Castle Surgery’s Wellbeing Resources
Hello! Thank you for clicking on Castle Surgery’s wellbeing page.
In this area, we’ve listed a few resources that you might find useful for improving your wellbeing and mental health. Self-care can improve our lives in different ways.
This includes developing new helpful behaviours that produce positive outcomes as well as strategies to help tackle challenging situations. Just as certain activities can help our physical health, there are things we can do to help our mental health.
It’s good to think about how closely the two are linked and how each can affect the other, as such there might be activities such as exercise that people find makes them physically fitter but feel better in themselves too.
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There isn’t a definitive recipe in what you need to follow. Several things can work differently for everyone. This means you’re free to choose what works best for you.
Click on the links below to expand the information in that section.
Check out these links. There is a lot of information so please try not to get too overwhelemed. You don’t have to read it all at once. It’s about picking up strategies and coping mechanisms that’ll slowly begin to help you manage your day to day.
- If you’re in employment (even if you’re off sick) you can contact this team to get different types of support
- Based in Neath Port Talbot Hospital, the Wellbeing through Work team deliver the In Work Support Service across Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend, in partnership with the Welsh Government and Swansea Bay University Health Board.
- They are completely separate to your actual place of work
- You can download the WellbeingThroughWork leaflets here:
lltf.com– Living Life to the Full
- Free online courses covering low mood, stress and resiliency.
- Work out why you feel as you do, how to tackle problems, build confidence, get going again, feel happier, stay calm, tackle upsetting thinking and more.
- provides advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem.
- moodgym is like an interactive self-help book which helps you to learn and practise skills which can help to prevent and manage symptoms of depression and anxiety.
Gov.Wales – Looking after My Mental Health and Wellbeing
- Life can be hard enough without COVID-19. It’s made a huge impact in your life. Work worries, Family worries, Financial Worries on top of not being able to see your usual company for support. Gov.Wales have shared their own recommended list of resources to look after your mental health and wellbeing.
bemindfulonline.com/ – Be Mindful Online
- Be Mindful is the only digital Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) course.
- NHS-approved Pathway has helped thousands of people to reduce their levels of stress, anxiety and depression and improve their mental wellbeing.
- online course to help you manage stress, anxiety and depression.
- You work through a series of topics selected by a therapist to address specific needs. The eight-week course is designed to be completed in your own time and at your own pace.
NHS – WellBeing Whilst staying at home
- Tips for things to do whilst in isolation
my.livewellwithpain.co.uk – Live Well with Pain
- Are you living with long term pain? Developed by clinicians for both clinicans and those living with pain, this is a really useful resource to help you live well despite the pain.
Swansea Bay Wellbeing Resources
Here you’ll see a mixture of free and paid resources. Some of the websites above have their own apps too.
Most of these should be accessible both on Android and iOS (Apple iPhone/iPad) devices.
NHS has their own library list of apps you might find useful
here.
Please look for these apps in your Google Play Store or Apple App Store, depending on your device.
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- bemindfulonline
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- Headspace
- Moodgym
- Sleep
- Calms App – Great for Sleep and Meditation
- Music – Max Richter
- Via Spotify – Sleep Music Playlists/Nature Sounds
Other:
- CalmHarm
Calm Harm is an app designed to help people resist or manage the urge to self-harm. It’s private and password protected.
Whether you like flipping through paper pages, swiping through digital text or listening over audio books. There are various ways to access several useful self-help books.
The Chimp Paradox – Prof Steve Peters
- Highly recommended book. Discusses a concept of how our mind reacts to things in life in a simplistic analogy of primal instinctive chimp, logical human and storage computer. It looks at how these experiences forms habits and how to then change the way we react in future to a more controlled and positive way
- Feel the Fear and Do it anyway – Susan Jeffers
- Mindfulness – finding Peace in a frantic world
- The 4 Pillar Plan – Mark Williams, Danny pENMAN
- Becoming – by Michelle Obama
- How Full Is Your Bucket – Don Cliffton
- Gratitude Journalent Goes Here
- Wellbeing Through Work – 01639 684568
- Samaritans – 116 123
- Cruse Bereavement – 01792 462845
- Community Advice and listening line – 0800 132 737
- OR Text HELP to 81066
- Exercise programme with an instructor. Please get in touch with the surgery to be referred
Social Prescribing
- Specialists in social prescribing listen to you. They can help direct (or ‘prescribe’) you to the right team or resource that would be really beneficial in your specific scenario.
Mind
- Can self-refer for counselling
Wellbeingthroughwork
- Can self-refer and they can often arrange counselling
HR/Occupational Health
- Some people’s work places may have their own wellbeing resources so please enquire with them in case this might be an option for you
There’s various different types of talking therapies available.
These can take place either on one to one or within groups.
- Back2Life
- NPT Mind – Free Telephone or online counselling
- Ty Ellis – 01656 786486
- Kooth – Virtual Counselling for Children and Young adults
- British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy
- Counselling Directory – Find a counsellor or therapist near you
- Counselling Valleys
- LGBT Counselling
- Marriage Care – For healthy couple relationship and support when they’re not|
- Bereavement – Cruse
Find out about CBT
TOPIC SPECIFIC
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A child of mine – support for bereaved parents
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2 Wish Upon a Star – provides bereavement support for families who have suddenly and traumatically lost a child or young adult aged 25 years and under.
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Beyond The Blue – range of supportive and therapeutic interventions that meet the needs of children, young people and their parents.
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Cruse Bereavement Care – support and somewhere to turn when someone dies
- Click on this link to find out about Cancer Support Groups: – Whether you’re the one tackling cancer or looking after a loved one with cancer, you all deserve to feel supported.
- Macmillan Cancer Support Neath
- Ty Croeso Day Hospice
- Cancer Support UK
- Tenovus Cancer Care – If you have cancer or you’re close to someone who has, it can be frightening and stressful. Tenovus Cancer Care can help.
- Marie Curie
- Teenage Cancer Trust
- Children and Young Adults Leaflet – Young developing minds need support too. Take a look at the resources on this leaflet that you can download.
- Platfform FYP, children 13-16 Swansea Bay – 4YP Swansea Bay works with 13-16 year olds in Swansea, Neath and Port Talbot. The project offers one-to-one support, peer support groups and the State of Mind Programme.
Addiction is a common problem, but help is available.
Addiction is when you no longer have control over your actions in relation to using, taking or doing something, to the point where it can become harmful to you. We most commonly think of addiction to alcohol, drugs, nicotine or gambling but addiction can also occur in relation to the following:
- Work
- Sex
- Solvents
- Shopping
- The internet
Learn more about it here
Looking for help? Try these
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WCADA – Support and treatment for those affected with substance misuse
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Abertawe Alcohol and Drug Assessment Service (AADAS) – specialist alcohol and substance misuse service for people aged 18 and over
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Domestic Abuse – Free And Confidential Support – 0808 168 9111
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Refuge – Freephone National Domestic Abuse Helpline – 0808 2000 247
- Women’s Aid
- National Domestic Abuse Helpline
- Finding Legal Options for Women Survivors (FLOWS)
- Rape Crisis
- Refuge – Specialist services for survivors of domestic abuse
- Welsh Women’s Aid
- Organisations for men
- Men’s Advice Line
- Mankind Initiative
- Survivors UK
Separation Specific Website Resources
Sometimes, marriages and relationships end in divorce or separation and couples have to go their separate ways. It can be difficult to know what to do and who to turn to. Hopefully, some of the links below can show you where to begin.
Support and guidance to help you make this difficult transition easier for you and your family.
If you have recently split up with or divorced from your partner, it can be difficult to know where to begin.
Gingerbread have an introduction to separation, to help you understand what first steps you can take after a separation
From coping in the early days to becoming a single parent, you can find out how to deal with the anger and stress associated with separating.
Deviding what to do when you separate
Separation or divorcing, legal information
IMPORTANT
If your partner makes you feel anxious or threatened, you should get help.
Don’t try to agree anything about your separation without speaking to someone first.
You can call Refuge or Women’s Aid on 0808 2000 247 at any time.
If you’re a man affected by domestic abuse you can call Men’s Advice Line on 0808 801 0327 between 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.
You can speak to us at Castle Surgery for help with SafeGuarding and ongoing support through referrals such as the Iris Project
Classes
- Dance Classes
- O.V.E. workshop – literacy skills, IT skills, crafts, community garden
Exercise
- Yoga with Adrienne: youtube.com/user/yogawithadriene
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NPT Carers – Advice, support and information for carers
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Neath CVS
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Volunteering Wales
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Guide Dogs
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Age Connects
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Sleep
We’ve all experienced a bad night’s sleep. Some have it more frequently than others.
Poor sleep affects you during the day as you may feel more tired, less alert and long term could impact on your physical health too. Before jumping onto medications to help with sleep (which all come with their own risks) it’s worth seeing if you have tried some simple measures first.
This is a phrase that describes simple practices and habits that together could help improve your night’s sleep. This includes simple actions like:
- Try not having a TV in your room and keeping your bedroom as a bedroom to allow your mind to associate this room as a place of rest and feel relaxed when you’re going to bed.
- Some people like to read in bed. Many people love gandering at their smartphones in bed. That activity might actually keep you up, in addition to studies showing the effects on blue light emission from displays may also affect your sleep patterns. Try to wind away from these activities a couple of hours before you go to bed.
- Avoid those caffeinated drinks late afternoon and early evening!
- Avoid taking naps during the day. You might have caught only a few hours during the night, making you tired during the day so you nap. But then that’ll make your sleep pattern even more erratic.
- Do your pets roam around your house at night? A few of our furry friends are nocturnal and love the nightlife, sometimes to the point of making noise that disturbs us. Is there a way to move them to another room
- Headphones/ear plugs may be an option to avoid random noises that might wake you up
White Noise
- sometimes some people find white noise calming. Playing some sort of background sound might be useful, it could be nature sounds, sound of rain, some people even use audio books.
- Again, different things work for different people so you can try to see what works.
- You can play this directly from your phone or if you have a smart device like an Alexa or Google Home, you can play from there.
Light therapy :
- Mainly for during winter months where we have shorter days and longer nights.
- This affects some people, perhaps as the circadian rhythm (your biological or body clock) is affected. Some studies show that our bodies may naturally prefer to wake up to the gradual light from sunrise, and thus wakes us up during the lighter phases of sleep where we may feel fresher, rather than an alarm that course force us to wake during episodes of deeper sleeps where you might even feel a bit disortiented.
- You can either get devices that are timed to gradually increase brightness in your room in the morning to wake you up gently
o If you’re a bit more techy and have smart bulbs, you can programme these to gradually increase in brightness each morning, say, with an Alexa app.
Aroma therapy and diffusers:
- Some people find certain scents calming. Clean crisp cotton sheets? Warm magnolia? A gentle jasmine or a soothing lavender?
- Although there are studies that have shown aromatherapy can help with anxiety/stress/sleep this must also come with a warning.
- Please check Allergens list and any manufacturer warnings on the oils/scents devices you decide to try. Do not ingest it.
Here are a collection of links from reputable resources regarding the topic of sleep hygiene:
Sometimes it might be certain symptoms, like having to wake up at night more often to pee that disrupts your sleep. Sometimes pain might be waking you up. It might be restless legs. It could be breathlessness that might wake you up. Some medicines might also affect sleep (please check your medicine’s leaflet side effects information).
If you’re finding that there’s something specific that keeps waking you up, give the surgery a call and we can go through looking into what we can do together to manage those symptoms.