Skills for Wellbeing Course
Is this course right for me?
This course is perfect for you if:
- You are feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or stressed
- Have one or more of the following: anxiety; depression; panic; poor sleep; poor self-esteem / low self-confidence; irritability; burnout
- You want to learn how to manage current problem areas, and how to prevent the chances of getting in to difficulty again in future
What will I learn?
This course can teach you:
- How to feel more positive about yourself
- How to better manage a range of different problem areas
- New skills to help tackle unhelpful thoughts
- When to use a skill, or when to combine skills, to overcome a problem
- How to gradually start making positive changes in your life
- How to improve your mood; reduce anxiety and stress; increase sleep; and overall feel better in terms of both physical and mental wellbeing
What does the course cover?
Session 1: Introduction to Anxiety and Low Mood
How the course works and what to expect; information about anxiety (bodily responses; fight or flight response); information about depression (recognising low mood; vicious cycle of low mood); links between anxiety and low mood.
Session 2:
Thoughts, Feelings & Behaviours;
Looking further at what we call the vicious cycle, also known as the thoughts, feelings and behaviour cycle. Looking at how this feeds into anxiety and depression.
Setting Goals and Taking Action
Learning about the importance of goal setting in therapy and setting your own goal for what you want to achieve throughout this course. Looking at the impact of mood on activity levels and starting to reintroduce activities into your diary through the technique of behavioural activation.
Session 3: Anxiety Management and Relaxation Training
Learning about ways to manage anxiety; (introduction to exposure therapy; vicious circle of avoidance in anxiety; impact of technique called habituation in breaking the vicious cycle); learning techniques to help you relax (how breathing impacts how you feel).
Session 4: Addressing Unhelpful Thoughts
Looking at 10 different thinking styles and identifying which styles you use; how to begin to challenge these thoughts.
Session 5: Dealing with Worry and Learning how to Solve Problems
Dealing with worry (is worry normal; different types of worry; impact of worry on our lives); beliefs about worry; introducing how to manage worry (looking at the worry tree; setting worry appointment and starting to control worry); introduction to problem solving (identifying problems and possible solutions; implementing plans).
Session 6: Improving Sleep and Looking after yourself in the future
Recap of course content and skills learned; looking at the importance of a good night’s sleep; different stages of sleep; habits affecting sleep; how to maintain any gains from the course; identifying warning signs; self care action plan and reflection of goals; looking at potential barriers.
How does the course run?
- You will be expected to attend all 6 sessions in order to gain full benefit from the course
- We will be meeting once a week for 1hr 30mins- 2hrs (same day and time each week)
- Between each session you will be asked to go away and practice a skill that will help you to learn how to better manage your current problems. In-between session work is important for progress.
- This is not group counselling – you do not have to share experiences with the group
