Question 1

Coping with stress

Accepted Answer

Stress can occur from many factors, but high levels of stress can start to have physical impacts. Within the workforce, we also know that job stress can have a causal effect on physical health (Cooper et al., 1994). It can narrow your ability to think clearly, function effectively and enjoying daily life. It can also change how you feel emotionally.

| Here are eight (8.) stress management tips to try out from helpguide.org:

|| Coping with Stress: advice to hospital staff ${youtube}Coping with Stress associated with COVID-19: advice to hospital staff

| Also click here for a calming playlist of songs to listen to, curated by NPR radio show.

Here are some tips from the CDC regarding key workers and how to build resilience. We recognise it's been difficult to carry on as 'normal', when normal has changed.

Stress tips

|| Here are also some audio guides on Soundcloud for free, set up by the NHS Scotland. NHS Scot Stress Podcast

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Question 2

Free Webinars

Accepted Answer

These are webinars hosted by your local BLMK services to help you gain skills and learn something new. They remain anonymous and are led by one of the team from the Bedfordshire, Milton Keynes and Luton areas.

Topics talked about include Men's mental health, dealing with Covid-19 stress and ways to stay active during lockdown. For the moment all webinars are online but are easily accesible from these three websites:

Feel free to attend whichever suits your experiences the most.

Bedfordshire

Luton

Milton Keynes

| We had our first webinar! Click here to watch the replay.

| Here are some bitesize-d webinars available online, already recorded: https://www.penninecare.nhs.uk/mcrhub-webinars

Question 3

Needle phobia

Accepted Answer

Overcoming your fear of needles

Many people have this fear, but it can be overcome with simple exercises and practice. Especially with the importance of the vaccine, it is something that can be worked on.

For some people, it is linked to fainting, or feeling faint. When their fear is triggered (for example, by seeing blood or thinking about an injection), their heart rate and blood pressure increase (as with other kinds of fears), but then rapidly drop. It is this fall in blood pressure that can cause fainting. Many people do not confront their fear because they are worried they may embarrass or hurt themselves through fainting.

Other people do not feel faint or actually faint, but do feel panicky when their fear is triggered.

What can I do to overcome my fears?

First of all, do tell the person who is co-ordinating your care, or the person who is giving you your injection or blood test, about your worries. They may be able to answer any specific questions you have. They may also be able to help you cope with the procedure, for example, by chatting to distract you.

Also, think about whether there been has anything which has helped you to cope with needles in the past. Can you use something like this to help you again?

If your fear is linked to fainting (or feeling very faint), the next step is to teach yourself applied tension.

If you feel panicky (for example, your heart races, your chest feels tight and your stomach churns), but do not feel faint, the next step i

Question 4

Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD)

Accepted Answer

|| Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) is the feeling of being anxious about almost everything and anything. Often, people affected by GAD will feel overly worried about a wide range of things relating to a variety of topics including health, money, work, school and relationships and sometimes may not even be able to identify a reason that they feel anxious.

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GAD can cause a change in your behaviour and the way you think and feel about things, resulting in symptoms such as:

restlessness
a sense of dread
feeling constantly "on edge"
difficulty concentrating
irritability

Your symptoms may cause you to withdraw from social contact to avoid feelings of worry and dread. You may also find going to work difficult and stressful, and may take time off sick. These actions can make you worry even more about yourself and reduce your self-esteem.

You may also experience a range of physical symptoms including:

dizziness
tiredness
a noticeably strong, fast or irregular heartbeat (palpitations)
muscle aches and tension
trembling or shaking
dry mouth
excessive sweating
shortness of breath
stomach ache
feeling sick
headache
pins and needles
insomnia

CBT can help you understand and change your thought processes and/or behaviours to help reduce the uncomfortable symptoms and help you manage worry more effectively.

Question 5

Free Wellbeing apps

Accepted Answer

There are a number of free wellbeing apps available, these include Sleepio, Silvercloud cCBT and Headspace for Mindfulness meditation.

| List of wellbeing apps

|| There is also a library of free and paid apps recommended by the NHS and are tested in NHSX. If you have tried any of these and have some feedback, we would appreciate if you share it with us to improve the list.

Question 6

What is Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)?

Accepted Answer

A brief video guide to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. This link also takes you to a BLMK video on CBT and is closed captioned.

CBT Example diagram

CBT is offered by all of our BLMK IAPT services if you feel like this is something that could be useful. There are also talking therapies and workshops based on CBT which can help with feelings like low mood, anxiety and OCD.

This video is also a useful insight to what a general CBT session would look like.

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