Submitted by Alexandra Collett on Thu, 02/11/2023 - 16:18
A Senior Counsellor for the Staff Counselling Centre at Cambridge University has expressed on International Stress Awareness Week that: “it’s right to look after your mental health” and “it's not a sign of weakness.”
Sarah Hughes, in an interview with HR Communications team answered a series of questions on a series of new Calm Spaces, that Sarah and her colleague Caroline McSharry, are providing for staff at the University over the next few months.
Sarah provides 1:1 counselling for members of staff within the University and also for College staff- if the Colleges have signed up -and explained a little bit about what the Calm Spaces provide.
Sarah said: “We offer maybe one or two practises of reflection of breath work, of mindfulness exercises, and we really want to invite everybody to take a moment out of their busy days and just be able to ground themselves, see themselves and have a moment of calm.”
“We often use words like feeling stressed, feeling burnt out, feeling rundown and I think that what I understand about that, is that there are people that are experiencing a stress response, so their body is flooded with adrenaline more often than they imagine, and so one way and the best way to manage that is to change our breathing.”
To watch the full interview with Sarah see the video below:-
The series of Calm Spaces is running through November, with no sign up required.
To sign up to the Calm Spaces follow this link to join each session.
Or join via Teams using the following:
Meeting ID: 318 030 718 625
Passcode: LTuvNn
To find out more visit: https://staff.counselling.cam.ac.uk/events/calm-space
For counselling services you can refer yourself online in confidence here: Online registration form