Tea and Empathy

Inspired by the award-winning social media support group for doctors, here we bring you sources of peer support that you may find helpful. We know support from colleagues is important in managing work-related stress and difficulties – and the internet brings with it access to a wider range of colleagues and support.

We asked doctors to recommend resources they have found useful in promoting their wellbeing and health and are delighted to bring you this collection of peer reviewed and recommended resources. This page brings together useful resources for seeking support and managing your mental health. Whilst all resources have been carefully chosen and reviewed and are felt to be useful the Phoenix Programme can not take responsibility for their content and they should always be used alongside appropriate support from your GP or health care professional.

Podcasts

• On Being is a Peabody Award-winning public radio conversation and podcast, a Webby Award-winning website and online exploration, a publisher and public event convener. On Being opens up the animating questions at the centre of human life: What does it mean to be human, and how do we want to live?

• Tea & Empathy is a peer support network of thousands of health care workers that aims to foster an atmosphere of compassion and support across the world of medicine.

Websites

• Action for Happiness: Website and Facebook page with ongoing actions for happiness.
• Project Happiness is a website and Facebook page
• Art of Brilliance: offers free resources such as e-books and podcasts which help you be your best self and find happiness
• Coaching and mentoring with GP-S: GP-S is a free peer coaching and mentoring service for all GPs in Nottinghamshire. GP-S can be used by anyone who would like to explore ways to develop themselves. This could be personally, professionally or within your career. They aim to build resilience in the General Practice workforce by allowing you time and space to develop your personal goals.

Books

• Impostor Syndrome, by Valerie Young: For the millions of professional women (and men) who experience the confidence-zapping “Impostor Syndrome,” Valerie Young offers an empowering plan to overcome the needless self-doubt that keeps them from feeling as intelligent and competent as everyone else knows they are.
• The Miracle Morning: The doctor who recommended this to our site commented that ‘practising this every morning has changed my life’.
• Mindset, by Carol Dweck: Dweck explains why it’s not just our abilities and talent that bring us success, but whether we approach them with a fixed or growth mindset.
• Managing Your Mind: The mental fitness guide – sets out the strategies that will stretch, strengthen, and tune your mind, to help you cope with the rigours of everyday life.
• Ruby Wax: A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled – “Outrageously witty, smart and accessible, Ruby Wax shows ordinary people how and why to change for good. With mindfulness advice for relationships, for parents, for children and for teenagers, and a six-week course based on her studies of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy with Mark Williams at Oxford University, A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled is the only guide you need for a healthier, happier life.”

Blogs

• I’m Just a GP: A GP blog. “For those who truly value General Practice in the UK”.
• GP and Human: A GP’s blog about being a GP, a mum, a sufferer of burnout and depression and, most of all, being a human.
• Broken Toy: Emergency medicine consultant’s blog about his work-related breakdown
• Physician Burnout: GP blog about burnout, prevention and treatment.
• A Better NHS: blog by Dr Johnathon Tomlinson, an NHS GP in Hackney. “Most of my posts are about the relationships between GPs and patients and how health policy impacts on that”.