Radio Reps with York Hospital Radio

Radio Reps are small self-help activities that can make a big difference if practiced and used often.

Sometimes the feature may include interviews with a guest to talk about tips they have found useful to manage their own challenges in life.

Why develop Radio Reps?

Physical health conditions naturally cause distress for a lot of people. Feeling distressed can also make living with a physical health condition harder.

For some of us, self-help exercises can support us to manage unexpected or unwelcome challenges in life. Sometimes it helps to hear how others manage things.

All Radio Reps are based on psychological theories of how our minds work, and what we can do to help ourselves. 

We want to share these in as many ways as possible, with an invitation to see whether they can help you.

Are Radio Reps for me?

Radio Reps are for anyone in our Trust community who is interested in psychological self-help ideas, whether you are a patient, family member, carer, friend or colleague.

How can I listen to Radio Reps?

Radio Reps are broadcast on York Hospital Radio every Saturday at 5.20pm

How can I learn more?

All Radio Reps are available on this website for you to listen to as often as you would like.

In 2025, we are developing webinars for people who would like the next level of self-care knowledge and skills. We are calling those our Core Workout Webinars and they will help to explain some of the theories behind the Reps, as well as other self-help ideas. These will be advertised here, on the radio, and around the hospital sites when developed.

How can I help to develop Radio Reps and Core Workout Webinars?

We want to make Radio Reps and Core Workout Webinars as helpful as possible for our Trust community. Please give us your feedback via the link on the Radio Reps page.  

When you have a health condition, you might also have a lot of symptoms or changes to manage. You could be living with pain, fatigue or breathlessness amongst other things. You may have a challenging treatment regime, with a lot of appointments and disruption to your usual routine, or uncertainty about the future. Overall, your life could have changed a lot. 

It’s natural to be concerned about your health and to worry about the impact of these changes on you and those around you. It’s common to feel that you don’t recognise parts of yourself or your life as you did before.  Adapting to all of those things is a lot to manage.

Why think about thinking?

At school we learn about different parts of our bodies and physical health, but learning about the role our minds have in this is much more recent. Without a guide to our minds and some skills in that area, our physical health can be much harder to manage. This does not mean that things are all in your mind, the struggles in physical health are very real. It means that knowing a thing or two about your mind and how it works can help you to manage the other things that you have on your plate.

To give you a flavour of this, our first Rep is a playful look at our thinking.

Just don’t think about it.

Has anyone ever said to you to stop thinking or worrying about something? Have you ever said that to yourself, or to someone else?

We know that having our minds focus on our difficulties can increase our distress, so it’s a really natural thing to say. The difficulty is, it’s impossible.

Here’s a little exercise that you can try yourself, or invite other people to try.

Getting ready to focus

Start by making yourself as comfortable as possible. Let your mind know to pay attention to what you’re doing, by holding yourself in an alert position if you can. Usually this means supporting your head to look forward, with your shoulders back. Give your shoulders a quick roll if it helps.

The exercise

For the next 10 seconds, concentrate on your thoughts and make sure you don’t think about a blue rabbit. You can think about anything else that you want to, anything at all. Just not a fluffy, cute blue, big-eyed rabbit.

Try this for 10 seconds.

Noticing what happened

How did you do? What did you notice? Did anything interesting happen? 

Usually, our minds really push against this, and one of two things happens:

We think about the rabbit more

or

We have to work really, really hard to think about something else, which is very hard work.

Why is this exercise a Radio Rep?

This exercise is the first Radio Rep because it’s important to recognise that controlling our thoughts in this way is just not possible for most people.  Criticising ourselves about this is really criticising our minds for doing what they’re built to do.

if it’s hard to just stop thinking about an imaginary rabbit, how hard is it to just stop thinking about the tough stuff? Nobody wants to be thinking about things that are hard, or upsetting, or scary, but it is part of what our minds do, and it takes huge effort to wrestle our minds off those things, and as soon as we stop wrestling, the thoughts pop back up, like a ball in the sea.

What is more workable?

A different way is to learn to let thoughts come and go, without giving them all our attention, or trying to stop them. Many future Radio Reps are exercises that can help to develop those skills. It does take some practice to feel stronger with this, a bit like going to the gym for your body, which is why we’re calling them Radio Reps. Finding the exercises that work best for you can be a bit like going shopping to find the right fit, and we will include lots of different options.  

Problem-solving minds

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to focus on the things that are going well in life? Have you noticed how often our minds focus on problems? Have you wondered why they do that?

Our minds focus on problems to be helpful. There may be times when we might disagree about the helpfulness part! It is natural for a human mind to look for problems, and to then try to solve them. It is part of our survival and safety centre If we spot problems quickly and fix them, it’s helpful, right?

Sometimes

It is useful for us and works well with “out there” problems. Like things that are happening now or soon, and things that need logical problem-solving and have practical solutions. Examples of these are the bus breaking down, or a washing machine needing fixing, or locking ourselves out. We need problem solving to get through the steps to a solution or find help as quicky as possible. Our minds are geared up for this.

When it’s not very helpful

What about things that don’t have an answer, can’t be easily solved or lie further ahead in time? Lots of problems that we face fit into this category. These include many “inside” problems, things that happen inside our minds or bodies. They may include other things in life that don’t have a straightforward solution. There may be nothing we can do to change these problems for a long time, if at all.

There are many examples of this is the world of physical health. One is waiting for results, or maybe feeling scared or angry. Our problem-solving mind notices that there is an issue and jumps in to help. It might try to make the difficult thoughts or feelings go away. It may go round and round, noticing the problem and trying to fix it over and over again and again. A bit like that washing machine that is stuck on spin! Exhausting!

We know, thanks to the blue rabbit, that trying to just not think about things doesn’t work. So, what do we do when our thoughts are spinning like that?

Guiding our attention

One thing that can help in moments like this is to gently bring our mind back to now. There is a lot of research showing how this can help us to manage our thoughts and feelings. It helps us to focus our attention to work for us, rather than automatically going round and round.

Finding the self-help that works for you

There are many exercises that can help us to develop this ability. We will offer a selection during the Radio Reps. We hope that they could be useful to you, though probably not all will. Please pick the ones that are best for you. Some exercises, like this one, use senses, or a certain focus. If this is not accessible to you, we hope that other choices are. If you would like to help us to develop the Reps, please leave us feedback and suggestions below.

Getting ready

Start by making yourself as comfortable as possible. Let your mind know to pay attention to what you’re doing – sit in an alert position if you can. Usually this means supporting your head to look forward, with your shoulders back. Give your shoulders a quick roll if it helps.

The exercise

This exercise brings our attention back into the present moment, using our five senses. I can be helpful to count down the steps on a hand, if you’re remembering them.

Noticing what you see

To start, I invite you to look around you and notice five things that you can see right now. It can help to say them out loud to yourself, or in your mind use the phrase “I can see….” for each one. We are deliberately putting our attention into what we can see.

Noticing what you touch

When you’ve done that, you could go through four things you can touch. It might be that you can you feel the texture of what you’re sitting on or your clothes. You might be able to feel a breeze. Again, start each one with “ I can feel….” To help you to really notice it.

Noticing what you hear

Then move on to three things you can hear by noticing the sounds that are around you. Our brain filters out most of what is happening around us becuse we just can’t pay attention to everything. Try to tune in now to the sounds about you. again starting with “ I can hear…..” Try to notice the variety of sounds, and their quality.

Noticing what you smell

Next, you could move on to two things you can smell. This can be a tricky one, again we are used to filtering most smells out of our awareness. You could notice the smell of your clothes, a drink or snack, or any smells on the air

Noticing what you taste

Finally, notice bring your attention to your taste bud and notice 1 thing you can taste:. What are you tasting right now? If this is hard, you could imagine the taste of your favourite meal. You could imagine what you most recently ate or drank.

Noticing what happened

Once you have noticed all of our senses, you could roll your shoulders again. How was the washing machine mind through that exercise? Did you notice anything?

It’s very common for our attention to be snagged in an exercise like this and wander. It's common for it to seek out problems! Noticing that this is happening is part of the skill of guiding attention and, with more practice it gets easier. From grounding in the present, we have more of a chance of choosing what we think about next.

Our reps so far have been about thinking. This is important because our minds naturally focus on problems and challenges. We can’t stop this from happening. What we can do is avoid getting stuck for long periods of time, thinking about difficulties that we can’t resolve.

Noticing where our thoughts have gone is a big part of developing this skill.

Finding a good fit

There are a lot of exercises that can help with this. Finding ones that you can connect with is a bit like going shopping to find the best ‘fit’. We therefore have a lot of different reps to try out.

Being curious

This exercise is called leaves on the stream. It can be used to practice the skill of noticing thoughts. It encourages us to be curious about them, without giving them all of our attention. Rather than using the environment around us, this one uses imagination.

As with all of these exercises it can feel a little strange at first, like wearing in a new pair of shoes.

The exercise

As before, start by making yourself as comfortable as possible. Try to signal to your mind that you’re about to do some work with it. Hold yourself in an alert position if you can. Usually this means supporting your head to look forward, with your shoulders back. Give your shoulders a quick roll if it helps.

Let your eyes gently close or fix them on a point in front of you.

For now, just breathe in and out.

Notice the sound and feel of your breath as you breathe, and as your ribcage expands, and contracts

Now I invite you to imagine in your mind’s eye that you are sitting by the bank of a gently flowing stream.

Imagine the way the ground feels beneath you. Imagine the sound of the water flowing past and the way the stream looks.

Imagine that there are leaves of all different shapes, sizes, and colours floating past on the stream. You are just watching these go by, and this is all you need to do for the time being.

If your mind wanders, that’s fine, that’s what minds do. Just notice where it’s gone. As you become aware of a thought or a feeling, imagine putting it on one of the leaves. Let it float down the stream.

Do this regardless of the thought or feeling. It could be welcome or unwelcome, pleasurable or painful. Whatever shows up for you, notice it, place it on a leaf, and allow it to float along.

Allow the stream to flow at its own rate. Notice any urges to speed it up or slow it down, and put on leaves as well.

If a leaf gets stuck, notice it, don’t force it. For now, all you are doing is observing this experience

You might notice “here’s a feeling of impatience”. You might notice “here’s a thought of I don’t know if I’m doing this right””. Then place those words on a leaf, and watch them from your place, on the riverbank.

It is natural to get hooked into a thought or feeling during the exercise. It's natural to loose track. When you notice yourself losing track, congratulate your noticing. Then bring yourself back to watching the leaves on the stream as you breathe in and out.

We’re coming to the end of this exercise now. I invite you to allow the image of the stream to dissolve. Slowly bring your attention back to sitting in the chair, in this room.

Gently open your eyes and notice what you can see. Notice what you can hear. Push your feet into the floor and have a stretch, noticing how that feels in your body.

As with all of the reps in this series, they work best for you with practice as you guide your mind to learn new ways of managing thoughts and feelings.

We’ve looked at how our thoughts automatically focus on challenges or problems to solve, and how it’s natural for them to go round and round looking for a solution.

Whilst our thoughts are focussing on this, another part of our brain might signal to our body that we are facing a problem. This part of our brain is very old, and approaches problems as though we need to fight them or run away. It is a power-up system that provides us with extra energy to fight or run.

It’s also very quick. Our heartrate increases and instantly our bodies can be tense and primed for action. We might not even have realised that this process is happening. Our attention can still be focussed on the problem we are thinking about.

We can get into a vicious cycle with this easily. 1. We focus on a problem. 2 Our mind triggers our body into being tense and ready to run or fight. 3. Our minds then notice this tension. 4. This in turn signals to our mind that there is a problem.

This is a completely normal process, but we often don’t need to run or fight from our problems. Without knowing that your mind is likely to trigger it, we can miss a chance to disrupt it.

This rep helps us to do this.  We can learn to notice the process happening. We can then power-down when we don’t need to run or fight.  

Progressive muscle relaxation

This exercise includes deliberately tensing and relaxing major muscle groups. It’s usual to feel tingling, warmth or other sensations. Please check in with your body, do not do any exercise that could trigger or increase pain. Please see our other reps for alternatives.

Again, if you are in charge of something that needs your attention, like children, cars or machinery, please try this later.

Start by making yourself as comfortable as possible. You can do this exercise in a chair or lying down. You will need a quiet space where you can focus for a few minutes. As far as possible, allow your thoughts to come and go, without judgement about the exercise, or about how you’re doing. Try to aim for curiosity.

1. Start with your hands. Call your attention into your hands and notice how they feel. Now squeeze them tightly, as though you are squeezing a lemon. Hold that for a few seconds, noticing how it feels to have muscles that tense. Really hold them tightly, really notice.

Then let them go. Stretch out your fingers, wriggle them, notice with curiosity how that feels.

2. Now your arms. Stretch them out in front of you. Hold them straight. Notice the feeling of the muscles being tense as you hold them for a few seconds.

Then let them go Let your arms rest at your sides, noticing any feelings or sensations as you let them relax.

3. Now move your shoulders up, as through you are a tortoise shrinking back into your shell. Like you are trying to touch your ears with them. Notice what it’s like to have your muscles that tense. Hold this for a few seconds.

Now let them go, give them a wriggle, let them settle, and notice how that feels.

4. Now take a deep breath in through your mouth. Notice the expansion in your ribcage and your belly. Hold your breath for a few seconds.

Let it go out through your mouth. Take a couple more breaths, noticing the way that your body moves with the breath in and out.

5. Next stretch your legs out as though you’re trying to reach something with your toes. Notice the feeling of tightness down your legs. Hold that for a few second.

Let it go. Notice any change in sensation in your legs.

6. And now flex your feet, pulling your toes towards you. Feel the muscles tense. Notice how that feels.

Let them go, letting your legs and feet relax, and noticing any sensations in them.

7. Now allow your mind to float through your body, noticing any tension, and squeezing and relaxing those muscles. Let yourself notice how your body feels now, as you breathe in and out.

8. And with the next breath, gently come back into your room, wriggle your body and look around you.

Do you notice anything about how your body is feeling now?

This exercise helps us to notice feelings of tension in our body. When our minds are caught up in a problem, we can miss this. Over time you can learn to reset more quickly when it’s helpful.

There are many types of exercise like this. You can find another NHS progressive muscle relaxation audio here: How can meditation help with sleep? - Every Mind Matters - NHS