ISWAN’s Good Mental Health Guides provide some practical advice to prepare crew for every day challenges that can be difficult to deal with when removed from your familiar support networks. The resources also help you to improve your wellbeing on a daily basis with straightforward exercises and useful tools for coping when life gets tough.
As well as practising activities that help protect our wellbeing, it is also important you do what you can to ensure your living and working conditions are protected. Working in poor conditions far from home can have adverse affects on our overall health.
This audio relaxation exercise for seafarers combines muscle relaxation with the controlled breathing technique. Practising them together helps your mind to associate relaxation with controlled breathing. This means that when you need to relax quickly and easily you can take a slow deep breath in, from the bottom of your lungs, remind yourself to relax and release the tension from your muscles. Like any new skill, relaxation does take time to learn.
Practise every day at least once a day for 10 days to 2 weeks to get the most from the technique. This exercise lasts 15 minutes.
Take a look at the useful links to see how union membership and membership of professional bodies can help to support you through employment related issues.
If you are feeling depressed, lonely or unhappy and would like someone to talk to, in your own language, then our team is here to listen to you 24 hours a day. Talking to someone about things that are worrying you can help you see your situation and options more clearly. We are here to listen to you for as long as you need.
