🌿 The power of taking tiny steps
This month: Taking tiny steps to feel better, announcing an exciting new collaboration and tools for Stress Awareness Month #LittleByLittle
Photo: My iPhone, Wales, United Kingdom, April 2023
🌿 Hello friend!
Welcome to our April issue of The Worry Tree - there’s Spring energy in the air and we’re here with another opportunity for growth, reflection, and connection. 🙏
As ever, I'm truly grateful for your presence here, whether you are new this month or have been with us for years. Thank you to everyone who responded to last month’s newsletter! We love to hear from our readers and so first of all we have a simple question today to help shape the content of future editions to better meet your needs.
Your input will help us continue to build a community focused on supporting one another and navigating worry and anxiety together.
This month, we’re excited to be embarking on a new collaboration with the team at Carerhood, an incredible resource for carers offering support, guidance, and a sense of community. Whether you're a full-time carer or someone supporting a loved one part-time, Carerhood provides valuable insights, tips, and resources to help you navigate the challenges of caregiving. If you’re a carer, or supporting someone else who is a carer, be sure to check out their website for articles, videos, and other helpful content.
This month on our YouTube channel and over on Instagram, we're also going to be shining a light on Stress Awareness Month. The theme of making small changes that accumulate towards managing stress resonates deeply with me. Because let's face it, it's the small steps, the consistent practices, that lead to lasting change.
Whether it's incorporating mindfulness into our daily routines, practicing gratitude, or engaging in self-care activities, these small steps can have a profound impact on our stress levels and overall mental health. Because there's power in consistency and showing up for ourselves on a regular basis.
Making small steps towards big changes is going to be an ongoing theme here at The Worry Tree for the next few months and we can’t wait to share more! In the meantime, we hope that the tools and resources below, focusing on managing stress and overwhelm, will be helpful as you navigate through the month of April.
And if you come across a resource you think other people in this community might find helpful - please do share it with us in the comments below!
Thank you for being here. See you next month!
- Louise x
PS, if you know someone who would find this kind of email supportive, please share this with them too, I know I'd appreciate the thought from a friend. 🙏
Practical tools and techniques to help manage stress
Photo by Tobi on Canva
Here are a few resources that I’ve been finding helpful recently and wanted to share with you, this month all around managing stress:
Becoming a carer can be an incredibly stressful time in our lives. Our friends over at Carerhood have created this fantastic resource to support you if you care for someone for the long or the short term. There’s a lot to take in, and a lot of support on offer via their website, but we found their video resource library, and especially this video on relieving carer stress really useful. (5-minute watch)
This years’ Stress Awareness Month is all about how even the smallest steps can help us feel less stressed and overwhelmed. This short but powerful piece from Manchester Mind is about the little steps we can all take to help manage our stress levels. (2-minute read)
Stress is normal and can even be healthy when you have the skills to manage it effectively. Relief comes when you’re able to overcome your fears, worries, and anxiety. Try this bitesize podcast episode from Dr Rangan Chatterjee where he shares some powerful tools to reduce stress and anxiety. (17-minute listen)
I read this book by Emily Nagoski a couple of years ago and it has stayed with me (it’s recommended highly by Brene Brown, so it must be good). Emily shares her wisdom, alongside practical tools and techniques that will help end the cycle of overwhelm and exhaustion, and confront the obstacles that stand particularly between women and their wellbeing. It’s a really good book and I’d highly recommend it. (A longer read)
🌿 Progress: Latest updates from WorryTree
Photo: Image of our WorryTree app, April 2024
By now you should have been able to update your WorryTree app to Version 4! Here are some of the changes we’ve made:
Let’s Get Started! We’d noticed that people who are new to WorryTree weren’t making the most of all the features. So we created a seven-day challenge delivered via WhatsApp or SMS. This has been so effective in leading new people through our app, that we’ve built a new section on the homescreen. Here you’ll find a short video and instructions for how to sign up to the free challenge. Our intention is to make it as easy as possible to use WorryTree.
Animation. We’ve added a little touch of animation into WorryTree when you add a worry. We wanted to highlight what an achievement it is every time you manage a worry! Each time you use this tool you’re a step closer to taking control of that overthinking habit.
Background Upgrades. Every time we update WorryTree we’re upgrading things in the background to make sure we stay in line with all of the Google and Apple policies for security and usability. This release is no exception!
New Premium Upgrade Process. We’re using a new plugin to manage premium subscriptions for our WorryTree Plus community. This shouldn’t impact our existing community, but if you do have any problems using WorryTree following this update please get in touch with us at hello@worry-tree.com.
If you haven’t downloaded the new update yet then you can download it here if you have an Android phone or tablet, or here if you have an Apple device.
We're committed to helping you feel more calm and in control of your overthinking, by using effective tools that you can practice anywhere. We believe that worrying gets in the way of you making the most of this one, precious life.
If you have any questions or ideas, please get in touch below!
🌿 Here’s a few more ways we can help you:
Try our Whatsapp and SMS course, 30 Days to Stop Worrying. Learning to worry less is simple, but it isn’t easy. Small, daily consistent steps over time will make all the difference, which is why I created this new 30-day programme bringing you gentle daily prompts to your phone every morning.
Our WorryTree Guided Workbook is an interactive downloadable journal helping you to build a consistent, long-term practice to manage your worried thoughts. You’ll work through a series of self-guided exercises based on what we’ve learned about worry and anxiety over the years.
Remember…
If you're struggling at the moment, then know that asking for help is a sign of strength not of weakness. Contact someone you can trust like your Doctor, a friend or a relative, or text SHOUT to 85258 (UK) to start a conversation with a crisis support volunteer.
Oh Louise how utterly delighted I was to read this latest email as I care for both my elderly parents, (dad has dementia and mum really struggles with him and her own health,) so your links to Carerhood were just so timely and helpful. Your whole understanding of our worries and complicated lives is just spot on, thank you so much xxx Rachel Hill xxx