Clementine, the Mental Health app for women, launches its new Work Therapy

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RE-ENTRY Anxiety’, now part of modern-day vernacular, is the term used to describe the stress related to the fear of being unable to adapt to pre-pandemic routines. 

Clementine, the Mental Health app for women, which uses cognitive hypnotherapy to reduce stress, anxiety and build the confidence and self-belief of women, has announced the launch of its new Work Therapy; several new hypnotherapy sessions and coaching tips, created especially to support and coach women back to the ‘normal’ life and to the workplace after lockdown and the days that follow.

The Work Therapy content launches at a crucial time when anxiety about returning to the office is at an all-time high and the content has been carefully developed in response to Clementine’s community research*. Of which, a third of survey respondents reported feeling ‘unhappy’ or ‘stressed’ about returning, and over 25% believe that their employer won’t support their mental health during the transition. Most (73%) said they would like extra support in the workplace, post covid. 

Hazel Gale, Clementine’s resident hypnotherapist explains why the sessions are so effective: “We’ve been in lockdown (and almost lockdown) for so long that we’ve normalised this kind of living. Change is fundamentally scary, so heading back to ‘reality’ is naturally unnerving.” 

“On top of that, most of us associate some level of stress with work and/or socialising, so we’ll be anticipating that again now. The mind naturally seeks out the threat in order to plan for it, so we’re likely to picture our work routines/social life and just focus on all the ‘scary’ stuff; it’s the perfect situation for major catastrophizing. The work sessions use simple, but powerful cognitive hypnotherapy methods, such as visualisation, to help people recognise these so-called ‘threats’ as opportunities and turn feelings of anxiety and nervousness into that of excitement instead because it’s actually easier for the mind to do this than to revert back to a calm state.” 

Hazel continues: “For example, next time you’re picturing an in-person meeting, instead of surfacing all of your anxiety around it, you’ll be able to focus on the positive elements, such as the fact you’re wearing the velvety red lipstick that you love; finally being able to put on your favourite shoes (not your house slippers for once) and reconnecting with your ‘work wife’!”

“I tell all my clients that to make a fundamental change, you need to train your mind to think the thoughts that help you to live how you want to live. Repetition with hypnotherapy is the key. You just need to get into the right state of mind first.”

Tips to self-manage RE-ENTRY Anxiety:

  1. Practise mindful moments: The body keeps the score. When you think about returning to work again, where do you feel it? Nervous, fluttering tummy? Excited, buzzing head? Start noticing, show some kindness to those feelings, and sit with them if you can. Remember, anxious feelings are natural.

  2. Reimagine your experience: Visualise how you’d like your first day, week, month working from the office/workplace to go, including the location and all the detail. Focus on what you can influence: your responses rather than the other person e.g. you feeling confident, calm, at ease. Repeat this every night before you go to bed.

  3. Download thoughts into a journal: Try journaling for 10 minutes every day about how you’re feeling about being psychically back at work again, what it means to you, the pluses and minuses, and your hopes. This is a good thing to try before bed, it frees up your mind and can help with sleep.

  4. Managing worries: What’s worrying you about being back at work? Make a list on the left-hand side of the page. On the right, make a list of the things that would help you to feel more at ease about your worries.

Kim Palmer, Founder of Clementine, comments: “We’re proud to be able to launch our new Work Therapy content and make it accessible to women. Quite frankly women have had a tough time of it during the pandemic, some of them even having to take a voluntary furlough and pause their careers, so they can replace childcare.”

Kim continues: “We’ve seen anxiety and stress around returning to work and ‘real life’ bubbling up in our community for a while and women’s mental health is suffering as a result; it’s simply not good enough. As a mental health app for women, by women, we are perfectly positioned to help and it was a no brainer for us to prioritise this in our roadmap and support.”

As part of the launch, Clementine recently hosted a FREE Breakfast Briefing with business leaders from Michael Page Recruitment, Corporate Wellness Platform Heka and Programme Director at We Create Space to further explore this topic. Catch up and watch the recording here (Passcode: M%bmX88p).

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FemTech, Wearable TechAnja Streicher