Health and Wellbeing Calendar

Please see below our calendar for 2025 showing the awareness campaigns we will be celebrating and webinar topics we have arranged.

We also have more information for each awareness campaign in the drop down sections below. This will be updated throughout the year.

Month	Topic	Webinar topics
January	Dry January (all month)	7th: Immune system support 15th: Winter hydration 22nd: Sleeping better in the Winter
February	4th: World Cancer Day	26th: Living with cancer
March	7th: Overseas NHS day celebration 14th: World Sleep Day 17th - 23rd: Nutrition & hydration awareness week	7th: Celebrate, Appreciate & Reflect 12th: Stop fighting with your pillow 17th: Healthy 'fakeaway' curry cooking session
April	Stress awareness month	14th: Stress management for leaders: building resilient teams and self-care strategies
May	National walking month	21st: Stand up to your couch basic fitness session
June	9th - 13th: Healthy eating week	11th: Cultural cooking & the link to wellbeing
July	N/A	9th: Gut health & intermittent fasting
August	N/A	N/A
September	8th - 14th: Know your numbers week 10th: World Suicide prevention day	17th: Prioritising you & your self-care
October	3rd - 7th: Back care awareness week 12th - 20th: Bone & joint week 18th: World Menopause Day	15th: Back pain awareness 22nd: Women's health 18th: Menopause event
November	3rd - 8th: Talk money week	TBC
December	2nd - 8th: Grief awareness week	10th: Coping with grief & loss

"Fresh Start, Clear Mind"

Dry January is a great month to focus on physical and mental clarity, renewed focus, and the health benefits of reducing or stopping alcohol consumption.

Key Objectives

Raise awareness about the benefits of taking a break from alcohol.
Provide support through resources and encouragement.
Promote long-term healthy habits around alcohol use.

Developing healthy habits around alcohol isn’t always easy, especially when alcohol is so readily available and relatively low cost.

As we move into Dry January, this is a great time to build awareness and learn to manage your alcohol habits around your lifestyle. Here is our 5 step starting guide:

1. Reflect on Your Relationship with Alcohol

Self-Assessment: consider why, when, and how much you drink. Is it social, emotional, or habitual?
Identify Triggers: recognize situations, emotions, or environments that prompt drinking.

2. Think about where you want to make change

Decide whether you want to: moderate, reduce, or eliminate alcohol.
Make this realistic: you may want to swap out some of your alcoholic drinks with non-alcoholic options or you may want to create a dry day – where you schedule a day where you completely avoid alcohol. Some people find it helpful to also do this during the working week.

3. Managing the habit

There is a whole psychology around having a drink – that Friday night feeling of opening a bottle of wine. So its good to think about different ways to manage our drinking habits. This could be things like:

Non-Alcoholic Alternatives: experiment with mocktails, sparkling water, or non-alcoholic beers and wines.
Healthy Rituals: replace the habit of pouring a drink with a calming activity like herbal tea, journaling, or an evening walk.

4. Spread the word, embrace Dry January and learn more

Involve Friends and Family: share your goals and ask for support.
Learn the Facts: understand the effects of alcohol on your physical and mental health.

5. Practice Mindful Drinking

Pause Before Drinking: ask yourself, "Do I really want this drink?"
Sip Slowly: enjoy your drink, savour the flavour, and pace yourself.
Alternate Drinks: between alcoholic beverages, have water or a non-alcoholic option.

Please note that if you struggle with dependency or find it hard to moderate your alcohol intake, consult a healthcare professional for support.

How to take charge of alcohol video

Alcohol and your sleep

Alcohol has a significant impact on sleep, often disrupting its quality and patterns. While it may initially seem to help you fall asleep, the long-term effects can undermine restful and restorative sleep. See our easy leaflet to show how and why alcohol affects your sleep cycle. Alcohol & Sleep Factsheet

The Sleep School platform and programme is available for all colleagues to access. This includes:

Sleep School platform includes all previous webinar recordings of various topics related to sleep
Wide range of useful guides available about sleep on specific topics including menopause, mental health, children’s sleep etc.
Free app which includes courses on various topics relating to sleep issues
Webinar programme e.g. sleeping better in Winter (22^ND January 2025) - BOOKING LINK
Link to Sleep School platform – password is sy123

Try our Mocktail recipes!

If you are trying to reduce your intake of alcohol, it’s good to try some mocktails. Try some of these recipes which are easy to make and will hopefully inspire you!

Non Alcoholic Mojito

Winter Warmer

How much are you actually drinking?

People don’t always understand what a unit is so we have put together a really easy visual so that you can track your drinking, during Dry January and beyond!

Unit Measures