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Portugal Retreat

26 – 30 July 2024, Portugal

Feeling burnt out?

Join us in Portugal for a special retreat which will leave you feeling revitalised and equip you with powerful tools to handle stress and build resilience.

Our 5 day retreat is an opportunity to assess your resilience, nourish the mind and body with yoga and breathwork and equip yourself with strategies to transform stress to success. 

During these 5 days you will:

  • Connect to your body through yoga practices and breathwork
  • Gain insights on how to modify or adapt your yoga practice to your abilities
  • Understand your personal stress profile, recognise burnout signs and develop a personal resilience toolkit.
  • Connect with like-minded people
  • Immerse yourself in nature, relax by the pool and rejuvenate
  • Eat nourishing, locally sourced food to cleanse and nurture the body
  • Renew your energy and reignite your flame

We like to keep our group size small for more personalised support and connection, therefore our maximum is 12 people.

Others have left our retreats feeling…

“a renewed sense of purpose, relaxed and centred, supported, refreshed and empowered to make positive changes in my life..”

BOOK NOW

Measuring and improving mental resilience at Zipline

‘’We work in a fast paced, ambiguous and volatile yet exciting environment. For us, managing risk from burnout is a top priority. AURA has enabled us to set a baseline and cadence for measuring and monitoring mental resilience so we can proactively take action to remedy areas where it is compromised on a personal and workplace level. The uptake from the team is consistently very high each quarter as the insights gained from AURA are so beneficial to building resilience in our environment.“

– Madeline Stillman, Head of People & Culture

… Read More»

New WHO guidelines on workplace mental health

An exciting and important step forward in workplace mental health with the World Health Organisation’s new guidelines. These guidelines promote an integrated and systemic approach to mental health at work with 3 levels of intervention; Prevent, protect and promote, and support.  Its great to see the strong focus on the need to take a systemic approach through taking action at both the employee and employer level, with psychosocial risk management as a key strategy for organisations   – something that has been a core part of the psychological research into workplace stress for decades now.

What does this mean for organisations?

If you’re looking to implement a workplace mental health initiative, the guidelines suggest;

  • Investing in a programme that provides data insight into the root causes of stress and poor mental health so that these can be addressed or mitigated.  Its much better (and more cost effective) to protect people from psychological harm in the first place than dealing with the consequences and providing reactive support
  • Involve employees in action planning and implementation around how to create healthier workplaces e.g. get them involved in designing team protocols, role design, goal setting
  • Provide individuals with the awareness and skills to manage stress and promote positive mental health using a psychological, behavioural or social approach. For example, a credible tool to help them recognise the need to take action, unhealthy habits or thinking styles and help them pinpoint practical steps for improvement.
  • Interventions can include activities directed at teams, recognising the diverse nature of challenges faced and need for a localised approach
  • Managers should be trained in how to support their employees’ mental health, developing the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours to do so effectively

More information

You can download the joint WHO/ILO policy brief here.

The full guidelines are available here. 

Get in touch for a chat to understand how to implement a practical and impactful programme in your organisation.

Enabling employees to thrive through challenging times in an executive search firm

“During such unprecedented times where many of us are finding their way in the new normal on a daily basis, AURA’s insights helped take stock and reflect. The coaching session provided me with a deeper understanding of where my state of mind is at, where I may need to make changes and most importantly ideas and solutions to help me improve my quality of life both inside and outside of work. Very useful programme, would highly recommend to others.”

– Director, Leathwaite

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Launch of AURA 2.1

Following the launch of AURA in 2015, it has been used very successfully in many organisations to gain data-driven insights into stress and implement focused remedies to build both collective and individual resilience. By pinpointing hotspots and shining a light on issues impeding resilience, which tend to go unrecognised, it has provided a confidential yet practical channel for taking action and led to real improvement in both the short and long term.

… Read More»

Are your employees languishing? What can you do?

Nearly 2 years after the COVID-19 crisis began, there is no doubt that it has changed our world. Some might say it has triggered the motivation needed to reinvent business models and affect positive change — but what has been the impact of the unrelenting stress on employees?

In this article, we share some data-driven insights from over 1800 resilience assessments using our AURA tool and practical tips into what companies should be doing.

Everyday we read about the rising prevalence in burnout, urging companies to give employees ‘wellbeing days’, access to even more employee benefits and reduce working hours to help them destress and recharge. Are these the right remedies? Are they really going to have an impact?

… Read More»

Feeling burned out? This is for you…

Resilience retreat Oct 2021 by Austen Advisory

Click through the brochure above for full details

Feeling burned out? In need of a proper break to recharge the batteries?  Want to learn some practical tools to navigate upcoming stresses and challenges?

Psychologist & resilience specialist, Rachel Austen has teamed up with a yoga teacher and wellbeing coach to run a resilience retreat in Snowdonia, Wales.  

… Read More»

Leveraging the power of gratitude for mental wellness – interview with Thrive Global

I was delighted to be interviewed by Thrive Global and Authority Magazine about the science behind gratitude as a tool for mental wellness and how to put it into practice. Here are a couple of snippets:

“When we are in a positive emotional state, we are more open to possibilities and solution focused.”

Gratitude ping pong. This is a fun one for groups — with your team for example. You simply do a quick fire round of 1 thing you’re grateful for. It can be very small things and the more you do it, the more it stretches your brain to think of things.

Check out the full interview here

Rachel Austen, Chartered Occupational Psychologist

Accelerating the growth of future global leaders of a leading international bank

“I have been on many leadership programmes and this was by far the most valuable development process I have ever gone through. I found it extremely thought provoking and had a very positive experience! My report was extremely insightful and a very accurate reflection of me. I have already started applying some of the insights to help handle a challenging situation I am currently facing.”

– Country CEO

… Read More»

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