Stress management for parents, tips for parents to reduce stress

Families South East Magazine, May 2009

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Sumita Singh, Founder of Affable Therapyspoke to a group of women at the Launch of Southwark Council Enterprise 4 Women initiative on 5 July 2008. She spoke about how latest 21st Century Mind Therapies can help in maximising our potential. Learnings from Affable Therapy business were shared to help inspire upcoming entrepreneurs.

Miss Singh said: "I chose the name of the business because affable means easy to talk to." And talking to people on a one to one basis, getting them to open up about their fears, worries and problems are key to the help she believes she brings to her growing number of clients. It is the therapy side of the business which she is keen to concentrate on but while it is still in something of a fledgling stage she also offers more "popularist" courses such as head massage, reflexology, facials and waxing.

These, she admits, provide the bread and butter side of the business while the wider therapy courses are developing.

At present most of her work is with individuals but she is preparing plans which she hope will see her get established with businesses in the borough.

Miss Singh said: "I think companies are become more aware of problems of stress among staff and there is more acceptance in this day and age of complementary medicine.

"What I hope is to be able to do is work with companies to help them adopt a preventative approach to dealing with problems like stress rather than simply reacting after something has gone wrong." She added: "If companies do this then staff will feel that their employer is caring about them and their welfare.

"In the longer term this approach will really improve productivity tremendously." Miss Singh also intends to expand her work with individual business people who she believes can often subject themselves to what she calls "self-sabotage." She said: "It may sound surprising but when people see their business going well they often spend time worrying about when things will start t o go wrong.

"Of course, the danger is if they believe something must eventually go wrong they will lose their focus and things indeed do go wrong." Miss Singh said her role was to encourage self-belief and give the business owners the confidence to realise their maximum potential - a target she aims to instil in all her clients.