Mental health for firefighters and myth-busting mindfulness

# Podcast

# Mental and Physical Health

Mental health for firefighters and myth-busting mindfulness

Amy Polly is the self-styled 'Mindfulness Rebel'. In a world of very serious, very blue, mental health information, she is a welcome shot of pink. She's the former Strategic Lead for Mental Health & Wellbeing for the Fire Service, and has since worked with organisations like Heineken, Bupa, Sweaty Betty, National Grid and many others.

She's on a mission to make mindfulness more accessible and inclusive and joins us for this conversation where we discuss:

Her grandfather’s addiction to alcohol and how it informed her behaviour to always try and make people smile

The importance of her supportive parents and having a support network

How she’s embraced thinking differently as an adult

How she left a solid, 19 year career in accountancy to start working for herself in mindfulness and wellbeing

The shift she felt working for the Fire Service, contributing to a bigger picture

The extreme challenges of creating wellbeing programmes in the Fire Service

The measures she brought in to support fire fighters

The basics of creating a mentally healthy workforce and how it’s not the things you might think

Her connection to mindfulness and how it became a passion of hers as a proactive measure for wellbeing

Personal days and bringing the human elements to business

How Mindfulness isn’t ‘hippy dippy stuff’, it’s brain training

Some myth busting around Mindfulness

Amy leads Rob through a mindfulness exercise

Rob’s reflections after the exercise

Her advice to leaders for embedding wellbeing in their businesses

How motherhood is the hardest thing she’s ever done and her ‘Mindfulness for Mums’ programme

The loneliness of being a mum and the taboo of talking about birth trauma

Rob shares a rather unfortunate parenting story and how it informed his perspective on parents in business

The ‘return to the office’ push and the potential negative impacts for some of the workforce

Follow Amy on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amypolly/

Visit: amypolly.com

Follow Rob on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-warren/

Mental health for firefighters and myth-busting mindfulness

Mental health for firefighters and myth-busting mindfulness

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