mental health – Page 2

Happy Hour!

Life is full, life is productive, life is busy, life can be hard, life can also be awesome. To a point it is what we make it and its quality dependent on our mindset.

But when life gets full and busy and we are prioritising work, family, friends, colleagues, even strangers, who is taking care of you?

In order to PERFORM at your best you need to bump yourself up to the top of the list and make sure you are extending the same level of care, kindness and compassion to yourself that you extend to other people.

I know this sounds like the last thing you want to do and maybe you don’t feel worthy of that priority – but I assure you that you are worthy.

Let’s start with a simple way to prioritise you and that’s with a happiness hour… no, not a happy hour down the pub (though in moderation…yay!) I mean a non-negotiable hour dedicated to you and your happiness.

I want you to literally schedule it in your diary as you would a meeting, appointment at the doctor or dentist or meeting with your kid’s school. A whole hour of ‘you time’.

Yes, it may sound pointless but it’s not. Those that prioritise self-compassion and kindness are less likely to slip into self-loathing and experience poor mental health because spending an hour on you and for you boosts your positive emotions, increases your sense of wellness, boosts emotional fitness and protects your mental health.

What will you do? With whom and where? Put it in your diary now and feel free to report back. You can even pop over and join my community at https://www.facebook.com/groups/thewaytoperform for some accountability.

Enjoy your happiness hour, schedule it in weekly to begin with and then think about upping it to daily!

Much Love

Tabby xxx

April!

Oh how lovely it was to have a slower paced April – I mean, it wasn’t a quiet month by any means but it was so nice to spend some quality work time on a very exciting couple of projects that we are launching very, very soon!

This month saw another 11 fantastic delegates complete their Mental Health First Aid course with Mode for…, meaning that’s another 11 people trained to help, support and signpost anyone going through mental health issues. If you’d like to become a Mental Health First Aider or would like to find out more about any of our courses, find out more and get in touch here

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Tabby was delighted to be featured as a guest blogger on www.motherflushingmidlife.com this month, discussing all things Menopause and Mental Health in Midlife Women
Read her blog post here

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We’ve mentioned it above, but April has been fully focussed on creating content for our brand new PERFORM courses (creating flourishing individuals and organisations by focussing on the science and wellbeing & happiness and protecting mental health) and our new Mind Gym Subscription launching next month!
You’ll be seeing a few sneaky peeks on here and socials over the next few weeks before it’s launch so keep your eyes peeled and grab the courses and subscriptions as soon as they go live!

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Our ‘15th Birthday Freebie’ for this month was our DIY Wedding Guide – an absolute must have PDF download for any couples planning their own DIY wedding!
Although you can’t grab this for free anymore (our freebies are only available for a few days after the 15th so grab them quick!), it is only 99p so download your copy here and share the link with anyone you know getting married this Summer – it’s full of valuable hints, tips and advice to create the perfect DIY wedding!

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Speaking of birthdays, it was Keri’s big birthday this month, so we managed to squeeze in a trip to Harrogate to get together, catch up and eat a huge amount of cakes & treats to celebrate!

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If you’d like to read more, head over to our website to see the numerous blogs we have on there covering a range of topics from wellness, music, weddings, performance and so much more!

See you next month!

Much Love

The Mode for… Team x

A big aim for Mode for… in 2023 is to focus on our visibility, so more people can find out about the fabulous work we are doing and support we are giving. But we need your help!
If you see us more on socials please engage, like, follow and share!
We want to reach and support as many people as possible!

My Whole Self

The 14^th March is My Whole Self Day, promoted by Mental Health First Aid England and this year focuses on a campaign for workplace culture change.

In order for our workplace and organisational cultures to be mentally healthy, this requires an individual commitment from everyone to prioritise their own mental health and emotional fitness.

When life gets full and busy it’s very easy for us to not prioritise ourselves and our own needs, but in order to manage those inevitably difficult situations which will likely come our way, we need to make sure we have capacity to manage and do the work to protect our mental health and not just react when we are already experiencing the symptoms of burnout.

This #mywholeself day, as well as encouraging your workplace or organisation to support the campaign for workplace culture change, why not use it as a reminder to check in on your own mental health and give yourself a My Whole Self MOT?

Ask yourself questions such as How do I feel? How did I sleep? How full is my stress bucket? How is my thinking?

Write down your thoughts and make a commitment to check in with yourself again next week.

You wouldn’t use your mobile phone if the battery wasn’t charged – you couldn’t use it – so apply the same mindset to yourself. Charge your battery before you experience stress and difficult events so you have capacity to deal with it. Change the narrative to protecting your mental health and not just reacting to mental health issues when they arise.

For more information on My Whole Self Day visit www.mhfaengland.org

Much love,
Tabby x

I Appreciate You

Recently I’ve been working with some clients and colleagues from different parts of the world and in particular the USA and I can’t help but feel so attuned to their energy and I always come away from meetings with them with a spring in my step and enthused. I’ve even been pondering how living and working in that company and environment might really suit me… but we’ll ponder any big moves for a while yet!

It has made me reflect on an experience from just before the world shut down for travelling.

On 26^th December 2019 I set-off on an amazing trip with my son across the Atlantic; Destination New York and the Bahamas.

It was an incredible trip where we walked for miles, saw everything we wanted to and more, went on adventures and created some fabulous memories.

Those memories will live on with me forever, but what really sticks with me most is the memory of people we met.

I’m fortunate to meet a lot of different people in my life and work but often, especially here in the UK, you can be faced with ‘mood hoovers’ who are full of negative thoughts and drain the life and positivity out of you.

In New York and the Bahamas I found the same as I do in mainland Europe. Fun, vibrant, thoughtful people who, regardless of their social or economic background, are full of thought, courtesy and a story to share. People that inspire and truly value the work they do; especially those working in the service industry. Their work was a passion and a career, not just a means to an end or until the next job comes along.

I think everyone that I chatted with or had an interaction with left an impression on me and made me feel like an individual, but the thing that really left me feeling fabulous was when several local people in the Bahamas I purchased items from used the turn of phrase “I appreciate you.”

Not “thank you” or “I appreciate your business” but “I appreciate you.”

That personalisation gave a huge sense of gratitude and made me feel truly wonderful and appreciated; and we all need to feel appreciated now and again.

Gratitude is an important thing and many people would benefit from exercising a little more gratitude from time to time, but imagine if we all adopted that idea of appreciating a person, an individual, humanity a little more as opposed to appreciating a ‘thing’ or ‘action.’

A simple change of a word could honestly change someone’s day.

Why don’t we all try it? Who could you appreciate today? Go and tell them.

I appreciate you for reading; it means so much to me.

Much love

Tabby xxx

SEVEN!

If you’re a Strictly fan you can’t tell me you didn’t say that title in the voice of former judge Len Goodman!

Today’s blog is all about the number seven.

All it takes is seven minutes. Yep, you heard it right, seven minutes.

Takes seven minutes for what? I hear you ask.

Well, sometimes we put off doing things that are good for us, because we think we haven’t got time.

“I haven’t got an hour spare to go swimming or go to the gym.”
“I haven’t got time to read a book.”
“I haven’t got a time to connect with that person and send them a message or give them a call.”
“I haven’t got time for me.”

When we tell ourselves we haven’t got time, we’re actually putting ourselves to a bottom of a list.

We’re telling ourselves we don’t care about ourselves, we don’t show ourselves self-compassion, we don’t show ourselves self-kindness.

What does that mean? It means we’re not prioritising ourselves. We think that we have to do everything in one big chunk of time for it to be beneficial, but the reality is we don’t need that. We only need short pockets of time we can fit into our daily routines, which can become so effective for our minds and bodies.

So why not try seven minutes? I found seven minutes to be a really good pocket of time; a little bit more than five, so we think we’re doing that little bit extra, but not as much as 10 so we don’t feel it’s cutting into our day.

What you will find is when you engage yourself in something for seven minutes, you can get into that state of flow so time goes quickly and it leaves you wanting to do more… and there’s the key – we want to do more.

When we’re left feeling we want to do more, that inspires us to actually take that next step and do it; take that next bit of action.

I want to encourage you to think about some things you can do for just seven minutes. Maybe start your day reading for seven minutes. Seven minutes of stretching, seven minutes of yoga. Walk around the block, take the dog for a walk – even if you haven’t got a dog! Just pretend and use your imagination as motivation and walk around the block for seven minutes. Seven minutes of breathing exercises, seven minutes of lying on the floor doing absolutely nothing.

Just take that seven minutes and use it to write, read, move, sing, dance around your kitchen, just anything for seven minutes.

Set your timer and then get strict with stopping after seven minutes and see how you feel. Are you ready for more?

Over time of consistently implementing that seven minutes you will likely find that you’ll have several pockets of seven minutes during the day that add up to way more than one hour.

You know, that one hour you said you didn’t have time for!

So go on, give it a try.

Much love
Tabby x

Shifting the Mental Health Narrative…

When we hear the words mental health does our mind think happiness, joy and excitement?

The reality is no, out first thoughts are more likely to be sadness, depression and anxiety… and maybe add in suicide, self-harm and psychosis.

We have been conditioned to think about mental illness when we hear the words mental health.

Now, whilst these two things are inter-connected, they are two completely different things. Our narrative around mental health is a reactive one. How people can be helped after they experience a
mental health issue or talking about the frighteningly high number of people that have died by suicide because they didn’t get the help that they need.

If we want to have a hope of saving more lives, decreasing the pressure on mental health services and creating healthier future generations of people we need to shift this narrative around mental health from one of reaction to one of protection.

More mental heath awareness, yes, absolutely, this is always vital to be informed on how to spot signs and symptoms or signpost people when they are in distress, because people will often be in distress. But we need more than that; we need to be better at starting to equip people with the tools and strategies they need to be emotionally fitter and build resilience so when those inevitably difficult things in life do happen, they have the resources and strength to manage and navigate them.

This is where my focus and passion lies; in helping people to help themselves better and create mentally healthy cultures along the way. To help build emotional fitness to protect mental health and prevent potential mental illness… and I hope others will join in this approach of prevention as opposed to only focussing on reaction and relying on our amazing but stretched services to pick up the pieces.

How do we do it? Education, awareness and mostly conversations. Equipping people with a toolkit of small and simple tools and exercises to implement in their everyday lives to help them be more resilient, more empowered, more productive, happier and flourish.

It’s possible, but it will take work and uncomfortable conversations and likely, a lot of resistant. But I’m up for it… and it’s exactly why I’ve created my PERFORM framework; to help support people to support themselves and others and allowing them to PERFORM, whether that’s in their personal or professional lives.

So, I hope you will join me for the conversations, in shifting the narrative and engage in my blogs, books, talks, workshops and more and I would love to be involved in yours too.

Together, let’s start the conversations and start shifting the narrative around mental health.

Much Love
Tabby xxx

Power Your Way to Confidence and Positivity

Want a quick 2-minute way to boost your mood and confidence?

It takes zero tech or meds.

It’s not even just using your mindset.

It’s using your body to influence your mind, which then influences your beliefs and consequently leads to more positive outcomes.

The way we communicate is vital and 65% of our communication is non-verbal (ie. our body language). We focus a lot on how we communicate with others but sometimes don’t focus on how we communicate with ourselves, but that matters because it affects our mood and how we
PERFORM.

So, it’s time to address that and use our body to tell our mind that we are strong and capable and to feel more positive and happy.

Simply engage in a power pose for 2 minutes. The ‘wonder woman’ pose is the best known (any Grey’s Anatomy fans will be familiar with this too) but any high power pose is good.

Hold it for 2 minutes and reap the benefits.

… and here’s the science… holding this pose for 2 minutes has been shown to raise your Testosterone level by 20% (meaning more power and confidence), reduce your Cortisol level by 25% (meaning stress reduction and boosted mood) and increases your risk tolerance by 33% (making you more likely to ‘go for it’ and perform at your best).

A reduction in Cortisol has a real impact on our mood, boosting it but so does a rise in Testosterone. FYI, a rise in Testosterone (in men and women) not only improves mood, it can also give you:

✅a rise to your sex drive
✅ stronger bones
✅ less fat and more muscle
✅ a healthier heart and blood
✅ better verbal memory and potential reduction in incidence of Alzheimer’s disease.

This simple, quick and easy change in your physiology actually changes you bio-chemistry.

So, if you have a performance, exam, job interview, big event or just need that boost in mood or confidence, give it a try and let me know you feel and how it boosts your performance.

Want to know more, watch this TED Talk from Amy Cuddy

Much love,

Tabby x

Glow Up at the Cathedral!

This week I went to experience something new!

I love a good experience – they are the basis of all we do at Mode for… – so I love getting out and trying new things, being inspired and motivated.

Whilst scrolling social media I was targeted with an advert for ‘Glow Yoga’ from a business account called ‘The Dopamine Project’.

What’s Glow Yoga you ask? Well, according to the organisers it’s “an immersive experience in an illuminated and inspiring space!”
It’s a 60-minute instructor led yoga session to a curated soundtrack that you listen to through wireless headphones to deliver, according to the organisers “an undisrupted wellness journey allowing you to disconnect from the world and reconnect with yourself.”

Aimed at yogis of all standards I was up for this experience and the UK Tour was kicking off in Bradford Cathedral. Now, I know Bradford Cathedral very well as I’ve been a part of numerous concerts and school presentation evenings in this amazing building… but I’ve never experienced it like this and done yoga!

The greeting was friendly, the Cathedral looked fabulous with its atmospheric lighting and as I set-up it all felt nice and relaxed. I grabbed my supplied headphones – think silent disco for yoga! – laid my mat down, said ‘hi’ to my yoga neighbour Emily and settled in for the session with instructor Charlie…

Let’s cut to the chase now…

I’m fairly proficient at yoga and the session was a good level for beginners / intermediates, even if some people did get a little confused by the instructor along the way as to which side they should be doing the poses on – it’s not easy to remember to mirror yourself as an instructor and remember to say or move to the opposite direction of what your class does – the reality is people don’t always listen to the words you say as a leader – they follow your moves – so if you’re facing them and saying stretch to the right, they’re likely to just follow you and actually move to the left… apart from the ones who did listen and go the opposite way! Potential chaos!

The Yoga sequence itself was enjoyable; a nice flow for the hour and it allowed you to push yourself as much or little as was within your comfort and practice and the venue and lighting was spot on – nice and relaxing.
I love the concept of Glow Yoga and the use of headphones allowed you to really turn your attention inwards into your own mind and body – something we rarely do – so it felt good. However, whilst
the principle was fantastic, the logistics of the headphones was not without issue. It was quite frustrating when the music and instruction from the leader kept dropping out or was crackling – which happened a lot – and ultimately it really distracted from the wellness journey and
experience as you had to adjust your headphones, breaking your concentration on your practise and mindfulness.

Also, it’s in no way comfortable to do moves that require your head or side of your face on a mat when you have big headphones on. There were also clearly logistics when you lower your head in standing poses; you can feel your headphones slipping off so instinctively go to save them which again distracts from your practise, and for some people, they slipped right off with a bang on the floor – equally distracting! My wellness journey was not ‘undisrupted’ as the information led me to
believe it would be!

So, all-in-all, a great concept with amazing potential and I enjoyed the session, but it wasn’t without its glitches, be they technical or logistical which were quite distracting and at £20 for the hour session, a little pricey for my personal experience.

That said, as experiences go, I’d definitely recommend you give anything a try that allows you to focus on you, forget the world and get in tune with your mind and body and there are some fantastic group yoga and mindfulness classes around the country that allow for that and maybe you even fancy giving Glow Yoga a try yourself. We all have different experiences of things so this is worth the try and see how you go.

You can find out more at www.thedopamineproject.co.uk or follow on Insta @the.dopamineproject

Why not let us know any great experiences you’ve tried. We’d love to hear them!

Much love
Tabby x

[PERFORM] Sharing stories is so important.

We are natural born storytellers and by sharing stories we connect with people and show them it is OK to feel, trust and be open. It offers a permission slip to others to share and creates a courageous and safe space.

Connection is key when it comes to increasing wellness and creating courageous and mentally healthy cultures.

By sharing my own lived experience and research I’ve been able to connect with so many people and help them to build their emotional fitness and flourish and for this I am eternally grateful and so will continue to share whilst providing resources for effective support and help.

But sharing our vulnerabilities comes with a sense of responsibility. We need to be whole-hearted and open whilst also being accountable for what’s been and taking action to move forwards positively.

Researcher and writers Brene Brown writes: “Vulnerability is not a sympathy-seeking tool.”

Sharing even the most personal story does not give us a pass from taking accountability for our behaviours or implementing action to grow, learn and flourish. Sharing needs to be a step in a process for change. It is not the endgame but the start of the work… daily consistent personal work.

Sharing with a mindset of “if I tell my story they won’t blame me or hate me, they’ll understand” is a mentality Brene Brown refers to as:

Stealth intention (I can protect myself from rejection, shame, judgement and people turning away from me and thinking I’m a bad person).

This comes with a:

Stealth expectation (they won’t turn away from me and think I’m a bad person).

I found these two phrases really interesting. Often we see a story shared as a reason or excuse, but with no commitment to grow from it or accountability for our behaviours.

Sharing our vulnerabilities is open and courageous and needs to be a step in an action plan that leads us and others to grow and flourish. It is an important moment in a continuing journey.

Let’s keep sharing our stories, but with an intention to be wholehearted, grow and flourish and that will help reduce stigma, increase emotional fitness and help people perform.

Much love
Tabby xx

Ask, then ask again!

It’s a fresh new year! So it’s the perfect time to ask you to do one simple thing for me….

Simply message one person to see how they’re doing.

The festivities are now over and the come down from Christmas & New Year is happening. Perhaps families have headed home and therefore loneliness feelings are high!

It might be someone you know is having a tough time, someone you haven’t heard from for a long time or seen anything of on social media, or it might be someone that outwardly seems truly happy and active. It may even be someone you don’t usually interact with.

The fact is, we never truly know what is going on in someone’s life and it’s very easy for us all to put a smile on things and say we are ‘OK’ even if we are not and stick a ‘happy photo’ or repost on social media.

What better time than now to reach out and say ‘hi, how are you doing?’ – and don’t forget to ask twice and how they are really doing. ‘Fine’ and ‘OK’ can be default answers because we don’t like to burden people.

If you’re asking the question, ask twice, if you’re asked the question, have the courage to be honest.

This act of kindness takes seconds and could mean the world to that person. It might even make the world a better place for them and worth living in right now if they don’t see a tomorrow.

It might just make someone feel loved and wanted when they are lonely.

Let’s be kind, help each other and spend just a few seconds checking in on someone… and if you do, why not suggest someone else does the same.

Much love
Tabby xxx