Do something different for stress awareness day!

It’s National Stress Awareness Day today!

To support the day, mental health charity MIND is encouraging people to ‘do something different’ to improve the wellbeing and the mental health of those working in the emergency services.

What could you do differently on National Stress Awareness Day?

• Try something new – you could use some of your break time to read about an aspect of wellbeing that you don’t know much about. There are lots of tips and information on the MIND website about everyday things like relaxation, mindfulness, sleep problems, food and mood, ways to get moving and feel better and more.

• Talk to your colleagues about something you do outside of work that helps with your wellbeing – it could be a hobby, interest or activity. You might find you have something new in common.

• If you're responsible for a team, why not order MIND’s free guide to developing wellness action plans with your teams. Wellness actions plans are an easy, practical way of helping your team members to support their own mental health. They also help managers to open up a dialogue about mental health within your team and across your organisation.

• If you work for a mainly voluntary organisation, send a text or an email to someone you haven’t seen in the team for a while and ask how they are.

• If you’re a volunteer, take five minutes to talk to other staff about how volunteering helps your own wellbeing and the impact it has on you.

It’s not too late to book onto the Blue Light manager training programme; the free course aims to develop managers and supervisors to better support their staff through stress in the workplace.

Published 4th November, 2015