Looking after yourself

The resources below are all bitesize content taken from wider courses, meaning you can start to explore the topic with only 5 or 10 minutes to spare. 

Together, the resources present a selection of techniques and strategies to help you manage feelings of anxiety and/or overwhelm at work. They may not all work for you, so we encourage you to explore one or two at a time to consider which you could find useful in your current context.

Resources and strategies

---

Connect to where you are now

Before engaging with any of the strategies and resources below, you may find it helpful to check in with how you’re feeling right now.

Use a scale of one to five, with five representing feeling anxious, like you might be preoccupied with a hundred different thoughts and tasks; and one representing feeling shut down and withdrawn like you have low energy or feel apathetic, while three represents feeling pretty balanced and centred.

Take a moment to see where you'd place yourself on that scale. There's no right or wrong answer, only what feels true for you.

By doing this check-in, you're recognising your current state, and from there the aim is to experience a little shift in that state of being, measuring any changes in how you feel from the next small step you decide to take.

Duration: 2 minutes

---

Breathing to reduce stress and improve wellbeing

Stress increases your breathing and heart rate, concentrating blood flow to your brain in preparation to face an intense situation.

Simple breathing techniques can lower your respiratory rate and heart rate, which helps to calm your physical state, engage more rational thinking patterns, and improve your mood.

Duration: 3 minutes

Our Employee Assistance Provider, Health Assured, includes a range of guided breathing exercises in their app and browser platforms.

---

Connect to the present moment

This is a simple grounding exercise to help you to disengage from the thoughts that are causing you to feel anxious, stressed or overwhelmed, and instead connect to the present moment:

• First, look around and name five things you can see. These can be things you’ve never looked at before or that are familiar parts of your surroundings. For the latter, see if you can notice a new detail about each of them.
• Next, name four things you can touch, before actually reaching out and touching them. What kind of texture do they have?
• After that, listen for three things you can hear. Try to pick out individual sounds, thinking about what they might be or what other things they might sound like.
• Next, identify two things you can smell. You may want to pick up or go to specific objects and smell them. Are they pleasant smells or unpleasant ones?
• Finally, find one thing you can taste. This could be a quick snack, a drink or a lingering flavour from your lunch. When you're grounded in the present, it's much easier to get closer to that middle zone on the scale of one to five, again calming your physical state and engaging your rational thinking by taking gentle control of your focus.

Duration: 3 minutes

---

Walking mindfulness for wellbeing

Walking mindfulness simply involves being present and aware of yourself and your surroundings while walking.

Again, this strategy can help ground you in the present moment and reduce overthinking by taking control of the focus of your thoughts.

Here are some steps you can take to walk more mindfully:

• Set the intention of the walk: being present in the moment, focusing on your surroundings regardless of where you are going.
• Focus on your movement. Walk a little slower than usual and maintain awareness of how your body feels: the sensations of your feet on the ground beneath them, the movement of your legs, the movement of your arms and your breath.
• Explore your other senses. Notice the sounds around you for a few minutes. Then shift your focus to what you can smell, then what you can see (colours, the play of the light, etc).

Duration: 5-10 minutes

Our Employee Assistance Provider, Health Assured, includes a range of guided meditation exercises in their app and browser platforms

---

Reframing your situation from a different perspective

Recognise how you think and talk about situations and consider how to label them in different ways to reframe your perspective on the issue.

It may help to write down how you feel about a situation or say it out loud to yourself or someone else.

Look and listen out for the kind of thoughts listed below and ask yourself the corresponding questions as a challenge to those thinking patterns:

• Generalised language: Is the issue really that widespread? Can you be more specific about where the problem lies?
• Language that suggests the situation is fixed or permanent: Is there really no other way? How could this situation change for the better?
• Exaggerated language: If you were describing someone else’s situation to them, which less extreme words would you choose instead to help moderate their view of the situation?
• Personalised language (about you, not just the issue at hand): If someone new stepped into your position right now, how would you describe the situation to them? By reframing how you think and talk about a challenging situation, you can start to diffuse and depersonalise your view of it, subtly shifting how you relate to that issue.

Duration: 5-10 minutes

---

Identifying manageable ways to tackle the task at hand

Sometimes we feel too overwhelmed to act, but research shows that taking small, considered steps can give us a meaningful sense of accomplishment and make progress on tackling complex issues or difficult situations seem more achievable.

Here are three steps you can take to help with that approach:

1. First, write down everything that you feel you need to do in relation to the task at hand. Try to break bigger tasks down into the smaller actions required to move them forward.
2. Now, take your list of tasks and rate each item based on the level of priority right now, and the probability that you can get it done in the next window of time available to you to work on it. You can use number ratings or a system of ‘High’, ‘Medium’ and ‘Low’ - whatever works best for you.
3. Once you have your tasks written down and organised, pick one task to take action on now. It doesn't need to fundamentally change or solve the situation, but simply to take you one step further towards tackling the issue.

Duration: 5-10 minutes

---

Finding your Circle of Control

Research shows us that the higher our sense of personal control over a challenging situation, the less stress, pessimism and unhappiness we feel about it.

To help strengthen your sense of control, try categorising the components of a particular issue into one of two groups:

• What concerns you - write down all of the things that you feel you don’t have any control or influence over in relation to the issue at hand.
• What you can control - write down all of the things that you feel are in your control or that you could have some scope to influence in relation to the issue at hand.

Now, use these two lists to try to focus your energy and attention on aspects of the issue that you can control or influence, taking strength from knowing that you are dealing with the parts of the situation that you can do something about.

Duration: 5-10 minutes

---

Using strategic distractions to recharge and refocus

Sometimes, when you feel overwhelmed, the best thing you can do is to just take a break.

If you don’t feel like you can take action in any way that's helpful right now, you can instead intentionally redirect your attention elsewhere to rest and recharge your battery.

There are many ways to strategically disengage from the task at hand so that you’re still being productive:

• Listening to music
• Going for a walk
• Talking to a friend
• Watching a funny video

The aim is to find an activity that relieves the pressure of overwhelm, so that you can come back to things with a clear mind and a more energised brain.

Duration: 5-10 minutes

---

Health Assured podcast on work-related stress

This podcast features a professional counsellor providing a comprehensive overview of work-related stress, including:

• Signs of work-related stress and overwhelm
• Asking for support and creating opportunities for that
• Setting boundaries and saying ‘no’
• Identifying what is within your control
• Identifying what helps
• Guidance on how to approach being signed off

Duration: 35 minutes

Health Assured podcast on work-related stress

---

Health Assured webinar on burnout

This short recorded webinar provides a good introduction to the topic of burnout, including:

• What it is
• Common signs and symptoms of burnout
• How to tackle burnout yourself
• How to support others

Duration: 10 minutes

Health Assured webinar on burnout