Army offers ‘menopause yoga’ as mental health becomes top cause of absence

Yoga

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has offered staff “menopause yoga” and “lived experience” workshops to boost wellbeing as mental health has become the leading cause of absence in the military.

In an email from Gen Sir Jim Hockenhull, commander of Strategic Demand, which leads the UK’s defence strategy, staff were informed about the MoD’s “Op[eration] Inclusion” strategy for 2024, designed to embed “inclusive behaviours”.

Recipients were told that their “inclusion reps will be sharing details of how the sessions will run in your local areas”.

In the email, seen by The Telegraph, Gen Hockenhull shared feedback from last year’s inclusion programme, saying “70 per cent felt you had a better understanding of how you can create a psychologically safe environment for yourselves and others following the sessions you attended”.

Two documents were shared with recipients titled: “Diversity and inclusion 2022-25 – one-year report” and “Wellbeing 2023-27 – one-year-on report”.

The latter showed in February the MoD promoted “mental-health first aiders” and offered a workshop by Headspace, a company behind a leading mindfulness app.

Other events throughout the year included nine workshops for “stress awareness month”, an “annual mental fitness brief (mandatory training for all)”, “menopause yoga” and nine mental health workshops “including lived experiences and workshops from external organisations”.

Gen Sir Jim Hockenhull has been sharing feedback from last year's inclusion programme - www.gov.uk

Despite numerous wellbeing activities, in 2023 the MoD found that “anxiety, depression and stress” was the main cause of sick leave within Strategic Command, representing close to a third of all cases.

This was followed by coughs, colds, flu and asthma (11.8 per cent) and muscle and bone disorders (9.8 per cent).

Strategic Command added that the “cost of anxiety, depression and stress-related illnesses” has increased to more than £3 million at the end of December, up from £729,535 compared with the same time last year.

Referencing a 2023 staff survey, it appeared concerned that “only 40 per cent of staff discussed their personal wellbeing or work-related stress with their line manager weekly or monthly, which is 19 per cent down on the Civil Service benchmark.

“It is also alarming to see that a staggering 44 per cent of staff never discussed their wellbeing with their line manager or only did it annually.”

The MoD’s diversity report showed that “Strategic Command are exceeding in the number of women employed against working population” but lagged behind on ethnic minority representation and especially disability representation.

The report said that “numerous whole force events” had been developed and promoted over the year, including a LGBTQ+ pride event.

“These have been delivered as a collective effort from D&I champions, TLB comms team, the TLB learning leadership and talent team, and TLB employee experience team. All events have had a great attendance and received positive feedback,” it said.

It added: “We will focus on initiatives to increase our diversity across the Command – removing bias in the process.”

Earlier this year, Grant Shapps, Defence Secretary, ordered a review into diversity and inclusion policies at the MoD to ensure that Britain’s ability to defend its borders was not impaired by “political correctness”.

The MoD declined to comment.

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