We know that many people are feeling anxious about how the coronavirus crisis is impacting them, their loved ones, their work and their future. It’s important to know that it is normal and okay to feel upset, anxious or confused at times.

The follow series of NHS Coping Well During Covid webinars have been developed to support you if you are feeling anxious about coronavirus and how it is impacting you, your loved ones or your work. Each 60-minute webinar is led and delivered by Emily Gardner, High Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapist, East London NHS Foundation Trust.

Webinar topics include managing wellbeing, anxiety, low mood and sleeping difficulties, as well as specific sessions on financial anxiety, working from home, wellbeing for BAME communities, and mindfulness. The webinars will offer you the chance to explore ideas and strategies to support your mental health and wellbeing in a clinically-led way.

 

About the NHS Wellbeing Webinars

Both the Coping Well During Covid and Keeping Well for Health and Care Workers webinars are developed and delivered by Healthy London Partnership’s digital Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme team.

Anxiety
This webinar focuses on managing worry and anxiety caused by COVID-19.

You will take a look at helpful long term strategies for managing anxiety and reducing worry.​

Download the Anxiety slides.

Low Mood
This webinar looks in more detail at how to manage low mood.

This webinar provides a more detailed look at how we build a balanced routine and fight low motivation. It also explores the implications of COVID-19 restrictions on our activity levels and how this impacts how we feel.

Download the Low Mood slides.

Working From Home and Staying Well
This webinar considers some of the challenges created by home working.

We’ll explore some strategies to help you switch off from work and enjoy your time outside of work more. Helping you to find a better home working life balance, enabling you to find it easier to separate working from home life.

Download Working From Home and Staying Well slides.

Managing Financial Anxiety
For this webinar Emily Gardner is joined by Jerry During from Money A&E and Laura Peters from Mental Health and Money Advice.

We may find ourselves under increased financial pressure due to the impact caused by the coronavirus. The worry about money may impact sleep, concentration, productivity and our stress levels. This webinar provides you with some really practical advice to support you with your financial concerns as well as some strategies to manage your wellbeing.

This webinar was recorded on Tuesday, 25 August 2020 as part of the Coping Well During Covid webinar series. 

Sleep
This webinar looks at why we sleep and some of the common sleep difficulties.

Insomnia is thought to affect around one third of the population, join Emily and follow strategies and tips to overcome these sleeping problems.

This webinar was recorded on Thursday, 18 June 2020 as part of the Coping Well During Covid webinar series. 

Download the Managing Sleep slides.

BAME Wellbeing with David Truswell
For this webinar, Emily Gardner is joined by David Truswell, chair of the Dementia Alliance for Culture and Ethnicity.

This webinar considers the challenges Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities face and some techniques and strategies to support wellbeing.

David Truswell has worked in community based mental health services in the UK for over thirty years and has been a great advocate for people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. He has a rich history and understanding of how mental health has and does impact different minority communities.

This webinar was recorded on Tuesday, 18 August 2020 as part of the Coping Well During Covid webinar series. 

Managing Wellbeing
The webinar looks at improving wellbeing.

In this webinar Emily highlights a fear cycle and a low mood cycle, concluding with ideas and tools to break these common cycles and improve mood.

This webinar was recorded on Tuesday, 9 June 2020 as part of the Coping Well During Covid webinar series. 

Download the Managing Wellbeing slides.

 

Mindfulness
This webinar will provide a brief introduction to mindfulness and its benefits.

From this webinar you will go away with three mindfulness based exercises that you can start to practice, as well as some mindfulness based activities to start you off on your mindfulness journey.

This webinar was recorded on Thursday, 6 August 2020 as part of the Coping Well During Covid webinar series. 

Other resources to help you cope
There are a number of other resources and services available to support your mental health and wellbeing during this challenging time.

Digital resources available now

Good Thinking is a digital mental wellbeing service that has over 100 free, NHS-approved resources designed to help those dealing with anxiety, low mood, poor sleep or stress. Take the clinically validated self-assessment to get a better understand of what you’re going through, helpful resources and if necessary, relevant treatment options.

To help build resilience and maintain good mental wellbeing, Every Mind Matters has a range of resources for everyone at Including an interactive quiz, the Your Mind Plan, to get top tips and advice relevant for you.

NHS psychological treatments

If you do not require urgent support but are still concerned about your mental health, contacting your GP is a good place to start.

You can also refer yourself for free, non-urgent NHS psychological therapy services, also known as IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) services, which provide evidence-based treatments for depression and anxiety. In London, services are ready and open to receive self-referrals for those needing professional support.

You can get talking therapies like counselling for depression and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) on the NHS. They all involve working with a trained therapist. Currently, this may be difficult to arrange face-to-face, so it is likely that sessions will be online or over the phone.

You can find your local service here.

Helplines

Or you may feel more comfortable talking to someone you don’t know by using one of the following helplines:

• If you, or anyone you know, is experiencing a mental health crisis and needs urgent assistance, advice or support, contact your local 24/7 NHS mental health helpline.

• Shout is the UK ‘s first 24/7 text messaging service for anyone in crisis. Text Shout at any time to 85258 to start a conversation.

• Samaritans’ free, 24-hour listening service on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org.