Wellbeing: 6-Week Course
Dates for next course coming soon. Please use the button below to register your interest.
What is it?
It’s an evidence-based wellness and wellbeing course that introduces a toolkit of mind-body practices to reduce stress/anxiety, increase resilience and mitigate risks of burnout.
It uses a biopsychosocial approach. There is an interdependence of biological, psychological, and social factors in maintaining health. By addressing all of these factors, the course aims to improve the overall health and wellbeing of those who take part.
The 6-week course is designed to empower individuals to take an active role in maintaining and restoring their own health.
Why is wellbeing in the workplace important?
In November 2022, the HSE published the latest statistics on work-related stress, anxiety or depression in Great Britain which stated 17 million working days were lost due to work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2021/22.
This accounted for 51% of all work-related ill health cases and 55% of all working days lost due to work-related ill health.
Why is THIS course important?
In recent years, businesses of all sizes have invested in employee assistance programmes and reactive interventions, but the rate of work-related stress, anxiety and depression continues to rise.
Even if an employee is not stressed about work, they are stressed at work which may impact how engaged and motivated they feel whilst at work.
This course is evidence-based and those who take part will be contributing to a study that will support a wider conversation about mental health, wellbeing and wellness across all industries. The course focuses on reducing stress and equipping those who take part with a personalised toolkit to manage their wellbeing.
Structure of the course
The Wellbeing Course is designed to take place over a 6-week period including a one-hour lesson each week delivered via Zoom. The lesson will be delivered live and those taking part will commit to attending all 6 weeks.
Each lesson includes psychoeducation on the theme of the week, a breathing practice, mindful movement through a series of postures that promote good posture, lower back care and increased physical activity. The session will end with a guided relaxation.
There will be rich resources including technique and home practice videos. All 6 classes of the protocol will be available as a further resource upon course completion.
An evidence-based wellness and wellbeing course
NHS patients
The Yoga in Healthcare Alliance was commissioned by the West London NHS Commissioning Group to create a 10-week yoga programme (Yoga4Health) to help patients improve their health and wellbeing in a supportive environment. The programme was designed for prevention and early intervention for patients with stress/anxiety, or who are at risk of Type 2 Diabetes, Cardiovascular Disease or Socially isolated.
The programme was positively evaluated in two academic papers by Westminster University, which gathered data from nearly 300 patients in West London
Cost data showed that for every £1 spent on the Yoga4Health programme, there was an ROI of £2.19.
There were statistically and clinically significant decreases in perceived stress, anxiety and depression as well as significant improvements in patient activation (confidence in managing one’s health), wellbeing and social connectedness.
NHS Staff
Yoga4NHS was developed in response to requests from the NHS to provide a programme to mitigate staff absence due to stress and the problem of burnout. The protocol is based on Yoga4Health and has received accreditation from the Royal College of GPs.
The Wellbeing Course is based on the programmes developed by the Yoga in Healthcare Alliance which have received accreditation from the Personalised Care Institute and Royal College of GPs and is aligned to the College of Medicine and Integrated Health and the British Society of lifestyle medicine.
Who will be delivering the course?
The course will be delivered by Joanna-May a yoga and meditation teacher trained to deliver both the Yoga4Health and Yoga4NHS protocols. She is the lead for Yoga in the Workplace pillar of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Yoga in Society which brings together MPs, Peers and policy-makers, in conversation with leaders in yoga and research to discuss practical and constructive ways yoga can be used to improve wellbeing across the UK.
Joanna-May comes from a construction background with an undergraduate degree in Engineering and postgrad studies in Quantity Surveying, and the Traditions of Yoga and Meditation. At the time of leaving the construction industry in 2017 she was the Commercial Director of a specialist subcontractor. Her decision to leave the industry was heavily influenced by the poor state of mental health within the sector and a lack of preventative interventions for wellbeing available in the workplace.
She has delivered talks and trainings for a variety of industries and companies including Balfour Beatty, John Lewis, ITV, Sir Robert McAlpine and UK Construction Week.
Please register for the course using the button below.