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6 ways you can help your team – from the experts at Birchtree.

Birchtree’s highly respected team of psychologists, social workers and psychotherapists provide sought-after expertise in trauma and counselling. They have kindly contributed the following suggestions to help look after your team’s mental health and wellbeing. We hope they help!

• Adjust your expectations – be realistic.
• Try and set up a spot within your home where you work that is separate to other areas for relaxation
• Use video conferencing where possible. Text and email communication removes the voice and visual cues of connection that are necessary for our nervous system to feel safe and secure.
• Take regular breaks
• Set limits on your work hours – it can be tempting to fill the extra time available with work. Increased stress levels mean an increased need for self-care.
• Do a self-check each day- how are you feeling physically and emotionally?
• If something is difficult or not working, speak up.

• Stay in touch – check in regularly with your team.
• Be open to other’s needs, concerns and ideas – remember that they likely feel stressed also. As stress increases people become more ‘task focused’ and less ‘relationship focused’. Working to decrease your stress levels will have benefits for your whole team. Just as stress is contagious so too is a calming presence!
• Support each other – we all need to feel connected. Physical distancing does not need to mean social disconnection..

• Try to get enough sleep (7 – 9 hours per night)
• Eat well and drink plenty of water
• Find things you enjoy – a game, gardening, reading.
• Find some time for yourself
• Follow hygiene and social distancing advice.
• Adjust your expectations – be realistic.

• Remember – this won’t be forever
• Try to keep it in perspective
• Balance staying informed with media – overload
• Get your information from trusted sources (such as the Government App)

• Not sleeping
• Unable to switch off at the end of the day
• Feeling relationships are breaking down

The most effective means of decreasing the build-up of stress in your body is to move – go for a walk or explore the myriad of you-tube yoga classes.

Exercise decreases the level of the body’s stress hormones as well as increasing the production of endorphins – chemicals in your brain that help lift your mood and act as painkillers. It only takes twenty minutes of movement to have these effects!!

If your stress levels are becoming too much to handle, reach out

• Take ten deep ‘belly’ breaths – breathing helps anchor us and is the easiest way to decrease the stress in our nervous system.
• Take a break – move to a different room in your house.
• Think about what you are ‘feeding’ your brain – at times of high stress look for calming books, TV shows, articles and podcasts. Try Brene Brown’s ‘Unlocked’ podcast – full of great ideas to navigate the current stressors!
• Try a guided meditation
• Start journaling – expressing all you are experiencing will help prevent it being locked inside you.