindfulness means being aware of our experiences, observing them without judgment, and responding from a place of clarity and compassion, rather than fear, insecurity, or greed. When mindfulness in the workplace helps teams achieve more emotional clarity, it can have numerous benefits, including:
Mindfulness in the workplace plays a critical role at keeping your team sharp, specifically by improving three features — stability, control and efficiency. Meditation allows people to learn how to manage distractions. Workers operate in a 24/7 environment of constant distractions with email, smartphones, social media, the 24-hour news cycle and multiple projects and deadlines. It's important for your employees to develop the skills to put their focus where it's needed most. 3. Enhanced Creativity As automation becomes more common and routine administrative tasks are completed by computers and algorithms, the real value that people bring to the table is creativity. Enhanced creativity can help develop new products, find innovative solutions to problems and redesign processes in an effective way. Studies show people are at their most creative when they're in a relaxed state. Relaxation allows people to look at problems differently, using divergent thinking to consider the widest range of potential solutions and hone in on the right one. Encouraging mindfulness in the workplace can support a stronger creative process. There's a strong case for introducing mindfulness in the workplace — from increased productivity to an improved employee experience. Mindfulness makes us more focused, more effective, and happier, to name just a few benefits. So it's little wonder why today, in multinational corporations and small businesses alike, more and more people are meditating on the job. If your organisation would like support on how to implement workplace mindfulness or is interested in our employee mindfulness courses get in touch with FD Consultants today. Mindfulness Exercise SeriesOver the next four weeks I will be releasing a series of mindfulness exercises that you can do at home, at your desk or when you find five minutes to truly focus on yourself and your mental wellbeing.
Please also do share these with your friends, family and colleagues, so we can all enjoy the benefits of mindfulness and stronger mental health. I had the honour to present at a recent BACP Conference in relation to caring for the carer and discussing support methods for those who are impacted by trauma, either first hand or vicariously. Building resilience is about learning to respect and take care of yourself, I have created a resilience toolkit acronym using the word RESPECT. I recommend accumulating a good balance of resources that cover the following areas: Relaxation, Education, Social, Physical, Exercise, Creativity and Thinking.
I hope you enjoy the presentation (please note this is a very short section from a longer presentation). |
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