stress management resources

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In Equilibrium Stress Management Resources

Find numerous stress management tips on our website here https://www.in-equilibrium.co.uk/tag/stress-tip/

General Stress Management Resources

You will find below our comprehensive list of stress management resources divided into sections.  We have included a brief introduction to each which we hope will help you select the articles of relevance or interest to your individual requirements.  Shares and links to this page are much appreciated!

General Stress Management Guides

35 Awesome Stress Management Resources
Only Healthy, an American healthy living and healthcare website, offers 35 resources from university, multimedia and general sources.

Handling Stress Guide for Educational Professionals
This short self-help guide from the Education Support Partnership provides practical advice for teachers and education staff to handle stress.  The advice is relevant to any workplace and not limited to those working in education.

How To Deal With Stress: 33 Tips That Work
The author of The Positivity Blog, Henrik Edberg, shares 33 tips which he believes have helped him live a less stressful life.

How To Manage Stress
The charity, Mind have various resources on their website, including a download with stress advice and tips.

In Equilibrium YouTube channel playlist – Stress Management Tips

Lifestyle Changes To Reduce Stress and Anxiety
A 2-minute video on the Anxiety and Depression Society of America's website which looks at changes you can make to your lifestyle to reduce stress and anxiety.

Mental Health Foundation Podcasts
The Foundation offers many downloadable free podcasts on various topics regarding stress, wellbeing and mental health.

Steps for Stress
The Scottish Government has produced “A Simple Guide to Stressing Less and Enjoying Life More”.  The full booklet can be read here.

Stress
An overview of stress, its treatment, symptoms and how it can be managed on the Counselling Directory website.

Stress Advice
Links to the articles offering advice about stress on the about.com website.

Stress, Anxiety and Depression
The NHS Choices website offers ten stress busters from Professor Cary Cooper to help you address stress.

Stress Management – Stress Basics
Short explanatory articles on the Mayo Clinic website cover the basics of stress and some suggestions for stress relief and relaxation techniques.

Stress Management – Wikipedia
The stress management page on Wikipedia looks at the definition of stress, the types of stress, its historical foundations, models, some stress management techniques and stress in the workplace.

Stress – Self-help Guide
Moodjuice provide self-help guides on various topics; this edition helps you learn more about stress and covers some skills to help you cope with it.

Tips for Managing Your Own Stress
A handy booklet from In Equilibrium gives some background information into what stress is, its signs, its effect, and a hints and tips section to help increase resilience.

 

Stress Management at Work

10 Ideas To Help Teachers Beat Stress
Tips from educational experts on the Guardian website help “tackle stress and help colleagues under pressure”.

Guide to Wellness Action Plans (WAPs)
This useful guide can help employees manage their own mental health by considering the causes of stress and practical steps to address the triggers. The process can also help managers start conversations with employees about their mental health and agree on appropriate support. The guide includes case studies, top tips and an action plan template.

Line Management Behaviour and Stress at Work
A download from the CIPD who worked with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and Investors in People (IIP) to develop practical help for HR and line managers to tackle stress at work.

Managing Stress at Work – Early Identification
A post on the In Equilibrium website suggests three sources of data which can be used to identify an individual or a team with a potential stress-related issue.

Nice Pathway – Promoting Mental Wellbeing at Work
The guidance, “focuses on interventions to promote mental wellbeing through productive and healthy working conditions” and it has been produced for those with a direct or indirect role in, and responsibility for, promoting mental wellbeing at work.

Stress at Work
An article from HelpGuide.org  highlighting some steps you can take to protect yourself from the damaging effects of job and workplace stress.

Stress at Work Whitepaper
A stress policy is an employer’s formal written statement of the action they take concerning stress and mental health problems in the workplace.  In this In Equilibrium resource, we look at the how, what, where and when of stress policy development and implementation.

Stress in the Workplace
A factsheet from the CIPD which provides an explanation of what work-related stress is, including the difference between stress and pressure. Signs of stress, the UK legal position and addressing stress at work are also covered, as well as some useful contacts and further reading suggestions.

Stress – TUC
Links to many articles and resources concerning stress in the workplace.

Talking Toolkit: preventing work-related stress 
This HSE guide provides templates to help start conversations with employees to prevent work-related stress. The 6 templates are based on the HSE Management Standards. They are designed to help initiate simple, practical conversations to get managers and employees talking about possible causes of work-related stress.
The HSE have also created sector specific toolkits for construction, education and the NHS (which has separate editions for England, Scotland and Wales).

 

Stress Questionnaires

Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale
A list of 43 stressful life events can lead to illness; each is given a “life change unit” score for you to work out how life events over the past year may affect your health.

How Stressed Are You?
A short test on the BBC website that works out whether you are at low, medium or high-stress risk following the answers you give to 8 multiple choice questions and provides some tips for reducing your stress levels.

Stress Management Competency Indicator Tool
The questionnaire on the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) website assesses your behaviour to help you find out how effective you are at preventing and reducing stress in your staff.

Stress – Psychology Today
The Psychology Today website provides links to articles, posts and a quiz on the topic of stress.

 

Stress Symptoms

7 Ways Stress Does Your Mind And Body Good
Health psychologist Kelly McGonigal isn’t referring to chronic stress but explains why some short-term stress may actually positively affect our minds and bodies and that, instead of fearing it, we should look to befriend it.

How Stress Affects Your Health
A short explanatory article with some suggested strategies for reducing stress in the short and longer term.

Stress – NHS Direct Wales
A summary article covering the symptoms of stress, its causes, diagnosis, treatment, complications and prevention.

 

Stress and Resilience

Relationship between Stress and Resilience
First of a three-part video resource from In Equilibrium to help reduce your stress and increase your resilience.  Links to parts two and three of the series – Setting Boundaries and Taking Responsibility – are included.

 

Individual Aspects of Stress Management:

Assertiveness

The DESC Model for assertiveness

Burnout

'Ask the Expert' short videos about Burnout
In these Q&A videos, Michelle Spirit, In Equilibrium trainer and consultant, explains the effects of burnout and suggests actions to take to restore energy and protect wellbeing.

Burnout Prevention and Recovery
Techniques for dealing with excessive stress.

Burnout Response
This useful article, from Workplace Strategies for Mental Health, helps us to understand burnout, recognise workplace factors, be aware of signs and symptoms of burnout and take pro-active steps to reduce the impact of burnout on employees and workplaces.

How to tell if you're close to burning out
BBC Worklife have updated this article from 2019, in order to help provide insight for those who find themselves working from home due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

McKinsey & Company
A short newsletter article about burnout in the workplace, with reference to the pandemic, and suggestions on how to address it as an organisation and as an individual.

Stress and burnout - how to spot the signs
An article from the NHS which includes how to tell the difference between being stressed and burnout, why it is important to notice the signs of both in yourself or your colleagues, and how you can reduce the risk of stress and burnout for yourself and others.

Exercise & Physical Activity

Regular Physical Exercise
A blog article on our own website with some ideas about activities can be built into the daily routine.

Stress Relief – Exercise
NHS Choices website.  The impact of physical exercise on stress as well as other physical complaints.  If you need some statistics to help with motivation to move, you might find them here.

Flexible Working

CIPD Flexible Working Practices Factsheet
An overview of flexible working, including its benefits, the type of arrangements available, and practical tips for implementing flexible working into an organisation.  You will need to log in or register to view the whole fact sheet, but it is free to do so and only takes a couple of minutes.

How can we make flexible working succeed at senior level?
This question from our own Ask the Expert series has been answered by Timewise who educate, train and help organisations develop their flexible working and flexible hiring strategies in line with their wider business goals and then showcase these positive actions in their Hire Me My Way campaign.

The Balance – Advantages and Disadvantages of Flexible Work Schedules
An American article summarising the advantages and disadvantages of flexible work schedules for both the employer and the employee.

The Work Foundation report – Working Anywhere, A Winning Formula for Good Work
A study looking into how people can benefit from flexible working while safeguarding against any potential pitfalls.  The authors believe we are almost at a tipping point in mobile working and hope that by sharing their findings “we can enable a benefit-driven approach; a formula for good work while working from anywhere”.

Listening

5 ways to listen better
In a great TED talk, sound expert Julian Treasure entertainingly explains why we are losing our listening and offers 5 tools to help improve our own conscious listening.

As we re-emerge from lockdown, how are your listening skills?
An article from our own blog which looks at the benefits of improved listening with 6 tips to help us listen to understand.

How to become a better listener
This Harvard Business Review article emphases the importance for leaders to be good listeners. Acknowledging it's an undertaught skill, the authors offer 9 tips to help leaders become more active listeners together with some ideas for improving the subskills involved in listening.

Top tips for becoming a better listener
The Samaritans have created this poster to encourage people to listen to the important things they are being told by using the acronym SHUSH.

Mindfulness

We have many mindfulness links on our Mindfulness Resources page – please check them out using this link.

Nutrition

About Food and Mood
A useful page on Mind's website includes 8 tips to help us manage and build the relationship between what we eat and how we feel.

Guide to Healthy Eating by Public Health England
The ‘Eatwell Guide’ shows the different types of foods and drinks we should consume – and in what proportions – to have a healthy, balanced diet.

Relaxation & Breathing

Calm Breathing
Anxiety BC has created a straightforward description of calm breathing.  Another one that could be easily printed and carried around for easy reference.

Pain Management – a guided meditation
A free, 20-minute guided meditation to help you relax if you are in pain.

Quick Relaxation Techniques
The Black Dog Institute in Australia appreciates that we are all individuals, and their Quick Relaxation Techniques Fact sheet takes account of this by offering 6 different approaches to try.

Relaxation techniques for stress relief
From help guide.org, who provide a non-profit guide to mental health and wellbeing.  This article includes the relaxation response and describes it as “bringing your nervous system back into balance”, breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, body scan meditation, mindfulness and visualisation, yoga, tai chi and self-massage.  This article includes resources and references.

Sleeping

Falling Asleep – a guided meditation
A free, 20-minute guided meditation to help you get to sleep.

Hints and Tips for Shift-workers
The HSE draw on commonly available advice and best practice from a range of sources to provide these hints and tips to help improve sleep quality, increase alertness and reduce health risks for shift workers.

In Equilibrium Sleep Guide
Our own help guide to sleeping better, which includes a brief list of tips and web links to further resources.

In Equilibrium Trainer's Sleep Tips
A useful article from our Trainer, Michelle Spirit, tips for someone who has an issue with waking in the night and then struggling to get back to sleep.

Sleep and Recovery Toolkit
A toolkit which includes information, resources, advice and practical actions employers can take to maximise employee energy and help address the damaging sleep loss epidemic affecting so many across the country.

Sleep-Wake Cycle: It’s physiology and impact on health
The Sleep Foundation website has useful articles exploring why sleep is important, including the impact of sleep loss, circadian rhythms and the stages of sleep. It also has sections on sleep's effect on cognitive performance and mood, hormones, metabolism, and the immune system.

Taking Sleep Seriously: Sleep and our mental health
In March 2020 the Mental Health Foundation commissioned 2 surveys on sleep and mental health, one for adults and one for teenagers. Their review of existing research together with the survey results highlights the important role sleep plays in the context of mental and physical health & includes recommendations for UK Governments and Research Councils, as well as for us all as individuals.

Tips and answers to FAQ’s about sleep
In a series of 9 short Q&As about sleep, facilitator and coach Mark Eyre provides some fascinating insight and valuable tips for an activity we can all struggle with at times.

Stop Smoking

American Cancer Society
Stay Away from Tobacco – Resources
Includes help for craving and difficult situations.

Smoke-Free – NHS
Find out how stopping smoking will change your life for the better.

Thinking Habits

Challenging Negative Thinking Habits
A brief blog article (of our own) discusses the concept that each thought we have affects how we feel, each feeling we have affects how we behave, and that awareness of these thoughts is key.

Unhelpful Thinking Habits
A brief list on the University of South Florida website to help students.  Describes negative thinking habits with some helpful questions to ask and reflect upon to transform the unhelpful thinking habits to more realistic thoughts.

Unhelpful Thinking Styles
A series of information sheets to download, describing unhelpful thinking styles, from the Centre of Clinical Interventions in Australia.

 

Additional Resources Pages

Stress Management Training Courses

View details of our training courses here

We offer a wide variety of full and half-day courses, such as Stress Management Training for Managers; Stress Management Techniques; Mindfulness; and Practical Approaches to Handling Pressure.


Please Note: The information on this website is for general guidance and is not legal advice. Please be aware that some of the articles mentioned on the resources pages originate from countries with different legal requirements from those in the UK.

Equilibrium Associates Limited (In Equilibrium) will not accept liability for any loss, damage, or inconvenience arising from any use or the inability to use any information on this website. We are not responsible for claims brought by third parties arising from your use of in-equilibrium.co.uk.

 

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