Mindfulness and Wellbeing

Eleven Ways to Reduce Stress Right Now

We are under unprecedented levels of stress as a society. Even before the C word we were experiencing a stress epidemic.

Stress is self-inflicted (sorry!) when you are trying to do something that does not come to you naturally. You try and be someone else. You don’t believe in yourself and you think that you’re not enough. Or when you are measuring yourself against a set of goals, rather than by everything that you have already achieved.

We have been programmed to feel success or a failure, based on hitting targets, working too hard and whether we can do it without burning out. No wonder we are stressed!

Celebrate everything that you already are. Your challenges, your obstacles and every time you’ve got back up. Know that you are successful right now and you always will be.

Identifying Stress

I’m no techie but more when I look at my website stats, more people are looking for tips on reducing stress and the symptoms of stress.

There is relentless pressure on us to perform as a parent, an employee, colleague and friend.

We spend most of our time comparing ourselves to other people or trying to keep up with those who we think have got what we want.

The last few months have put a huge strain on our emotional and physical wellbeing, which, if it isn’t managed, can cause long term health problems and affect our mental health.

Here are my top tips for getting through tough times or just getting a sense of balance in your life at this crazy time.

Starting Your Day the Best Way

It’s one of the sure-fire ways to make sure you and your team have the best day. You wake up, set the intention of ‘this is one of the best days of my life!’  and ‘I am going to be positive all day long’. Watch your amazing day unfold.

Practise Mindful Listening

Whether it’s a team member or peer, give your full attention to the conversation and rid yourself of any distractions. Knowing what you should be doing and not missing out on vital information makes for a productive, stress free day.

Take Regular Mindful Breaks

Use every opportunity to bring yourself back to the present. Get up and grab a coffee, nip to the toilet, walk from meeting to meeting and take a proper lunch break.

Practise Kindness and Compassion

Avoid getting drawn into office gossip and tittle tattle. See each person without judgement and with their own story. Remind yourself that you are all looking for happiness, health and a stress-free life.

Focus on One Thing at a Time

We all like to multi-task and think we’re being more productive, but did you know you are 50% more likely to make mistakes and you will actually achieve less.

Catch Your Thoughts at Any Moment

If your thoughts are negative think of something positive. Think of what you are grateful for, how far you’ve come or about something you’re looking forward to. Making for a happy more positive day reduces stress and is contagious.

Practise Mindful Breathing

If you feel yourself getting stressed then take a few deep breaths and then notice your breathing for a few minutes. This will help bring you into the present and will help you feel calmer.

Talk Through the Issue with Someone You Know

A friend, family member, colleague or a helpline if you need to. Make use of an Employee Assistance Programme if you have one. Just sharing what’s happening can give you a different perspective and once you have shared, a problem often doesn’t seem so bad.

Make Sure That You are Building in Time

Spend some time doing the things that you enjoy doing. Exercise, hobbies, sport, crafts or getting involved in your community. Having ways to switch off, tune out or focus on something else are all ways of helping to manage your emotional resilience.

Set Healthy Boundaries

Switch off the laptop and phone and put them out of reach. Protect the time that you want to spend with family and friends and don’t let work and life overlap.

Prioritise Your Self-Care

Do whatever it takes to put yourself first. Book time off, say no to things you don’t want to do, make a homemade spa, enjoy a bar of chocolate, get away from it all. Looking after number one is not selfish, it’s essential.

Right now, you need you.

If you’ve enjoyed this resource, you will love 10 ways to overcome Imposter Syndrome.

Louise Hallam, Still Calm

After working in the corporate world for 25 years but feeling like I never really fitted in, I started my own business and finally started to feel as though I was doing the right thing.

After a chance meeting, in the past 18 months I have been working with a spiritual mentor, who has awakened my true potential and purpose. I have unlocked wisdom and healing modalities, which are in my DNA. This has resulted in a powerful combination of services to provide to those in the highest level of management who are struggling to get a sense of self, want to connect to their soul purpose and work with, rather than against, their energy and emotions.

My unique gifts and skills enable me to free people from the things that have held them back from living their true potential. Where they see limits, I only see limitless.

My little bit of genius is that I see things in people that other people can’t. It’s what I have experience in and it’s what I’m known for.

During lockdown I have also been channelling wisdom on conscious leadership, which is guiding principles for leading for humanity and people rather than profit.

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Surviving Freshers Week – Mental Health Edition

Freshers’ Week activities have come a long way since our marketing manager went to university (back in 2001), but that doesn’t mean that her top tips for making it through those first few weeks don’t stand up today.

In September 2001, Kerri travelled up the road to Bishop Grosseteste College (now Bishop Grosseteste University) in Lincoln to begin her three-year degree in Drama. Despite the 19 years that have passed since that week, she can still remember that first night clearly.

“I cried, I cried all night”, she said.

Kerri had always been a pretty confident girl, she got good grades and enjoyed school, had a whole host of friends and a packed social calendar, but on that first night in a new, unfamiliar place, with no friends to speak of, she felt alone and vulnerable.

“I’m really close to my parents and my brother but facing my first night surrounded by people I didn’t know was daunting and I felt completely out of my depth.”

Thankfully, by the end of that first week she has started to settle in, knew her way around, made friends with the girls she would live with in second year and started to forged lifelong friendships with the people she spends much of her spare time with now.

Here are her top tips for surviving Freshers’ Week and beyond:

  • Develop a good sleep pattern, allowing for some “screen free” time before getting into bed. A consistent sleep routine can be more effective than additional sleep.
  • Regular exercise of 20-30 minutes is enough time for endorphins to be released in your brain that will make you feel happier and sleep better.
  • Eat a healthy balanced diet, meal planning and budgeting can be particularly helpful if you are living away from home for the first time.
  • Set manageable goals, don’t push yourself too hard. Set achievable goal, no matter how small these may be.
  • Start journaling, writing down what is on your mind is a great way to understand your thoughts, feelings and emotions.

All universities will have a range of support systems in place, so if you do start to feel down and it lasts for more than two weeks, seek them out and get some advice.

“Remember university is all about learning and growing, so expect to change and change again. Be kind to yourself and if you spot someone who looks like they might need a friend say hello”, Kerri added.

Book recommendations

Shawmind’s sister company, Trigger Publishing, is the UK’s leading mental health and wellbeing publisher. Here are a couple of their latest books which we recommend for students.

Award-winning mental health specialist Dr Dominique Thompson explores issues around leaving home, exam stress, socialising, safety, sex, and drugs, to help you succeed and truly enjoy your time as a student.

Dominique says: “Being part of a community is one of the best things for your wellbeing- connecting with others, making friends and feeling like you belong.

“A great way to do this is to volunteer with a local charity- you feel great helping others, others feel great because they are helped, and you meet new, like-minded people. Win-win!

“Smile at people- it’s a great way to show you are friendly, and keen to connect, but not as tricky as starting a new conversation.

“You can smile in a corridor, in a library, in the coffee shop, for example if you recognise someone from a lecture (online or otherwise) and then they will recognise you (subconsciously) as a friendly person, and you can start to chat.”

Prioritising your studies, social life, and everything in between all while looking after yourself can be tricky!

Written by Clinical Psychiatrist Lauren Callaghan, this guide will help you to stay on top of things and harness useful organizational tools so you can successfully navigate your way through the unique pressures and opportunities that student life brings.

For more information or to buy a copy, visit the Trigger Publishing site.

For our student guide to mental health, visit www.shawmind.org/our-mental-health-guides/

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7 Signs to Signify Your Emotions Are Out of Balance

Looking after our physical and mental wellbeing are things that more and more of us are starting to do, because we’re becoming increasingly aware of the long-term benefits. But what about our emotional health?

This article Five Things Pixar’s film Inside Out Teaches Us About Emotions is a great starting point if you would like to know more about your emotions.

We all know someone who wears their heart on their sleeve and shares everything, but there are also people who we think of as a closed book, aloof or a bit ‘off’.

The reality is that everyone processes their emotions differently and this can be down to how they experienced emotions growing up. Perhaps they didn’t have an emotional role model, someone who showed them how to express and deal with their emotions.

They could have had upsetting experiences, which meant they bottled up their emotions as a way of dealing with the event and any other emotional event in their lives.

Then, as an adult, they might find it difficult to know what do with their emotions. It’s not that they don’t want to express them, it’s just that they don’t know how.

I know this only too well. I grew up with a mum who had bipolar and was regularly sectioned into psychiatric care. On top of that my dad was an alcoholic and never really expressed his own emotions, using drink as his way of coping. No-one told me what to do with emotions, so I ended up storing them where no-one could see.

This strategy worked fine until they could not be suppressed anymore and came out in a really unhelpful way or situation. Outbursts are ok when you’re a child, but they are not so great when you’re an adult and you choose an open plan office to let it all out – yep, I’ve been there!

It wasn’t until I began working on my own personal development, that I realised that no-one had ever shown me what to do with emotions. I often just thought I was in a bad or low mood and it was often difficult to get out of it.

Holding onto emotions is unhelpful for our health and wellbeing, they literally get stuck in our bodies, festering away.

But when you learn to recognise that your emotions are out of balance, it can be a huge relief and once you have addressed them you can soon get back to a place of balance and serenity.

The 7 Tell-tale Signs to Look For:

  1. You feel in a bad or low mood, which won’t seem to lift
  2. You notice your internal dialogue turns negative, you might think “I’m not good enough” or I’m so stupid”
  3. You make irrational decisions
  4. You feel the need to cry, have an emotional outburst or to run away from the situation you are in.
  5. You have physical symptoms, such as pain in your shoulder, back or a persistent headache.
  6. You want to be alone and think that people are against you
  7. You feel constantly tired or fatigued, mulling over a situation that you can’t resolve.

Our natural state is one of happiness, peace and serenity. Our modern world, and sometimes experiences or events that have occurred, make this difficult, if not impossible to maintain, unless you start to take a closer look at your emotions.

Managing your emotional health

  1. Start to get to know your emotions. Notice how you are feeling, what knock on effect that has on your work and life. Have a journal to hand to make a note of how you feel and start to see if there are any patterns.
  2. Let out your emotions, especially if this has been difficult in the past. Give yourself a quiet space to have a good cry, give a pillow a good punch or go out into the middle of nowhere and have good shout. Notice how much better you feel afterwards.
  3. Start to manage your emotions in the moment. Accept how you are feeling and acknowledge out loud that you are ok with it. Then be ready to move that emotion to make space for a more positive one. You can do this in your mind or again out loud.
  4. Find time each day to shift emotions that have either come up or been triggered in the day. Taking a few deep breathes, close your eyes and then ask for the emotion to be brought to you that has made you feel…………however it has manifested itself. Be prepared that it may cause an emotional response. Stay calm and breathe it out with a few deep breathes, until you feel like it has moved.
  5. Be kind to yourself, being emotional is not a weakness and cleansing emotions are all part of the healing process. You may want to choose your moments for doing this! Not in the middle of a meeting for example.
  6. With practise, you will be able to work through the layers of emotions that have built up over the years. It will take time, again use your journal to take notice of your progress.

It can be very revealing to find the emotions that have made up your personality all these years and to realise in what way they may have been holding you back.

If you have enjoyed this blog, you might like 10 Ways to Tackle Imposter Syndrome.

As with anything, if you feel that your health or wellbeing is significantly affecting your ability to cope day to day, then seek medical advice.

Louise Hallam from Still Calm

After working in the corporate world for 25 years but feeling like I never really fitted in, I started my own business and finally started to feel as though I was doing the right thing.

After a chance meeting, in the past 18 months I have been working with a spiritual mentor, who has awakened my true potential and purpose. I have unlocked wisdom and healing modalities, which are in my DNA. This has resulted in a powerful combination of services to provide to those in the highest level of management who are struggling to get a sense of self, want to connect to their soul purpose and work with, rather than against, their energy and emotions.

My unique gifts and skills enable me to free people from the things that have held them back from living their true potential. Where they see limits, I only see limitless.

My little bit of genius is that I see things in people that other people can’t. It’s what I have experience in and it’s what I’m known for.

During lockdown I have also been channelling wisdom on conscious leadership, which is guiding principles for leading for humanity and people rather than profit.

 

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Three Top Tips to be More Mindful: The Yoga Edition

The top tips I share below stem from yoga and are great ways to be more mindful, reducing both mental and physical stress. I hope you find ways to implement these simple and effective practises into your daily or weekly routine

  1. The 3, 4, 5 breath

A super simple exercise that is perfect to do as soon as you wake up, and before you go to sleep. Practise either sitting in a meditative posture or lying down on your back. Start by breathing in for the count of 3, holding for the count of 4, and exhaling through your mouth for the count of 5. Aim to do with your eyes closed, and your gaze focused on the point between your two eyebrows. Relax your whole face so you’re not scrunching up your eyes and let your body just settle into the breath. After a few rounds you will start to get into the flow of it.

What is the science behind it?

  • Reduces anxiety and anger
  • Relaxes the nervous system
  • Eases a busy mind
  • Helps you get to sleep
  1. Bhramari Pranayama (black buzzing bee breathing exercise)

Avoid practising this if you have high blood pressure, epilepsy, chest pain, or an ear infection. Begin by sitting in a meditative posture, either cross legged or kneeling. Close your eyes and bring your awareness to the point between your eyebrows. Breathe in through the nose, and exhale as a hum for as long as you feel comfortable. While humming, really feel the vibration running through your mind and body. Once finished, start again by taking a deep breath in, and exhaling as a hum. Try 11 hums and see how you feel afterwards.

What is the science behind it?

  • Reduces mental tension
  • Improves the acoustic and aerodynamic parameters of your voice
  • Lowers blood pressure
  • The vibrations of the hum stimulate the hypothalamus and pituitary gland
  1. Diaphragmatic breathing

It’s easy to hold your breath during the day without realising. Holding your breath creates tension and leaves your body fighting for more oxygen. Regularly practising deep diaphragmatic breathing, by filling up your whole belly as you breathe in, as if you are blowing up a balloon, will help your body function at its most optimal. This can be done when you’re in a meeting, to when you’re in the car, or even in the shower by deeply breathing in and out through the nose, focusing on the breath going all the way into your belly and back out.

 What is the science behind it?

  • Allows your whole cardiovascular system to operate better
  • Provides more oxygen to your whole body
  • Lowers your heart rate
  • Eases mental and physical tension
  • Lowers cortisol levels

I’m Geetanjali, it means ‘a poem/song offering to God’, but everyone calls me Angie. I’m a yoga and meditation teacher based in London. I was raised with many Ayurvedic rituals and practises, and the basics of yoga and its true essence was taught to me by my parents. My yoga classes focus on bringing people’s awareness back to yoga’s roots, respecting the ancient sacred Vedic practise, and ensuring people know yoga is not about flexibility alone. We chant, we breathe, and we move in alignment with ourselves and with each other. If you would like to join in or practise 1 to 1, you can find me here, or on g.tiwari@hotmail.co.uk

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Being Kinder to Yourself Despite Mental Illness

I first experienced severe depression when I was twenty-three. Up until then, I’d had the odd bout of heartbreak but I’d been lucky enough not to have any serious mental health issues. I got stressed out when I started my legal training to be a solicitor. I changed everything in my life at once and it was too much – a big move, living with my boyfriend for the first time and thrown in at the deep end at work. I’d never even failed an exam up to that point so it was no wonder I struggled to cope with life after university. I am ambitious but sensitive, and not great with too much responsibility, but I had to learn that the hard way. When I got ill, I had to move back to my parents and totally change direction, I knew that Law was going to be too stressful for me.

At first, I didn’t even know what was going on with me. I was tired a lot, struggling to get up in the mornings and worried all the time. I lost my appetite and snapped at the slightest things. I wasn’t enjoying my life at all at a time when it should really be fun. It was a big shock to the system being told I was depressed and had to take medication, and I felt like a failure instead of maybe looking at how I was treated at work (there was some bullying going on). The thing is, a big part of depression involves blaming yourself. Your brain lies to you and tells you that you’re worthless. That you’d be better off dead. I compared myself to my friends who at the time were all doing well at work, which just made things worse.

Luckily with age I’ve learnt to have much more kindness and compassion for myself, but it didn’t come easily. I became ill again after I’d done my teacher training and was left to run a department in my first year (I was working eighty to a hundred-hour weeks). My mum got cancer too. But again I kept going, not wanting to admit that I hated my job that I’d worked so hard for. I fell down again, and was ill for three years. It took a long time to find the right medication that time and I don’t know how I got through it to be honest. But I finally realised that traditional professional careers were not for me. It was time for a new path.

My mum suggested to me to try writing and I started an arts and culture blog, and got my reviews published in a local magazine. I was finally enjoying myself! I took different roles working in universities for a while, where I could do a thirty-five-hour week and not have to take work home. I built up my writing on the side and realised I could be paid to write for businesses. I took a job as a copywriter and at thirty-one finally felt like I’d found the right job. But unfortunately, I was made redundant after three months and the depression came back. I ended up in hospital and asked for ECT (Electroconvulsive therapy) which thankfully worked. I worked as a temp for a while during my recovery and eventually felt well enough to become self-employed as a copywriter, and was well for three years.

It was difficult for me not to blame myself for the depressive episodes, but in time I realised that it’s easy to end up in the wrong job and society puts a lot of pressure on people to aim for those careers. I have pushed myself very hard at times, but now I have come to learn that I have an illness. I have a responsibility to manage that illness with medication and the right support, and try to avoid too much stress, but at the same time life happens and becoming ill is often unavoidable.

Since my Bipolar II diagnosis, I am learning to accept that I am not to blame for being ill. I have an illness which is no different to a physical illness. I want to share my story to help others to realise they don’t have to push themselves so hard to fit into a box. Some people take longer to find their purpose than others, so it’s important to accept your own path and become aware of what works for you. If you have to change direction, be brave enough to follow your heart. When we get creative and do things differently, life can get so much better.

Debbie Stokoe is a freelance mental health and wellbeing writer based in the North East of England. She has experienced work-related depression and has written about her experiences in her book Awakened: Depression, Recovery and Breaking Free. She has recently been diagnosed with Bipolar II at 40. Finding her passion (writing) has been pivotal in her recovery. She also runs a Facebook group on the subject of mental health and spirituality. She is a former copywriter and teacher.

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Set an Inner Compassion Compass for a Kinder Life

Many new Facebook groups have sprung up and two of my favourites are Project Kindness and What Do You See From Your Window? #StayAtHome

The first one speaks for itself really. It was set up to share thoughts and acts of kindness to help people navigate these difficult times with more positivity and hope. The latter is to share your views. Many are breathtaking and I’ve shared views of the beautiful Lincolnshire countryside where I’m in lockdown, complete with an array of animals including lambs. 

One woman posted a photo of a brick wall saying that the other views were depressing her as this was all she had to look out on. There was an outpouring of love, support, words of encouragement and kindness and over a thousand people sent her messages in a few days.  It really touched me and I’m sure it lifted the lady in question up too.

Recently it was ‘Random Acts of Kindness Day’ and I posted the graphic below on social media to mark it. I first discovered Random Acts of Kindness in the early 1990s when I was attending Tony Robbin’s ‘Unleash the Power Within’ course. At the time social media was in its infancy so we purchased packs of cards that had an angel on the front and then some suggestions for blessing others with random kind acts. Suggestions included paying a toll on a motorway for the next driver (this was in America!). Paying for the groceries of the next person in a store. Leaving money for 10 coffees for the next people to come into a coffee shop and many more similar suggestions.

I love the idea of being kind and paying it forward. In these times of challenge there have been so many heart-warming stories of just that. In fact, in the news today it is reported that only 9% of Britons want life to return to “normal” after the coronavirus outbreak is over, a survey suggests.

People have noticed significant changes during the lockdown, including cleaner air, more wildlife and stronger communities. More than half (54%) of the 4,343 people who took part in the YouGov poll hope they will make some changes in their own lives and for the country as a whole to learn from the crisis. And 42% of participants said they value food and other essentials more since the pandemic, with 38% cooking from scratch more.

The survey also found that 61% of people are spending less money and 51% noticed cleaner air outdoors, while 27% think there is more wildlife. Two-fifths said there is a stronger sense of community in their area since the outbreak began and 39% say they are catching up with friends and family more.

So, the true values of connection, time for each other, enjoying nature and taking time to cook and just slow down seem to have come to the fore. My biggest fear is that we forget these valuable lessons too quickly. My biggest hope is that we don’t and that we see the synchronicity and connection in our lives and to the world around us. 

I remember reading Oedipus for A-level and the Ancient Greeks saw every act and everyone as ultimately connected. They described it as taking a piece of cloth, screwing it up into a ball, pushing a sharp blade through the ball and then opening the cloth again. It will be pricked with holes all over. All seeming random and not in a pattern yet truly all connected through that one blade and one cut.

I find that I can keep all of this seemingly random synchronicity in mind by visualising a ‘Compassion Compass’. Life may seem random, and sometimes our best efforts to plot a course to happiness or fulfilment may get set back or even thwarted, but if you trust that your life is guided by a greater force, in this case, your ‘Compassion Compass’, then it stops being scary.

A few things led me to establish the ‘Compassion Compass’. Compassion is one of the highest values of all, so my vision is of a compass where the set point is firmly in the direction of compassion.

In the early 2000s, one of my marketing consultancy clients was True North and I loved the imagery of the True North: the place we all ultimately want to chart our way to. There are many deep and spiritual meanings to the directions of North, South, East and West. Celtic symbolism holds that the East equals air, communication, new beginnings, new growth; South equals fire, energy, passion, creativity; West equals water, emotion, psyche, movement; and North equals earth, home, security and fertility.

With the Compassion Compass the set point is always to be kind to yourself. Start the random acts of kindness with you.

All the strength that you need to save you is within you. The trick is to tap into it, hone it, head towards it, and if the road gets bumpy or you lose your way, trust in your ‘Compassion Compass’ that maybe things that don’t look so good at present are actually there for a good or greater reason. Like the three redundancies I faced in my earlier working life. Like the cancer I came through 15 years ago. Like so many other adversities that inspired me to write my book Reset! A Blueprint for a Better Life and led me to changing career in my 50s to become a therapist and coach.  That then led to being an author, a columnist, a broadcaster, a speaker and more as I speak about my life and how kindness and balance remain at its core.

As Proust said: “The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”

Rosalyn Palmer is an Emotional Wellbeing Expert with a private practice in Newark (and Worldwide reach via Zoom) as an Advanced Rapid Transformational Hypnotherapist (ARTT), Clinical Hypnotherapist and award-winning coach.

She co-hosts the Radio Newark show Girls Around Town, and has a monthly newspaper column in The Newark Advertiser focusing on wellbeing issues on both. As a bestselling author of the award-winning self-help book ‘Reset! A Blueprint for a Better Life’ she makes emotional wellbeing accessible to all. Rosalyn is now also a co-author of Amazon No.1 bestselling self-help books ‘Ignite Your Life for Women’ and ‘Ignite Your Female Leadership’.

A member of the National Council of Psychotherapists; General Hypnotherapy Register & Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council.

Formerly the MD/Founder of award-winning PR agency RPPR, Head of Marketing for an international charity and with an enviable CV from leading London agencies in the 80s and 90s, Rosalyn has grown from many challenging life experiences. These include cancer, financial loss, loss of identity, depression, redundancy and divorce. She has moved from a top-level business and corporate life to now supporting women and men who are facing burnout and overwhelm and other challenges of modern life. All of this colours and tempers her writing, broadcasting and speaking and makes her a highly empathetic therapist and coach.

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Eight Acts of Kindness We Can All Implement

Anne Frank once wrote, “no one has ever become poor by giving”, and the difficult times we are living in now are a true testament to these words.

Giving doesn’t need to be a monetary donation – of course that always helps charities – but a small act of kindness in difficult moments goes a long way!

If your neighbourhood is anything like mine, then you’ll have noticed just how much it (and its people) have changed during the pandemic. Yes, at first everyone was panicked and worried about themselves – but this quickly transformed into a communal spirit of togetherness.

Neighbours who previously didn’t have time to say hello are now having conversations over fences. The elderly shoppers who youngsters would pip to the checkout till are now actually being offered to jump ahead by the same millennials.

And those doctors and nurses we usually moan about – they are now being hailed every week with nationwide applause.

There is no doubt that when the going gets tough we need to band together as a national, and perhaps global, community to pull ourselves through the challenging moments.

Whatever you call it, we need to find that common currency we all know – care, humanity, neighbourliness.

So here are eight easy acts of kindness you can do today:

  1. Know someone who might be struggling? Please pick up the phone and offer some support. Even if it is a friendly chat for just ten minutes, it could make the world of a difference to them.
  2. Indoors is the place to be. Be kind to the NHS and help to prevent over-burdening the already stretched health service by following the government’s advice of staying at home. All medical staff will thoroughly appreciate this, especially if we do this together.
  3. “Neighbours…should be there for one another” (according to one ‘80s Australian TV show!). This is a great time to build those neighbourhood communities. Help an elderly neighbour with their shopping, make a bit more dinner and drop some off next door, or simply say “hello” with a big smile whilst on your daily walk.
  4. Pick up some extra food items to donate to a food bank. Amidst all the panic buying and worry, there will be a significant number of people – too many – who won’t have dinner tonight at all. You could pick up an extra tin of beans and pass it on.
  5. Donate to charity. With many charities struggling to provide enough support to their beneficiaries, they need you to thoughtfully spare some change. A small amount will go a long way. It may not be a lot a lot to you, but it could be a lot to the person who receives it. It could be a homeless shelter, a hospice or even a mental health charity (like the wonderful Shawmind).
  6. Eight o’clock every Thursday night. Clap for our carers. They need and deserve our support and motivation.
  7. Make a call to a loved one who you cannot visit, and lift their spirits. With lots of great virtual platforms such as Zoom, you can now see each other’s faces (and new haircuts!) and connect live.
  8. Self-kindness. As important as it is to be kind to others, you need to remember yourself, too. Use this slower pace of life to do all those things you always said you didn’t have time to do before. Learn a language, take up a hobby, read more, or simply get some well-earned rest, but take care of yourself!

Kindness, compassion, humanity – they are unspoken pacts between people. They mean each person knows they are safe and supported in the other’s presence.

Kindness quickly builds a connection that can result in a lifetime bond, or mend what was destined to be eternal animosity. It usually doesn’t take much – it just takes something – and then you just need to stand back and watch the ripple effect it can have.

This is the power of kindness, and it lies within each and every one of us. Let kindness be contagious.

Muntazir Rai is the co-founder at Pledjar – a mobile app recently launched, which allows users to round-up their card transactions and donate them to their favourite charities. He is also a trustee at the international grass-roots charity Who is Hussain, and a former secondary maths teacher and head of year.

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It’s No Bad Thing to be Nice

Cardigans are nice. Autumn sunsets are nice. Portraits of you drawn by your nursery-aged relative are nice (or at least that’s what you tell their parents, whilst trying to work out why you slightly resemble an octopus).

So no, nice is no bad thing.

But to be kind… well, that’s something different entirely. Where niceness can be slightly passive, kindness requires an action. It needs thought, and attention to detail. Kindness is, after all, an act of love.

It’s not easy to be kind, and nor should it be. If it was easy, kindness would be less valuable. The effort is what makes it special.

The beauty of kindness is that being kind feels just as good as receiving kindness. Your heart swells as you watch your sibling open a gift you spent hours picking out. You wait in joyful anticipation until you know your grandma has received the card you sent her ‘just because’. The flowers you sent a friend to brighten her week look just as beautiful on her grateful Instagram post as they would in your own front room.

It’s so easy to feel like life is too busy to find time for kindness. And yet many of us find ourselves with an abundance of time right now, and also a need to maintain our faith in the world. Kindness can do that, if we let it. Maybe kindness can be the pandemic that prevails.

Be kind. To yourselves and to others. It is the best thing we can do, especially now.

Harriet Grace has worked in events all her working life and has been running Accept Management since 2012. Major clients include the Grand National and Epsom Derby and she has additionally worked across events including the 2012 London Olympics, the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, British Summer Time at Hyde Park and many more.

When she’s not working, you’ll find her walking her boxer dog, Tia, playing netball or chilling out with a box set.

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