'b.WELL with Beehive'

'Do NOT wait until your employees are off work with stress and burnout before putting support in place. By then it's way too late.' Sara Lodge, Beehive/b.SAFE director

As mentioned, Covid 19 pandemic has launched us all into unprecedented waters, which has put astonishing pressure on the globe's workforce. Those in work - the key workers - have increased workloads. Those out of work or on reduced hours have increased insecurity and stress. Leaders are being looked to to provide guidance in a situation they have never confronted before. We all need the emotional resilience to survive this, and to thrive afterwards.

We also need emotional resilience to help us avoid burning out. 'Burnout' refers to an emotional, physical, mental and spiritual exhaustion which sleep simply does not help. For more information about burnout including the stages of burnout go to Avoiding burnout with bWELL

Mark Sykes and Chris Reedthomas of Beehive are both licensed to deliver the evidence-based 'Emotional Resilience' and 'Suicide Awareness' workshops designed by 4Mentalhealth. These workshops can now be live streamed over the internet, so it's possible to deliver to groups remotely. For more information go to Emotional resilience and suicide awareness

What is well-being?

The New Economics Foundation (NEF), a 'think and do' tank which seeks to redefine wealth in terms of well-being and not simply money, defines well-being as:

‘Feeling good and functioning well’.

Well-being doesn’t necessarily mean an absence of stress or not working –

• Stress can be very positive, helping us to cope with difficult times, keeping our performance at its height when we need it most, and creating a sense of pleasurable anticipation and enjoyment.
• Work is positively necessary for our well-being - it's good for our health, giving us a sense of purpose and achievement in the world, and it structures our time and provides social contact, as well as a living.

It’s when we become overworked, or when there are significant changes or long term uncertainty, or when we are stretched at work and then something happens at home that we don’t have the resources to cope with, that problems can arise. That’s when understanding the principles of well-being and being self aware can help us avoid or manage such situations better.

(To find out more about the NEF go to New Economics Foundation)

'b.WELL with Beehive' workplace well-being programme

'There's more to life than increasing its speed' Mahatma Ghandi

Increasing well-being

There are very definite things that can be done to promote well-being that don’t simply involve reducing stressful situations – the opposite of stress is not well-being. During our well-being programmes we explore what this means for you as an individual and how you can incorporate the principles of well-being into your life.

You’ll be provided with ongoing support during the programme in the form of mindfulness practices, a workbook, and other resources on the Beehive website, along with gentle prompting e-mails during the week; when something is new it’s easy to slip back into old habits. We also offer one-to-one well-being coaching with the programme, which can help to consolidate learning and plan a new approach to personal health and well-being. The prompts and coaching are part of the programme because the promotion of well-being generally involves change, in attitude and behaviour, and change needs to be supported for it to embed and consolidate.

The Beehive model of personal development

'The most significant personal changes take place not by trying to be someone different but by becoming more fully who you are.'

Sara Lodge, Beehive director

The intention of the well-being programme is to increase self- awareness with relation to well-being, so that people are in a position to make the changes required to manage their stress and increase their well-being more effectively. These sessions are intended to be progressive, to introduce a subject related to stress management every week in an attempt to provide some way of managing stress that everyone can relate to and find useful. They have as their underlying focus mindfulness, or living in the moment – being aware of self and what is happening in the present at any one time.