Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host
Joanne Lockwood: for the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I
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Joanne Lockwood: So plug in your headphones with rabbitika and let's
Joanne Lockwood: get going. Today is episode
Joanne Lockwood: 15 with the title stress. We
Joanne Lockwood: don't need to suffer and be victims to our emotions. And I have
Joanne Lockwood: the absolute honour and privilege to be joined by Ruth
Joanne Lockwood: Fogg. I first met Ruth at a regional meeting,
Joanne Lockwood: professional speaking association about three years ago,
Joanne Lockwood: and Ruth describes herself as someone who helps clients to
Joanne Lockwood: understand why they are suffering from stress and
Joanne Lockwood: depression to eliminate negative emotions of their lives.
Joanne Lockwood: I asked Ruth to discover her superpower and describe it
Joanne Lockwood: and she said, lip reading, you never know that
Joanne Lockwood: she's listening. So. Hello, Ruth,
Joanne Lockwood: welcome to the show. How are you? Hello, Jo.
Ruth Fogg: I'm fine. I'm actually quite excited today
Ruth Fogg: because between within the next 4 hours, I'm
Ruth Fogg: going to become a grandmother for the first time. So
Ruth Fogg: it's an absolute pleasure to share that
Ruth Fogg: because I'm excited and I'm certainly not stressed. So
Ruth Fogg: thank you for inviting me today. It's great to be here.
Joanne Lockwood: Wow. Thank you for sharing that with me and the listeners. That's fantastic. You must
Joanne Lockwood: be over the moon. Over the moon, yeah,
Ruth Fogg: I am. But my son, sadly, is in Canada,
Ruth Fogg: so I can't jump in the car and go and be with
Ruth Fogg: them. So, yeah, it's a bit frustrating, but
Ruth Fogg: we will get out there as soon as quarantine is over.
Joanne Lockwood: So I guess you were probably never going
Joanne Lockwood: to be with them or had you planned on being in Canada at this
Joanne Lockwood: time? Well, we were letting my daughter in law's parents
Ruth Fogg: go out first and they've actually gone out today,
Ruth Fogg: but they have to quarantine for two weeks before they can see
Ruth Fogg: my son and daughter in law, and then they have to quarantine
Ruth Fogg: for another two weeks when they come back. So we're going to wait for
Ruth Fogg: quarantine to finish it. That's far too stressful for me and I
Ruth Fogg: guess for them as well. But you could zoom in
Joanne Lockwood: the meantime. So now we're living in this world where we can all be online.
Joanne Lockwood: So you could probably have that long distance
Joanne Lockwood: grandparent experience via mobile
Joanne Lockwood: without the hugs. I'll wait and see. Yeah, virtual hugs,
Ruth Fogg: all hugs. But that's fantastic news. And
Joanne Lockwood: if you suddenly have to hang up and disappear, I'll know what's going on. So,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, no worries at all. It makes a difference from an
Joanne Lockwood: Amazon delivery. We have a baby delivery.
Ruth Fogg: Okay. So, yeah, I'm glad it's been delivered in hospital,
Ruth Fogg: not by. Yes. You
Joanne Lockwood: can never tell if they dropped it or not, can you? The parcel that is
Joanne Lockwood: not the baby. So both. Absolutely
Joanne Lockwood: amazing. Thank you for joining me today. I know
Joanne Lockwood: we've talked in the past about your passion, which is around stress.
Joanne Lockwood: So why do we often suffer and become victims to our emotion?
Ruth Fogg: Basically because we don't understand what causes
Ruth Fogg: us stress. It's one of those things
Ruth Fogg: that is present in everyone's life. At some point,
Ruth Fogg: especially recently with lockdown, people have found it really
Ruth Fogg: difficult. So most people can actually identify
Ruth Fogg: with some form of stress or anxiety, which doesn't
Ruth Fogg: actually mean they have a mental health condition. Stress is an
Ruth Fogg: everyday thing. We have all sorts of daily hassles and
Ruth Fogg: pressures, things we have to deal with. But if we
Ruth Fogg: understand why we're stressed and what triggers our
Ruth Fogg: stress and we know how to deal with it, then it's not
Ruth Fogg: a problem anymore. My strap line is positive
Ruth Fogg: solutions for peace of mind. Because if you have peace of
Ruth Fogg: mind, you're not stressed and you can cope with
Ruth Fogg: whatever curveball life throws at you. And when
Ruth Fogg: I say understanding what causes you
Ruth Fogg: stress, let me give you an example. I had a
Ruth Fogg: young woman who came to see me this week who
Ruth Fogg: said she'd had a panic attack last Saturday at
Ruth Fogg: Chessington World of adventures, of all places. And she
Ruth Fogg: couldn't understand why she'd had this panic attack. But when
Ruth Fogg: we explored it, all sorts of things had been going on in her
Ruth Fogg: life. During lockdown, she'd had a bereavement.
Ruth Fogg: She was worried about going on to
Ruth Fogg: antidepressants because her mother in law and
Ruth Fogg: both her parents were on antidepressants. So for her, it felt
Ruth Fogg: like the norm. But in actual fact, the reasons that
Ruth Fogg: they were on antidepressants were justified.
Ruth Fogg: One of them, her father, was a prison officer who had been
Ruth Fogg: attacked by an inmate, and he had been quite
Ruth Fogg: badly hurt and he'd been retired as a
Ruth Fogg: result of this. And he was taking the
Ruth Fogg: justice system to court because it had all been covered up, this
Ruth Fogg: attack. So he, to my mind, was quite
Ruth Fogg: justified in terms of
Ruth Fogg: actually being stressed. And the mother in
Ruth Fogg: law was spanish
Ruth Fogg: and had been enslaved
Ruth Fogg: and abused as a child. So it's not surprising they were
Ruth Fogg: on antidepressants. So when we explored this, my client
Ruth Fogg: understood that
Ruth Fogg: she didn't need to be stressed at all. It's a very simple
Ruth Fogg: example, but when we look at our
Ruth Fogg: past, we can understand how
Ruth Fogg: memories get stored in the subconscious mind.
Ruth Fogg: Now, we don't learn about the mind at
Ruth Fogg: school, I have no idea why, but the mind
Ruth Fogg: is in two parts, the conscious and the subconscious.
Ruth Fogg: The conscious is about 5%. The rest of
Ruth Fogg: it is the subconscious, so there's no competition.
Ruth Fogg: All our memories, thoughts, habits, behaviour
Ruth Fogg: patterns, emotions, everything we've ever
Ruth Fogg: learned and our automatic body systems are
Ruth Fogg: in the subconscious part of our minds. So things
Ruth Fogg: become automatic, like learning your tables.
Ruth Fogg: Repetition and practise, it becomes automatic. We learn
Ruth Fogg: our fives, we move on to our sixes and so on. And learning to
Ruth Fogg: drive, we only think about it when we're learning and
Ruth Fogg: then it becomes automatic. We don't think about it at all.
Ruth Fogg: And this applies to everything that happens to us.
Ruth Fogg: So when you have an upsetting memory, it's
Ruth Fogg: stored. And then when something happen that might be
Ruth Fogg: even vaguely similar, the
Ruth Fogg: subconscious goes, oh, I've been here before, I know what to
Ruth Fogg: do. And it gives us all those emotions back again,
Ruth Fogg: which can be very upsetting. So, for example,
Ruth Fogg: if you didn't like public speaking, or you were scared of
Ruth Fogg: public speaking, when you explore
Ruth Fogg: why, it probably goes back to school days. When
Ruth Fogg: you were asked to stand up and read to the class, you
Ruth Fogg: mispronounced a word, everybody laughed. And that
Ruth Fogg: memory is enough on its own to make
Ruth Fogg: you scared of public speaking. So it's understanding
Ruth Fogg: what's been going on and also about your attitudes, beliefs and
Ruth Fogg: values, because they too can have an enormous
Ruth Fogg: impact on stress levels.
Joanne Lockwood: I hear what you just said there, Ruth. One thing that's jumping in my
Joanne Lockwood: head is, is there a stigma
Joanne Lockwood: around admitting you have stress? And
Joanne Lockwood: is that stigma sometimes worse in men or women?
Joanne Lockwood: Because there's almost like this negativity around.
Joanne Lockwood: People use the word I'm stressed out without really knowing what I'm stressed out means.
Joanne Lockwood: But when someone talks about depression or stress in a clinical
Joanne Lockwood: sense, there's almost like this stigma that I'm not stressed, I
Joanne Lockwood: can manage my own stress, I know what I'm doing. Do you find a lot
Joanne Lockwood: of that goes on? Oh, very much so. It's one of
Ruth Fogg: the biggest hurdles that I have to overcome, because
Ruth Fogg: people don't acknowledge their stress until they're
Ruth Fogg: desperate or they're becoming ill. And
Ruth Fogg: we all know that prevention is better than cure, but yes, there
Ruth Fogg: is an enormous stigma, but also there is a
Ruth Fogg: difference between pressure and stress. Pressure goes
Ruth Fogg: away. So if you're late for a meeting, you're stuck in
Ruth Fogg: traffic. When you get to your destination, that
Ruth Fogg: feeling of stress goes away. And I'm saying stress and
Ruth Fogg: inverted commas here, but if you are
Ruth Fogg: stressed, it's because it builds up and it builds up.
Ruth Fogg: We absorb stress like a sponge, and if we don't wring it
Ruth Fogg: out, eventually we become ill. And there are an
Ruth Fogg: enormous amount of stress related
Ruth Fogg: illnesses. And if the illness isn't caused
Ruth Fogg: by stress, it can be made worse by stress. And
Ruth Fogg: 80% of illnesses are connected to stress, and
Ruth Fogg: that includes heart attacks, strokes,
Ruth Fogg: cancers, ibs, all sorts of things,
Ruth Fogg: which is obviously the extreme end, but it's much better
Ruth Fogg: to deal with it as and when you can.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I saw a talk by someone
Joanne Lockwood: who's developed some technology around HRV heart rate
Joanne Lockwood: variability. And what they were doing was they were
Joanne Lockwood: monitoring ceos in high stress situations
Joanne Lockwood: and showing that their heart rate variability was indicated.
Joanne Lockwood: Their respite from stress was so minimal throughout the
Joanne Lockwood: day, they were even taking their stress into their sleep patterns.
Joanne Lockwood: And they compared that between someone with high stress levels
Joanne Lockwood: and high stress job, compared with someone who had a low stress
Joanne Lockwood: occupation, who had low stress. And you could just see the difference between the red
Joanne Lockwood: and the green graphs. Red being where your heart rate
Joanne Lockwood: availability is indicating high levels of stress. And some people have
Joanne Lockwood: 95% of their life inclusion sleep at this stress
Joanne Lockwood: level. And some people obviously in less stress was like
Joanne Lockwood: 80% not stressed. And I guess that's what you're saying is we take
Joanne Lockwood: this stress into all of our lives, not just in that moment, isn't it?
Ruth Fogg: Oh, absolutely. If you're stressed at work, you take it home.
Ruth Fogg: If you're stressed at home, you take it to work. If
Ruth Fogg: you've had a bereavement, for example, you can't just park that when
Ruth Fogg: you get to the office. And so if we're stressed,
Ruth Fogg: we're stressed. And let's be brutal here. Stress
Ruth Fogg: kills and nobody wants to die before
Ruth Fogg: they need to. So it's about taking responsibility for
Ruth Fogg: dealing with your stress levels as and when they arise. But
Ruth Fogg: first of all, you have to understand what it is that's causing
Ruth Fogg: you stress, what are your triggers? And that's so
Ruth Fogg: important. If people don't understand why they're stressed, they're never going
Ruth Fogg: to make sense out of it. And it's not always the obvious
Joanne Lockwood: things, is it? It's not just work. It could be financial, something
Joanne Lockwood: in the back of your mind, some anxieties about a
Joanne Lockwood: situation or self imposed pressure that you
Joanne Lockwood: create these expectations of yourself sometimes that you can't
Joanne Lockwood: overcome. Absolutely. And
Ruth Fogg: also, as I said earlier, it goes back to
Ruth Fogg: childhood. I have a set of russian dolls in
Ruth Fogg: my therapy room and as you know, they all fit into each
Ruth Fogg: other. And whatever we learn in childhood,
Ruth Fogg: walking, talking, we don't leave behind when we get to the
Ruth Fogg: next stage of life. So whatever our experiences are, we take
Ruth Fogg: them with us, good, bad and indifferent. And if you have
Ruth Fogg: a stress free life, that's great. But if you have a negative
Ruth Fogg: experience, think about if you have a
Ruth Fogg: bump in your car for months afterwards, you're very
Ruth Fogg: careful at that spot. Or if you see a similar car that bumped into
Ruth Fogg: you, because it's all stored in the mind and unless you know how
Ruth Fogg: to deal with it, it stays there. Another way of
Ruth Fogg: looking at the russian dolls, of course, is that if a problem
Ruth Fogg: isn't dealt with when it starts, it's going to get
Ruth Fogg: bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until it
Ruth Fogg: almost becomes insurmountable. And that's when the body shuts down
Ruth Fogg: and that's when we get stress related illnesses.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I mean, we're well aware that mental health
Joanne Lockwood: is starting to be recognised as one of the biggest
Joanne Lockwood: killers through not just suicide, but
Joanne Lockwood: also in the mental side of oneself,
Joanne Lockwood: overtaking the physical side. And organisations are now seeing
Joanne Lockwood: that health and well being of their people, their staff, their
Joanne Lockwood: teams in this stressful lockdown situation is also critically
Joanne Lockwood: important. So you must be able to give some insight to
Joanne Lockwood: people who are trying to help people who are remote working about
Joanne Lockwood: maybe the stresses they're feeling. Is that something you're doing?
Ruth Fogg: Give them the opportunity? Yes. But as we said at the beginning,
Ruth Fogg: stress is perceived as a dirty word. You referred
Ruth Fogg: to the stigma. And there are healthy working
Ruth Fogg: cultures and there are unhealthy working cultures.
Ruth Fogg: Unfortunately, most people are within
Ruth Fogg: an unhealthy working culture. You
Ruth Fogg: can google well being cultures
Ruth Fogg: or companies that have well being strategies
Ruth Fogg: and practical opportunities for their
Ruth Fogg: workers or their staff, but very, very few
Ruth Fogg: will actually come up. It reminds me of
Ruth Fogg: many years ago. I'm a speaker for the International
Ruth Fogg: Stress Management association and on Stress Awareness Day in
Ruth Fogg: November, we offer our services for free.
Ruth Fogg: And I went to a national insurance company, I won't
Ruth Fogg: name them and I put up their stress policy on
Ruth Fogg: the PowerPoint and none of them had ever seen it
Ruth Fogg: because they were part of the problem. They didn't have
Ruth Fogg: lunch breaks, they got in early, left late, none of them
Ruth Fogg: would leave until their line manager had left. They were part of a
Ruth Fogg: negative culture and they couldn't see it because it was
Ruth Fogg: staring at them in the face. And it needs somebody from
Ruth Fogg: outside to raise awareness and help them to understand
Ruth Fogg: that it doesn't have to be like that, because we automatically,
Ruth Fogg: as human beings, want to move from pain to
Ruth Fogg: pleasure. And this is the bit I don't understand because so
Ruth Fogg: many people seem to be quite happy wallowing in pain when they
Ruth Fogg: can actually do something about it.
Joanne Lockwood: I've certainly seen that throughout my career, where it
Joanne Lockwood: becomes the culture that you work until the
Joanne Lockwood: last person drops. You're there late at night, you get there
Joanne Lockwood: early in the morning. There's almost this culture where anybody
Joanne Lockwood: who's not putting in those hours is seen as weak and you
Joanne Lockwood: almost have to absorb this stress. And then when
Joanne Lockwood: you're out at the office, out of the working environment,
Joanne Lockwood: you then take that with you and you take it into your family life. And
Joanne Lockwood: by taking into your family life, you're then bringing their stress levels up and
Joanne Lockwood: it can become kind of endemic within your entire family as well. Not just
Joanne Lockwood: the person having the stress at work. They share that,
Joanne Lockwood: don't they? Absolutely. I mean, I've had clients who
Ruth Fogg: have come to see me because they're stressed at work and then I've said, well,
Ruth Fogg: could you take my card? Could you mention that I do training to
Ruth Fogg: your HR? Oh, no, I don't want them to know I'm stressed.
Ruth Fogg: And a lots of people, when they go to the doctor for
Ruth Fogg: antidepressants, they don't want stress on their
Ruth Fogg: certificate. But again, what? They're not realising
Ruth Fogg: that antidepressants are like a blanket when it's cold or a bottle
Ruth Fogg: of wine. The problem is still going to be there when you wake up the
Ruth Fogg: next morning or you take the blanket off. So it's much better to
Ruth Fogg: deal with the root cause and clear it so that you're in
Ruth Fogg: control. Yeah. You mentioned there about going
Joanne Lockwood: to the doctor and not wanting to put stress on the reason.
Joanne Lockwood: In my career, I've seen many people being signed off
Joanne Lockwood: with stress and it's almost like a giggle in the office. It's
Joanne Lockwood: like, oh, did it all get a bit too much for you? There's almost like
Joanne Lockwood: this disbelief that it was really stressful.
Joanne Lockwood: I mean, come on, we all have stress around here. What makes you so
Joanne Lockwood: special? Needing to be signed off for it? And I think that's part of the
Joanne Lockwood: cycle we got to break, isn't it? We got to take it seriously. We can't
Joanne Lockwood: just laugh it off as something that is a weakness. It's
Joanne Lockwood: actually something that is taking over
Joanne Lockwood: somebody and needs to be treated, as you say, not just a bottle of
Joanne Lockwood: wine or a blanket to make it go away. Absolutely.
Ruth Fogg: My particular strength is teaching self help
Ruth Fogg: techniques, because you can try
Ruth Fogg: and meditate, you can
Ruth Fogg: run around the block and jog, but if you start off
Ruth Fogg: unhappy, you're going to finish unhappy. So again, you
Ruth Fogg: have to deal with the causes. And when you understand
Ruth Fogg: what's going on in your mind and why and how and what,
Ruth Fogg: then you can work out what to do about it.
Ruth Fogg: And the way I deal with it is not
Ruth Fogg: by letting people have ten counselling
Ruth Fogg: sessions, because we can talk till the cows come home, but if you
Ruth Fogg: don't have any coping strategies, you don't move forward.
Ruth Fogg: So I work with three therapies which all
Ruth Fogg: work on the subconscious mind. One is hypnosis, which
Ruth Fogg: most people have heard about, but they've seen people doing silly things on the
Ruth Fogg: television, so they're very wary. But the example I give to
Ruth Fogg: everybody is that if I were to put them in hypnosis
Ruth Fogg: and ask them to take their clothes off and run up and down the road,
Ruth Fogg: they would come out of hypnosis immediately, unless they wanted to
Ruth Fogg: take their clothes off and run up and down the road. So I think that
Ruth Fogg: illustrates the point quite nicely. And hypnosis
Ruth Fogg: is, of course, one of the oldest healing methods known to man.
Ruth Fogg: And it feels like dropping off to sleep when the
Ruth Fogg: Television is on. There's a voice in the background, but you can't really be
Ruth Fogg: bothered with it, and it's very relaxing and it can get
Ruth Fogg: to the nub and the causes of the stress.
Ruth Fogg: So it's a great tool to have. And I offer
Ruth Fogg: audios as part of that package. So if it was training,
Ruth Fogg: depending on what I was looking at, low self esteem,
Ruth Fogg: low confidence loss,
Ruth Fogg: childbirth, conception, whatever it is that's
Ruth Fogg: causing the person stress, so that's hypnosis.
Ruth Fogg: And the second therapy I use is emotional freedom
Ruth Fogg: technique, which is better known as tapping. We tap on
Ruth Fogg: meridian points, but unlike reflexology, which
Ruth Fogg: also works with meridians, we're actually verbally
Ruth Fogg: expressing what the feeling, the emotion
Ruth Fogg: is. And because we have our feelings and
Ruth Fogg: our fingertips with us all the time, whatever arises,
Ruth Fogg: it can be dealt with there and then. And
Ruth Fogg: the third therapy I use is EMDR,
Ruth Fogg: which is eye movement, desensitisation,
Ruth Fogg: reprocessing. It's a bit of a mouthful and that involves eye
Ruth Fogg: movement, and it's a very simple technique, which, again,
Ruth Fogg: people can use themselves. So it's important
Ruth Fogg: to be able to deal with things themselves, and
Ruth Fogg: that's quite empowering. So I very rarely see people for
Ruth Fogg: more than three sessions on a one to one. And obviously in
Ruth Fogg: training, I will explain how the mind works
Ruth Fogg: and look at stress audits and stress policies in the
Ruth Fogg: workplace, if they're available. And then there is the opportunity
Ruth Fogg: to do workshops for whatever comes up from the
Ruth Fogg: stress audit. So it might be time management, for example, that's causing
Ruth Fogg: stress. It might be lack of assertion, might be
Ruth Fogg: lack of confidence. I mean, it's such a
Ruth Fogg: wide focus
Ruth Fogg: on what causes a stress, because what causes
Ruth Fogg: you stress won't cause me stress and vice
Ruth Fogg: versa. Everybody's different and we all have
Ruth Fogg: different stresses, different needs, different wants,
Ruth Fogg: different aspirations, and therefore everybody
Ruth Fogg: needs to understand for themselves. There's no
Ruth Fogg: blanket fix for everything.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I just talking now, I'm thinking the word
Joanne Lockwood: anxiety is popping into my head. Are stress and anxiety
Joanne Lockwood: different? Are they two sides of the same coin? Does one cause the other
Joanne Lockwood: or are they completely different emotions?
Ruth Fogg: That's a good question. I would say they're pretty much the
Ruth Fogg: same. But anxiety is a
Ruth Fogg: recognised mental health condition.
Ruth Fogg: Stress is almost the umbrella for it.
Ruth Fogg: It's a very, very fine line, because if
Ruth Fogg: you're worried or anxious, you're going to be stressed.
Ruth Fogg: So it's hard to differentiate, to separate
Ruth Fogg: the two. So someone has an anxiety attack
Joanne Lockwood: where you see the stereotypical paper bag,
Joanne Lockwood: sort of like trying to calm the breathing down.
Joanne Lockwood: It's kind of within the stress umbrella. Something has triggered
Joanne Lockwood: this anxiety that the brain can't cope with
Joanne Lockwood: and the body almost shutting down to take you out of that
Joanne Lockwood: situation. That's right. But again, it's
Ruth Fogg: understanding why. So let's go back
Ruth Fogg: to speaking. If you are fearful
Ruth Fogg: of speaking to a lot of people, it might be
Ruth Fogg: that you are worried about what people will think of you,
Ruth Fogg: that you'll make a mistake, that you'll trip up
Ruth Fogg: a whole remit of reasons as to why
Ruth Fogg: they're scared, which makes them feel anxious and they get
Ruth Fogg: palpitations. But when they understand why they're scared
Ruth Fogg: and they deal with it, then they're calm and in control.
Ruth Fogg: Calm and confident. Calm and in control. That's where we
Ruth Fogg: all want to be. Yeah. I've
Joanne Lockwood: heard from several people that one of the greatest fears we have
Joanne Lockwood: as a human being is a fear of humiliation, being seen
Joanne Lockwood: to be less than who we are. And public speaking, you are kind
Joanne Lockwood: of putting yourself out there on stage or up
Joanne Lockwood: front and people are then judging you. But
Joanne Lockwood: on not just what you're saying, how you say it, how you look, how
Joanne Lockwood: you move. There's a whole load of things going on in your head there
Joanne Lockwood: about body consciousness, about self worth, self image, self
Joanne Lockwood: expertise, imposter syndrome. So I can imagine that, yeah, it's a big
Joanne Lockwood: ass for people who are not confident. Very much so.
Ruth Fogg: And often in the workplace, in
Ruth Fogg: teams, some people have certain skill sets, others
Ruth Fogg: don't. Some are more ambitious than others and
Ruth Fogg: conflict arises and that causes stress and
Ruth Fogg: value systems. If in the workplace
Ruth Fogg: people are not aware of the vision of the organisation,
Ruth Fogg: going back to what I said about healthy workplaces and they don't
Ruth Fogg: have joint values, then there's going to be stress. Now I
Ruth Fogg: see lots of people who have relationship breakdowns and
Ruth Fogg: nine times out of ten it's because they have different
Ruth Fogg: value systems. What's important to one is not important to
Ruth Fogg: the other. And conflicting values cause enormous stress.
Ruth Fogg: So do conflicting beliefs. You only have to look at all the walls in the
Ruth Fogg: world, all the major conflicts. They're caused by
Ruth Fogg: different and conflicting beliefs and they all cause
Ruth Fogg: us stress completely.
Joanne Lockwood: I often talk myself about when we're talking about inclusion and
Joanne Lockwood: belonging in organisations, it's about having clearly defined
Joanne Lockwood: vision and values for the organisation so that you can then align your
Joanne Lockwood: own self with those visions and values, or not.
Joanne Lockwood: And it may well be that your visions and values don't align and that's okay
Joanne Lockwood: as well, in which case this is not necessarily the right place for you because
Joanne Lockwood: I don't believe you can have passion and purpose without having clearly
Joanne Lockwood: aligned values. And you wouldn't be
Joanne Lockwood: passionate about working for a polluting company.
Joanne Lockwood: If you're an environmentalist, there's no way you're going to want to give your all.
Joanne Lockwood: So it's perfectly valid for people to have different values and
Joanne Lockwood: recognise the fact that this isn't the right place or the right environment. There's no
Joanne Lockwood: shame in that, it's just recognising that. But many of us hang
Joanne Lockwood: on to this, don't, that we force ourselves into this role that I'll
Joanne Lockwood: copart and that's we cover, we mask, we hide,
Joanne Lockwood: we don't bring our whole selves to work. All these sort of phrases we hear
Joanne Lockwood: because we're just living in the wrong culture, which is what I
Joanne Lockwood: think you're saying there. Yes. And that
Ruth Fogg: can trigger lack of self esteem, lack of self
Ruth Fogg: confidence, because again, the biggest issue
Ruth Fogg: I'm confronted with is I'm not good enough, I'm
Ruth Fogg: inadequate. It doesn't matter what walk of life it is
Ruth Fogg: it's such a common feeling that people feel put down,
Ruth Fogg: maybe through childhood, maybe in teenagers they may have been
Ruth Fogg: bullied, might have been a teacher or by parents,
Ruth Fogg: but when we're growing up, if we're told we're stupid,
Ruth Fogg: we'll believe it. I believed it. Not that
Ruth Fogg: my parents told me I was stupid, but because I was decaf, I
Ruth Fogg: believed that I was daft. And it took me
Ruth Fogg: over 20 years more than that, actually,
Ruth Fogg: to realise, once I got my master's degree, that I wasn't
Ruth Fogg: quite sedaft after all. But I'd grown up believing
Ruth Fogg: that. And those negative beliefs can destroy
Ruth Fogg: us. They can stop us, hold us right back
Ruth Fogg: from achieving our own aspirations.
Joanne Lockwood: So you mentioned you're decaf. I mean, thank you for sharing that, and
Joanne Lockwood: I appreciate it. Doesn't define who you are, but it's part of who you are,
Joanne Lockwood: part of a lived experience. So have you been decaf for most of your
Joanne Lockwood: life? When did that occur? Well,
Ruth Fogg: I was knocked down by a car when I was three
Ruth Fogg: years old. I was with my grandmother for
Ruth Fogg: the day in Liverpool, and in the early 50s there weren't many cars
Ruth Fogg: around, but I dropped my teddy bear, ran back for it
Ruth Fogg: and a car found me and I didn't know
Ruth Fogg: at the time, but I'd actually fractured both ears, so the nerves are
Ruth Fogg: severed. So I'm severely deaf in one ear and profoundly deaf in
Ruth Fogg: the other. The severely one has been
Ruth Fogg: relatively recent, because with age my hearing is
Ruth Fogg: deteriorating further, but it's an invisible disability, you
Ruth Fogg: can't see it. I wear hearing aids, they're nice and
Ruth Fogg: small behind the ear. But when I was a child, I was given a
Ruth Fogg: hearing aid and it was the size of a cigarette packet and had to
Ruth Fogg: clip it on your belt or tuck it in your blouse. And I was
Ruth Fogg: teased unmercifully. I hated it and I
Ruth Fogg: was borderline for the eleven
Ruth Fogg: plus, which meant you had to have an interview if you were going
Ruth Fogg: to pass to go to grammar school. And I could see the
Ruth Fogg: panel now talking about memories and how they affect us.
Ruth Fogg: And the lady in the middle of the two gentlemen had
Ruth Fogg: a hat on and I can't see her face, I can just see that
Ruth Fogg: blinking hat. And she told me to my face, I
Ruth Fogg: couldn't possibly cope with grammar school education because I
Ruth Fogg: was deaf. Now, that reinforced my belief that I
Ruth Fogg: was deaf and daft. Fortunately, my parents didn't believe it
Ruth Fogg: and they sent me to a private girl's grammar school. My mum went
Ruth Fogg: out to work to pay for it, but I blew my
Ruth Fogg: gcses I only got two out of nine. Well, why wouldn't
Ruth Fogg: I? I was daft, I was stupid, but I
Ruth Fogg: wouldn't wear my hearing aid. So I think I did very well to get two
Ruth Fogg: because I must have missed an awful lot, and I couldn't tell you how much
Ruth Fogg: education I missed, but I managed to get enough
Ruth Fogg: exams to go on to teachers training college,
Ruth Fogg: and kids shout, so I was okay. But
Ruth Fogg: then I did a diploma in counselling skills and I had some
Ruth Fogg: counselling, and
Ruth Fogg: it changed my life, it really did. So I
Ruth Fogg: was able to wear my hearing aid. So now I'm in a
Ruth Fogg: hearing world. But I would like to correct you on one
Ruth Fogg: thing. When you said my superpower was lip reading,
Ruth Fogg: you said, you don't know what she's listening to. I'm not. That's the
Ruth Fogg: whole purpose of lip reading. I thought you might be earwigging
Joanne Lockwood: on conversations because you could read people's lips
Joanne Lockwood: from a distance. I was wondering if you were doing lip reading.
Joanne Lockwood: Earwigging, if you like. Wow. Oh, it's a very useful
Ruth Fogg: skill. It really is. Especially when I did
Ruth Fogg: a lot of youth work training. And I used to warn them, I said,
Ruth Fogg: look, watch it. I'm a very good lip reader. And they used to
Ruth Fogg: test me, and I'd sit at the back of the room and I'd join in
Ruth Fogg: the conversation from the front of the room, and they
Ruth Fogg: couldn't believe that I could actually tune in to such an extent.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, it's a superpower, and
Joanne Lockwood: it's like speaking a foreign language when people don't know you're speaking their
Joanne Lockwood: language and you can tune into things that
Joanne Lockwood: people maybe don't expect you to, but, yeah, I appreciate it's not a
Joanne Lockwood: superpower you want to have, but it's a superpower you've owned and
Joanne Lockwood: grown. So I've been through your bio that you sent when we talked
Joanne Lockwood: about this earlier, is that you've had a number
Joanne Lockwood: of phases of your life where you've probably
Joanne Lockwood: had stress yourself. You mentioned about your parents
Joanne Lockwood: and your child, and there's a lot of things that you've had to cope with
Joanne Lockwood: as a person, as a child, as a parent yourself. So how did
Joanne Lockwood: you feel like cope with your stress at the time?
Ruth Fogg: Well, maybe I'll explain what it was at first. I'm an
Ruth Fogg: only child and my father died very
Ruth Fogg: suddenly, very unexpectedly, in 1999.
Ruth Fogg: And my mother had made it very clear to me that
Ruth Fogg: if my dad died first, she wanted to come and live with us.
Ruth Fogg: So that meant we had to sell her house and our
Ruth Fogg: house to buy a big enough house to accommodate her,
Ruth Fogg: well, that was okay. But then, at the same
Ruth Fogg: time, and I think it was in a reaction to my father's
Ruth Fogg: death, my oldest son developed chronic
Ruth Fogg: fatigue syndrome. So he was doing
Ruth Fogg: part time schooling, then going to hospital school,
Ruth Fogg: and had long spells when he couldn't get out of
Ruth Fogg: bed. At 14, I was carrying him to the toilet
Ruth Fogg: and at the same time my mother developed dementia. She had a
Ruth Fogg: stroke and then went into dementia. And there was
Ruth Fogg: no way I could cope with a
Ruth Fogg: full time team working management senior
Ruth Fogg: manager in an education department in a London borough as head of a youth
Ruth Fogg: service and be on call for a sick
Ruth Fogg: mother who kept escaping. And my
Ruth Fogg: son, my parents came from Liverpool and my mother
Ruth Fogg: would try and get out of the house to walk home. And it was a
Ruth Fogg: very, very difficult time. So something had to go.
Ruth Fogg: So, fortunately, I'd got enough years in with my
Ruth Fogg: teaching and my youth work career to take early
Ruth Fogg: retirement. So then actually building on my master's in
Ruth Fogg: counselling psychology and my diploma in counselling,
Ruth Fogg: it was an easy choice for me to explore stress,
Ruth Fogg: mental health issues because I could work from home and I could be
Ruth Fogg: here and I could see clients as
Ruth Fogg: and when. It worked for me to work around everything. So,
Ruth Fogg: yes, it was a very stressful time. It was
Ruth Fogg: probably the most stressful time in my life. But
Ruth Fogg: eventually we learned to cope. But I didn't
Ruth Fogg: have the skills that I have now, which would have been very
Ruth Fogg: useful. Yeah, I would
Joanne Lockwood: just, again, listen to what you're saying there. And
Joanne Lockwood: chronic fatigue syndrome, CFS, also
Joanne Lockwood: known as me, is a very also misunderstood
Joanne Lockwood: diagnosis as well, isn't it, people? You probably may have
Joanne Lockwood: found there's a lot of lack of understanding around that at the
Joanne Lockwood: time. It's only in more recent years has
Joanne Lockwood: that been kind of understood in a more mature way, hasn't it?
Ruth Fogg: Oh, yeah. I mean, trauma
Ruth Fogg: is unbelievable, how post traumatic stress
Ruth Fogg: can affect people. And that leads me
Ruth Fogg: into, as you know, I've just written
Ruth Fogg: my second book, which is called Tackling tough
Ruth Fogg: Times. And for the listeners out there, Jo has very
Ruth Fogg: kindly contributed her story to this, because
Ruth Fogg: tough times are tough. Sounds really
Ruth Fogg: corny, doesn't it? But it's very difficult to overcome
Ruth Fogg: tough times without support and help. And we don't
Ruth Fogg: realise the effect that they have on us at the time. Oh,
Ruth Fogg: well, it happened, so what? It's been part of your life,
Ruth Fogg: it becomes your norm and you don't realise that you can
Ruth Fogg: actually make changes. So I've got Joe's
Ruth Fogg: story, a survivor from the
Ruth Fogg: tsunami, who we both know
Ruth Fogg: who suffered incredibly
Ruth Fogg: with mental health issues and physical health.
Ruth Fogg: We also have somebody who
Ruth Fogg: has. I go goosey when I think about
Ruth Fogg: this. It was a woman who, when she was
Ruth Fogg: 13, was at her school sports day and
Ruth Fogg: she killed her best friend when she was throwing the
Ruth Fogg: javelin. The wind caught the javelin. The school hadn't
Ruth Fogg: obviously put health and safety measures into place properly, but
Ruth Fogg: just imagine living with that. I won't go
Ruth Fogg: into all the different stories. You can buy the book when
Ruth Fogg: it comes out, but tough times
Ruth Fogg: are difficult. But this
Ruth Fogg: too will pass is one of the phrases that comes to mind. But
Ruth Fogg: when we have sufficient support and help, it does make it
Ruth Fogg: easier. Yeah. It's
Joanne Lockwood: a powerful book you pulled together there, and I know both
Joanne Lockwood: those two women you mentioned and the story
Joanne Lockwood: about the javelin, I've heard that one to one with her,
Joanne Lockwood: and it's an incredible story of
Joanne Lockwood: misfortune that has had an impact on her life in
Joanne Lockwood: a very profound way and she's had to live with it
Joanne Lockwood: and deal with that and read her book and read your book to find out
Joanne Lockwood: more about that. And it's a very powerful story and I'm
Joanne Lockwood: immensely proud you asked me to take part and
Joanne Lockwood: hopefully any listen out there will find that book and we'll
Joanne Lockwood: share that where they can get hold of it in the show notes at the
Joanne Lockwood: end. So I was going back to stress. This is what we
Joanne Lockwood: started to talk about, stress in the workplace. So you work with organisations.
Joanne Lockwood: I think we've already said that one of the first things is to get people
Joanne Lockwood: to admit they are stressed and that's a realisation because of stigma. As
Joanne Lockwood: we talked about, this fear of being judged as being
Joanne Lockwood: less because you can't cope. Sharing weakness,
Joanne Lockwood: does it affect people at all ages? Is there a
Joanne Lockwood: typical age? I mean, can a five year old child have stress or is it
Joanne Lockwood: more of an adult thing? No, I see quite a lot
Ruth Fogg: of children. Children
Ruth Fogg: manifest their stress behaviorally. They don't know
Ruth Fogg: how else to deal with it. So they might not be sleeping
Ruth Fogg: because they might be scared of monsters or
Ruth Fogg: they might be being bullied or teased at school and they can't cope
Ruth Fogg: with it, but they do find it very hard to express.
Ruth Fogg: So children love tapping eft,
Ruth Fogg: which I referred to earlier, but I also give them worry
Ruth Fogg: dolls so they can tell the worry to their doll
Ruth Fogg: and put it under the pillow. And I have
Ruth Fogg: audios of Merlin the magic monkey.
Ruth Fogg: And the child is taken to meet Merlin the magic monkey in
Ruth Fogg: the magic forest. And Merlin takes away
Ruth Fogg: all their worries. And I have yucky bugs,
Ruth Fogg: worry bugs, sleepy bugs. So stories that
Ruth Fogg: children can identify with, and then the slightly older
Ruth Fogg: age range, sort of ten upwards.
Ruth Fogg: Again, they love tapping because they can do it themselves and they
Ruth Fogg: don't have to admit to their parents what's wrong. They don't have
Ruth Fogg: to tell anybody, they can just get on with it. And for them, I've
Ruth Fogg: got a Harry Potter audio, so they go to
Ruth Fogg: Hogwarts. And this is suitable for sort of year six,
Ruth Fogg: seven and upwards, depending on their
Ruth Fogg: levels of maturity. So, yes, children and
Ruth Fogg: teenagers especially, suffer
Ruth Fogg: terribly from stress and mental health because
Ruth Fogg: teenagers are trying to find their own identity and as we all
Ruth Fogg: know, that can be quite challenging. And if
Ruth Fogg: their values are different to those of their parents
Ruth Fogg: or their peer group, then that's when the
Ruth Fogg: trouble starts. And, yeah, hence my first book,
Ruth Fogg: tackling teenage mental health. Thank you for that lead in.
Joanne Lockwood: It's a pleasure. We've had loads
Joanne Lockwood: of conversations over the last couple of years at various events, and
Joanne Lockwood: if I'm really, really honest, I never realised that you were
Joanne Lockwood: deaf until one particular
Joanne Lockwood: instance. You may have said it, but I never registered that you were deaf, because
Joanne Lockwood: you managed that very well in your life with your lip
Joanne Lockwood: reading, with the way you interact with people. So I think it was only probably
Joanne Lockwood: last year's conference for the PSA where you came up to me
Joanne Lockwood: afterwards, because I did a feature during my keynote around
Joanne Lockwood: how public speakers and trainers should be more inclusive about people who
Joanne Lockwood: have hearing. A parent or a deaf. And you thank
Joanne Lockwood: me. I didn't associate you with being a decaf person,
Joanne Lockwood: so you obviously have found
Joanne Lockwood: techniques in your life through lip reading and interacting and a way
Joanne Lockwood: of. Way of getting on.
Joanne Lockwood: But I also understand that one of the things that can happen when you have
Joanne Lockwood: no hearing, it does cause you to soar into
Joanne Lockwood: yourself. And I understand one of the triggers for dementia can also
Joanne Lockwood: be deafness. So do you talk to people around
Joanne Lockwood: that as well? Not
Ruth Fogg: so much, because I think of
Ruth Fogg: my disability as being one of
Ruth Fogg: the many hidden disabilities, because
Ruth Fogg: there isn't a white stick or a wheelchair or anything
Ruth Fogg: to send out that message to say, hey, there's something wrong.
Ruth Fogg: And of course, this applies to people with asthma and all
Ruth Fogg: sorts of things. Diabetes. Great long list,
Ruth Fogg: isn't there? In terms
Ruth Fogg: of going into yourself, you tend to
Ruth Fogg: watch and try and listen
Ruth Fogg: more than perhaps another person
Ruth Fogg: would. Somebody said to me once,
Ruth Fogg: well, you're really rude, aren't you? And I said, what do you mean? He
Ruth Fogg: said, well, when you talk to me, you look me in the
Ruth Fogg: eye, but when I talk to you, you look down at my
Ruth Fogg: mouth. So I explained why,
Ruth Fogg: but it can be misconstrued. And
Ruth Fogg: also, there are so many words in the english language
Ruth Fogg: that rhyme and often I get totally the wrong end
Ruth Fogg: of the stick. I can remember being at a social event
Ruth Fogg: and it was a formal birthday party and I was sat next to a
Ruth Fogg: young woman. And as you do, you ask the question, what do you
Ruth Fogg: do? And I swear to this day, she said she was a lap
Ruth Fogg: dancer, but she wasn't. She was a tap
Ruth Fogg: dancer, but it's a conversation stopper
Ruth Fogg: and sometimes it can be very embarrassing. And
Ruth Fogg: also, equally, when people
Ruth Fogg: repeat things, if they mumble and I have to ask them more than once,
Ruth Fogg: it starts to get embarrassing and then they might say, are you
Ruth Fogg: deaf or something? And when I say yes, actually I am,
Ruth Fogg: I feel embarrassed because they're cringing and
Ruth Fogg: it's one of those things that it can be
Ruth Fogg: quite challenging, but I have no choice. This
Ruth Fogg: is me and that's it, really. So I just deal with it as
Ruth Fogg: and when. Yeah, for
Joanne Lockwood: sure, I'm a selective hearer, so I often
Joanne Lockwood: drift off in my mind when people are talking to me and I don't hear.
Joanne Lockwood: But that's more down to my lack of attention, so I have to
Joanne Lockwood: practise active listening, otherwise my mind's off the fairy
Joanne Lockwood: somewhere. But no,
Joanne Lockwood: I think, as you say, it's a hidden disability, and in the workplace,
Joanne Lockwood: we don't often consider people with these hidden disabilities and stresses
Joanne Lockwood: in their anxiety limiting beliefs, impostor syndrome,
Joanne Lockwood: as well as the physical disabilities
Joanne Lockwood: such as hearing or sight or whatever. And you say you don't have a white
Joanne Lockwood: stick, you don't have a little flag that says, move out the way, I'm deaf,
Joanne Lockwood: please. But there are a whole lot of challenges around a lot of visual
Joanne Lockwood: audible cues. You hear a train coming here, a car coming, you
Joanne Lockwood: hear a fire alarm, and people are going to be mindful of the fact that
Joanne Lockwood: you may not be able to respond to those cues in the same way everybody
Joanne Lockwood: else can. That's very true.
Ruth Fogg: I recall I was in Washington in a
Ruth Fogg: hotel and I was on my own and the fire alarm went
Ruth Fogg: off and I was totally unaware because
Ruth Fogg: once my hearing aids are out, that's it. I don't hear very much at all.
Ruth Fogg: And it was only the flashing light that alerted me
Ruth Fogg: eventually. And when I put my hearing aids in, of course there were sirens
Ruth Fogg: and goodness knows what. It was a false alarm, but it made me
Ruth Fogg: realise when I was the last person out of the building
Ruth Fogg: that perhaps I was a bit more vulnerable than I'd
Ruth Fogg: realised. But, yes,
Ruth Fogg: it can be quite challenging. I mean, my husband said, watch or
Ruth Fogg: listen. I don't like going out on my bike. I've tried to join
Ruth Fogg: lockdown, but I can't hear the cars coming up behind me.
Ruth Fogg: And it's things like that. But you adjust
Ruth Fogg: and adapt. Do you struggle with
Joanne Lockwood: phone calls or does your hearing aids work
Joanne Lockwood: okay with your phone? Thank you. That's a challenge. At the
Ruth Fogg: moment, I've just built two new phones
Ruth Fogg: because for some reason, the hearing
Ruth Fogg: aids that I have are not compatible with my phones.
Ruth Fogg: So I'm running to answer the phone, taking my hearing aid
Ruth Fogg: out, putting the phone on boost, because otherwise
Ruth Fogg: I get feedback. So, yes, it can be
Ruth Fogg: very frustrating. So text is a good way to contact me
Ruth Fogg: because I will reply to that. Yeah. And I
Joanne Lockwood: presume Zoom calls, where you have some video
Joanne Lockwood: so you can lip read like we're doing now. We're doing this with Zoom so
Joanne Lockwood: you can see my lips move as well, even though there's sometimes a bit of
Joanne Lockwood: a lag. But at least you got the visual. Yes, but
Ruth Fogg: of course, in this age of face masks, it's an
Ruth Fogg: absolute nightmare. I don't like wearing one myself
Ruth Fogg: because I don't know what people are saying unless I'm familiar with their
Ruth Fogg: voice, which when you go shopping, is highly unlikely
Ruth Fogg: and asking people to repeat themselves
Ruth Fogg: is difficult. And when I say that,
Ruth Fogg: people don't quite understand. So we'll get the Google app, which is the
Ruth Fogg: transcribe. But it's not what I'm saying because they can
Ruth Fogg: hear me. It's what they're saying, so I can't ask somebody,
Ruth Fogg: excuse me, hold on a minute. Get out. Google transcribe or take
Ruth Fogg: your mask down so I can hear you. Never
Ruth Fogg: mind. I'll just have to get my husband to do all the
Ruth Fogg: shopping, so there's. Lots of education to do still
Joanne Lockwood: on not only stress, but on
Joanne Lockwood: other hidden disabilities. And I guess in the workplace, we
Joanne Lockwood: get so caught up in our own lives, don't we? We get so caught up
Joanne Lockwood: about the sense of self, what we got to do, we often forget
Joanne Lockwood: about other people's needs. And that, I guess, also contributes
Joanne Lockwood: to stress. Yes, it does. And
Ruth Fogg: I'm aware that I'm often tense
Ruth Fogg: because I'm straining to listen. So on the television, for
Ruth Fogg: example, now, I very rarely watch anything that doesn't have
Ruth Fogg: subtitles, but it's too stressful. I'm too tense,
Ruth Fogg: straining to, however loud it is. If the people on the
Ruth Fogg: tv are not facing me or
Ruth Fogg: they're not speaking clearly, then I've had it, I've
Ruth Fogg: lost it. The same with plays. Musicals are all right because I don't need
Ruth Fogg: to know the words, but plays are very difficult to
Ruth Fogg: follow. I've only got a very limited experience
Joanne Lockwood: of hearing loss. Probably about
Joanne Lockwood: 1012 years ago, I developed what the doctors believe I had a virus or
Joanne Lockwood: an infection in my ears and my hearing
Joanne Lockwood: became very, very impaired for probably about six
Joanne Lockwood: to eight weeks while the virus infection cleared up and
Joanne Lockwood: I suddenly realised how vulnerable I was. I couldn't hear things.
Joanne Lockwood: My family laughed at me having the subtitles on the telly.
Joanne Lockwood: People had to tap me on the shoulder if they're speaking to me. I just
Joanne Lockwood: was unaware of my surroundings and that was a bit of a wake up
Joanne Lockwood: call because I'd never experienced anything like that. So whilst I
Joanne Lockwood: cannot know what it's like to be you, I've got a little bit of
Joanne Lockwood: insight as to what it would be like if it was like that for me
Joanne Lockwood: all the time. And I was fortunate that one day I woke up
Joanne Lockwood: and my hearing was completely back to normal. One day it was
Joanne Lockwood: bad, one day it was perfect again, and it was a
Joanne Lockwood: remarkable experience to have had. But now, to
Joanne Lockwood: understand, just have that small insight on someone
Joanne Lockwood: with a deafness or hearing loss is quite incredible. And also,
Joanne Lockwood: talking about going back to stress, which is the title of this,
Joanne Lockwood: one of the reasons you asked me to contribute to the book is I've had
Joanne Lockwood: a period of my life where I've held things inside and I've
Joanne Lockwood: developed my own stress and
Joanne Lockwood: it impacted my family, it impacted myself,
Joanne Lockwood: impacted my well being. And it leads you
Joanne Lockwood: sometimes to be not a nice person and you can't do anything about
Joanne Lockwood: it. It's like somebody else is taking control of your mouth or your
Joanne Lockwood: brain, and you don't want to be short,
Joanne Lockwood: sharp or moody, but you can't do
Joanne Lockwood: anything about it, can you? And that's how sometimes stress manifests are.
Ruth Fogg: Yeah, because what the mind suppresses, the body
Ruth Fogg: expresses. So if you are
Ruth Fogg: stressed, then you might have a tight chest or
Ruth Fogg: a tight throat, or you might be shaky, churning
Ruth Fogg: stomach, or you might be irritable. Your behaviour might
Ruth Fogg: change because it's locked in there and
Ruth Fogg: it needs to be released so that the mind and body are calm
Ruth Fogg: together and people forget about the mind body connection.
Ruth Fogg: The mind body connection is so important. And
Ruth Fogg: unfortunately, I blame the NHS for this, because in
Ruth Fogg: 1948, when it was created, they were talking about
Ruth Fogg: physical well being, physical health, and
Ruth Fogg: mental health has got left behind. And now
Ruth Fogg: I think mental health well, we know the
Ruth Fogg: connection. Mental health is absolutely key and we need
Ruth Fogg: to do something about it. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I work with my local NHS trust in the community
Joanne Lockwood: engagement volunteer scheme and we were talking about this the
Joanne Lockwood: other day about the lack of resources in mental health and
Joanne Lockwood: how it's the underfunded segment of the NHS still, and there's a lot of
Joanne Lockwood: pushback and I think with COVID with lockdown,
Joanne Lockwood: there's been a greater awareness of the need to look at people
Joanne Lockwood: holistically, not just physically, but also the
Joanne Lockwood: mental side, because poor mental health exacerbates
Joanne Lockwood: physical problems and it can actually, by boosting those
Joanne Lockwood: mental health, they can almost cure themselves or be more positive about their
Joanne Lockwood: outlook. And that's a skill that we talk about
Joanne Lockwood: bedside manner, we talk about the doctors showing more empathy and
Joanne Lockwood: giving more time for people. And that's all part of rebuilding people's mental health,
Joanne Lockwood: isn't it? Yes, it is, but sadly,
Ruth Fogg: awareness does not equate to action. And
Ruth Fogg: doctors, bless them, only have ten minutes per client,
Ruth Fogg: so they can't listen, they haven't got the time,
Ruth Fogg: and in their defence, they don't have the
Ruth Fogg: skills to help people to move forward themselves. They don't have
Ruth Fogg: time to train them how to deal with things. And
Ruth Fogg: it's very sad. And I'm not sure
Ruth Fogg: that the awareness raising from this
Ruth Fogg: pandemic will actually
Ruth Fogg: result in some action because we've been promised.
Ruth Fogg: I can't remember who the minister was, but last year they were going to
Ruth Fogg: put something like 30 million into mental health.
Ruth Fogg: But what does that mean? Are they going to train more counsellors, mental
Ruth Fogg: health practitioners? If so, why
Ruth Fogg: are cams, the children and adolescent
Ruth Fogg: mental health services waiting lists still six, eight,
Ruth Fogg: nine months? Teenagers are committing suicide
Ruth Fogg: because they can't see anybody and they're embarrassed, they're
Ruth Fogg: ashamed. It's really
Ruth Fogg: tragic, for sure. Do you
Joanne Lockwood: think the media could help more? We see
Joanne Lockwood: drama series on tv like EastEnders and Casualty, which are very
Joanne Lockwood: popular. They've recently done some high
Joanne Lockwood: profile characters with deaf who are deaf and the
Joanne Lockwood: impact they're having and they're running a story, I think the casualty at the moment
Joanne Lockwood: on a deaf doctor and how they're coping. Do you
Joanne Lockwood: think the media is doing enough around stress and mental health,
Joanne Lockwood: or are we still a long way from showing positive action
Joanne Lockwood: in terms of mental health in the media? I think
Ruth Fogg: the media and the soaps are absolutely
Ruth Fogg: brilliant at raising awareness of issues
Ruth Fogg: like teenage pregnancy, domestic abuse, all the sort of
Ruth Fogg: things that they actually tackle, but they're not very
Ruth Fogg: good at saying, well, this is what you can do if it's
Ruth Fogg: happening to you. I think the BBC and ITV have
Ruth Fogg: a helpline at the end of these programmes sometimes
Ruth Fogg: when things are a bit distressing. But it would be interesting to see
Ruth Fogg: how many people actually go on these
Ruth Fogg: helplines. I mean, we know that calls to childline have
Ruth Fogg: absolutely rocketed during this pandemic
Ruth Fogg: because families aren't used to being together all
Ruth Fogg: this time. And if you haven't got a garden, you've got no means
Ruth Fogg: of escape, then you are going to get on top of each other.
Ruth Fogg: And it needs some very special
Ruth Fogg: parents to keep the peace throughout
Ruth Fogg: family life. And it's so divorced
Ruth Fogg: from our, say, normality, whatever, that what it used to be,
Ruth Fogg: that it does cause a lot of stress in homes.
Ruth Fogg: So, in answer to your question, no, I don't think the media is doing
Ruth Fogg: enough, but I don't think the media actually knows what to do.
Joanne Lockwood: Okay, so we need people to sort of follow up on the what
Joanne Lockwood: next? So people like yourself bringing that into the communities, bringing
Joanne Lockwood: that into the workplace, to say, right now you have the awareness,
Joanne Lockwood: this is the next step, this is the action. So you talked about this
Joanne Lockwood: stress audit. You do. And so you would go in and
Joanne Lockwood: you would talk to various people, you would
Joanne Lockwood: understand the stress profile of the organisation and then come up with
Joanne Lockwood: that tangible action plan as a result. Is that right?
Ruth Fogg: Yes. Because it isn't until you actually start ticking
Ruth Fogg: boxes. Oh, yeah, that's me, yes. That
Ruth Fogg: you realise the relevance of a stress audit
Ruth Fogg: and it's just a tick box questionnaire. I mean, it takes five minutes
Ruth Fogg: to do. Do you take work home with you, for example? That might
Ruth Fogg: be one of the questions. And you say, oh, gosh, yes, I do. And no,
Ruth Fogg: I don't work my contracted hours. And no, I don't see my boss
Ruth Fogg: regularly or whatever it is. And then it's
Ruth Fogg: graded so they can work out. And over a certain
Ruth Fogg: percentage, then it's like, this is the red area.
Ruth Fogg: Do something about it. Or amber, be careful. And
Ruth Fogg: green, you're chilled. Because we have different personality
Ruth Fogg: types. I mean, that's a very obvious statement, but we have
Ruth Fogg: personality a, who tend to get very stressed very
Ruth Fogg: quickly. They're the ones who are hyper and agitated
Ruth Fogg: and they're fast moving and they can't sit still. And
Ruth Fogg: they're more likely to get stressed than personality B,
Ruth Fogg: who take things in their stride. It speak more slowly,
Ruth Fogg: they're much more chilled, they're far less likely to
Ruth Fogg: become ill in the workplace. So again, it comes
Ruth Fogg: back to understanding. I've lost the thread of the question.
Joanne Lockwood: Sorry, it was just the impact
Joanne Lockwood: of the work you do.
Joanne Lockwood: There's obviously a cost to sickness and absence in
Joanne Lockwood: organisations. Do you have any off the top of your head stats
Joanne Lockwood: on the number of days we're losing through stress or mental health related
Joanne Lockwood: illness? Well, let's just say before
Ruth Fogg: lockdown it was something like
Ruth Fogg: 12 billion pounds lost to stress, but per
Ruth Fogg: person it's 1035
Ruth Fogg: pounds. So if, for example, you
Ruth Fogg: have a company that's got 20,000
Ruth Fogg: workers, that's over 20,000 pounds that you're
Ruth Fogg: losing in stress related sickness absence. And
Ruth Fogg: of course, you've also got presenteeism. When people go to
Ruth Fogg: work when they shouldn't be really there, they're not well
Ruth Fogg: enough, but they're scared to go off sick in case they lose their
Ruth Fogg: job, but they're not working to their full potential,
Ruth Fogg: so that loses the company money as well. But
Ruth Fogg: the statistics show that for every
Ruth Fogg: pound invested in some form of stress management
Ruth Fogg: training, then it's a three pound return.
Ruth Fogg: So if a company has well being days
Ruth Fogg: or they have company yoga sessions
Ruth Fogg: or they do something, then happy people,
Ruth Fogg: happy places. If you're happy at work, you're going to be
Ruth Fogg: far more productive. If you feel valued and
Ruth Fogg: appreciated, your work is recognised and you're
Ruth Fogg: supported, then you're going to be far more
Ruth Fogg: productive if the opposite is in place, that
Ruth Fogg: you're abused verbally or physically and you're not
Ruth Fogg: happy and you don't enjoy your work. Not everyone can enjoy their
Ruth Fogg: work, but if you feel appreciated. Sorry, if you don't
Ruth Fogg: feel appreciated, you're not going to want to do it,
Ruth Fogg: you're not going to work or want to work hard.
Ruth Fogg: So it's a no brainer really, isn't it? It
Joanne Lockwood: is a no brainer, yeah. And nobody on their deathbed
Ruth Fogg: says, I wish I'd spent more time at work.
Joanne Lockwood: For sure they don't. Yes, we'll all have
Joanne Lockwood: those regrets of things we should have done and could have done, and
Joanne Lockwood: staying late at work was not one of them. Yes, for sure.
Joanne Lockwood: Well, thank you, Ruth. That's a great moment to finish
Joanne Lockwood: on. I'm sure the listener, I'm sure there's one
Joanne Lockwood: listener out there who's been following along with this, will agree there's
Joanne Lockwood: much to ponder and take inspiration from. So how can our
Joanne Lockwood: listeners get in touch with you? Well, bearing in
Ruth Fogg: mind what I said about using the telephone, the best
Ruth Fogg: way is through email, which is
Ruth Fogg: Ruth@stressworx.co.uk.
Ruth Fogg: And stressworx is all one word with an x on the end it's not
Ruth Fogg: K s, it's
Ruth Fogg: Worx.co.uk.
Ruth Fogg: Please feel free to look at my website. There is
Ruth Fogg: free relaxation audio on there and also an
Ruth Fogg: explanation of how the mind works, so that might help your
Ruth Fogg: listeners to understand why they're perhaps
Ruth Fogg: stressed. Excellent. So
Joanne Lockwood: get in touch with you, look at your website
Joanne Lockwood: and maybe download the stress audio
Joanne Lockwood: and destressing audio and just see if it'll help you relax.
Joanne Lockwood: Brilliant. Well, thank you for listeners for tuning in
Joanne Lockwood: and getting this far. Please do subscribe
Joanne Lockwood: to keep updated on future episodes of the Inclusion Bites podcast
Joanne Lockwood: that's bites. Please tell your friends, tell your
Joanne Lockwood: colleagues, get them to subscribe and listen to I've got a number
Joanne Lockwood: of exciting guests lined up that I'm sure you will all be inspired
Joanne Lockwood: by over the next few weeks and months. And also remember, if you'd like to
Joanne Lockwood: be a guest, please let me know. And I always welcome feedback and
Joanne Lockwood: suggestions to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: Tell me about what you want to hear on future shows or how we can
Joanne Lockwood: improve. So my name is Joanne Lockwood and it has been an absolute
Joanne Lockwood: pleasure to host this podcast for you today. I look forward to catch up with
Joanne Lockwood: you next time. Bye.