At Prospect Hospice, we provide outstanding, personalised and compassionate care for everyone in Swindon, Marlborough and the surrounding areas affected by a life-limiting illness, completely free of charge. For more than 40 years, we’ve been a dedicated, non-hospital, end-of-life care service for patients and their loved ones - around the clock, every day of the year. Our mission is to ensure that anyone can access the best possible expert care whenever and wherever they need it – whether at the hospice or in their own home. As a charity, we only exist because of the generosity and support of our amazing local community.
Find out about the range of end-of-life care services that we offer to patients and their families. These delivered free of charge and are designed to provide compassionate, personalised support during every stage of a life-limiting illness in every kind of care setting, to anyone who needs it.
We couldn’t do what we do without considerable support from our local community. Find out all the different ways in which you can support Prospect Hospice, including fundraising, volunteering and purchasing from our shops. All contributions are greatly appreciated and enables us to deliver care that is free of charge to our patients and their families.
Our café sits at the heart of our hospice in Wroughton and serves a range of delicious home cooked meals to suit all tastes. Whether you're looking to catch up with friends over lunch or relax with coffee and cake, our Heart of the Hospice café has you covered.
Whether shopping with us in person or online, or donating your pre-loved goods, we thank you for supporting us through our shops where you help to raise around £2million a year for Prospect Hospice.
We pride ourselves on being a great place to work and we're always looking for outstanding people to join our team at the hospice across all areas of the charity.
Prospect Hospice is the leading provider of education and training for end-of-life care in Swindon and north Wiltshire. Working closely with you, our colleagues within partner organisations, we want to ensure that the very best care is available to everyone facing the end of life. This is why we provide education and development opportunities, all of which aim to encourage learning and build confidence in end of life care and support.
With thanks to our colleagues at
What are anxiety, worry and stress? What do they feel like? What might cause them, and how can you reduce their impact?
It is important to remember that feeling anxious, worried or stressed is normal – we all talk about feeling tense or worried at times. It is a normal response to situations that appear threatening to us. At a certain level, anxiety can be beneficial and help us to perform well or cope in an emergency.
Too much anxiety is not helpful, however. This can occur when we feel unable to cope or to resolve a situation. Our body will try to deal with the situation by triggering the ‘fight, flight or freeze’ response, which leads to physical symptoms you may recognise, such as a faster heartbeat; feeling dizzy or light-headed; breath speeding up, or feeling short of breath; having butterflies in your stomach or feeling sick; sweating and tingling in the hands or feet. When this happens, you may feel like you are losing control, and tell yourself you are going to faint or have a heart attack.
You may find it hard to concentrate or difficult to relax, or become irritable or emotional, struggle to work or sleep, and adopt unhelpful habits such as smoking, drinking or taking drugs.
How can you manage your anxiety?
You can take control of your anxiety by understanding what it is and which situations or issues in particular cause you to feel intense anxiety. We are all different, and what one person may find anxiety-inducing, another may not.
Once you understand what causes you anxiety and how it manifests itself for you, you can start to work on reducing the physical symptoms.
Understanding
Think about what causes your stress or anxiety. It can help to write down what was going on when you started to feel anxious. Perhaps keep a diary so you can review how often you start to feel anxious and what causes those feelings.
Managing the physical symptoms
Think about your lifestyle and work out if there are ways you can reduce the pressure on yourself. Make sure you eat a well-balanced diet, get enough sleep, take time for yourself – perhaps engage in a hobby – and take regular exercise.
Practice relaxation. Relaxation can take a variety of forms – find the one that works for you. Yoga, Qigong or Tai Chi are gentle forms of exercise that teach breathing techniques to help slow down your breath and heart rate. CDs, Youtube clips or apps provide a variety of relaxation techniques that can be enjoyed at home.
Complementary therapies such as massage, reflexology, reiki and aromatherapy can help to provide some time out and relaxation.
Exercise can help by increasing your overall health and sense of wellbeing. Regular participation in exercise has been shown to decrease overall levels of tension, to elevate and stabilise mood, and improve sleep and self-esteem. About five minutes of aerobic exercise can begin to stimulate anti-anxiety effects.
Distraction techniques such as reading a book, watching TV or listening to music may also help.
Further help can be accessed through your GP, who will have information on talking therapies services in your area.
Useful resources
www.anxietycare.org.uk
www.anxietyuk.org.uk
www.mind.org.uk
Mindfulness and meditation downloads
www.headspace.com – a free taster with buy in options
Calm – a series of free guided meditations and sleep stories with buy-in options
Self Anxiety Management (SAM) – a free app with advice and techniques