Lindsey Appleby Flynn - Connect 2 Care

Lindsey Appleby-Flynn (mental health expert for Connect2Care) kindly spoke with Elbha Purcell (Director of Dietetics and Wellbeing, Aramark Northern Europe) about her experience of working with people suffering from mental health disorders and why TAKE15 is so important for everyone to be involved in.

Elbha: Lindsey, I would firstly like to thank you for joining our TAKE15 meet the expert session, and would love if you could tell us a little about yourself.

Lindsey: My name is Lindsey Appleby-Flynn and I work at Connect2Care, which is a division of Hit Training, we partner with Aramark on lots of things and one of those things is training and support around mental health and wellbeing and in particular training First Aiders for Mental Health in the workplace.

Let me tell you a little bit about myself, I am a First Aider for Mental Health within my own organisation and I am FAMH Instructor, so I train other people to do the same. I also ASIST trained which is applied suicide intervention skills trained, which means I can support individuals who are actively suicidal to be able to find a turning point to. Prior to moving into work based learning, I worked for a number of years in various different mental health settings, from forensic secure units, working with individuals who had been detained under the mental health due to the severity of their mental health problems. To managing a community mental health team for those living within the community who had severe and enduring mental health problems. I have supported individuals with every type of mental health condition or disorder and have a wealth of knowledge and expertise in this sector.

Which is why I was so pleased when I was asked to support Aramark’s take 15 campaign. I am passionate about promoting positive mental health and well-being within the workplace and this initiative is an incredibly beneficial one and something that should be utilised all through the year, not only when we are celebrating World Mental Health day.

Elbha: We are delighted to have your support for our TAKE15 campaign, from your perspective what are the benefits of taking a break?

Lindsey: It’s very easy to get bogged down with work and wanting to achieve certain objectives within a certain time frame that we can end up convincing ourselves that we just don’t have time to take a break but it’s a well-researched and proven fact that taking breaks can have a positive impact on mental wellbeing, it can improve productivity and boost performance.

Research has also show that short breaks from work can reduce or prevent stress, help to improve performance throughout the day and reduce the need for a long period of recovery at the end of the day. So in short, taking these breaks will help you to function better both in work and after work and will have a really positive impact on your mental health and wellbeing to boot. What not to like?

 A study by Korpela, et al(2016) found that taking lunchtime breaks and detaching from work, increases levels of energy at work and decreases exhaustion. Furthermore, one year later it was found to increase vigour and increase energy levels over time.

I see that as part of this initiative, Aramark have even come up with lots of different activities to do as part of the take 15 campaign and in your 15 minute break. I was truly blown away when I saw the amount of effort that has gone into this campaign over the years. It’s amazing to see large organisations/employers really understanding the impact that work can have on all of our mental health and wellbeing and being so invested in supporting their staff with their wellbeing.

Elbha: Couldn’t agree more, as you mentioned we have put forward some suggestions of how people can TAKE15, what types of things do you find particularly beneficial and relaxing when you take a break?

Lindsey: Taking a relaxing break, such as the desk yoga or breathing exercises can help to reset your mood and return you to your baseline state, eliminating stresses that have built up over the course of the day so far.

A social break such as grabbing a coffee and a chat has been proven to be incredibly beneficial to our mental health, it also helps us to feel connected which is one of the NHS recommended 5 steps to wellbeing, it’s great for sharing experience and learning things about colleagues that are not completely work related, it gives us the opportunity to chat, smile and laugh and has been linked to feeling of positivity when returning to work.

Taking even just a minute or 2 at various times during the day to practice deep breathing exercises is incredibly beneficial. Breathing exercises have a wealth of positive benefits both to our physical and mental health but one really simple explanation to help people to understand the benefits is that, we have a nerve that runs from our gut to our brains called the vagus nerve, its where most of our neurotransmitter that help to make us feel good, that are created in our gut, travel up to the brain from. So as an example Serotonin, which is our happy hormone travels from the gut to the brain via the vagus nerve. When we do deep breathing exercises and we extend our diaphragm, we stimulate the vagus nerve, which encourages it to send some of these neurotransmitter up into our brain, as we are telling it to get to work by stimulating it.

Getting outside and getting sunlight and even a bit of exercise is another fantastic benefit of taking at least a 15 minute break during the day. Sunlight goes into our eyes, then into our brain and sends a signal down our vagus nerve to our gut to tell it to make Serotonin to make us feel happy, this is why we feel so happy when were in the sunshine and why some of us feel down when the nights start drawing in and we get less sunshine.

Elbha: Lindsey I would again like to thank you for taking the time to support our campaign and share some of your learnings around the benefits of taking a break, before we finish up is there anything else you would like to add?

Lindsey: So in summation, I am thrilled to be supporting the Take15 campaign in celebration of World Mental Health day, which is now in its 6th year and is going from strength to strength. If you all had all day to listen to me, I could spend hours talking to you about the benefits. This is a fantastic campaign, do get behind it for your own benefit and remember to build it into your regular routine, every day from here on in.

Good luck with it guys, you really will see the benefits.