Welcome to World Mental Health Awareness week. In these challenging times, it’s even more important that we support and help each other. The theme for this year is ‘5 ways to wellbeing’. The 5 Ways to Wellbeing are focused on key areas of social connectedness, physical activity, learning, awareness and giving.
We would like to encourage you to reflect this week on how you can make effective changes to your daily life to improve your wellbeing.
Connection – how do you connect with people eg friends, family, neighbours, colleagues? Lockdown has shown us the importance of social connections. What about your connection to nature, your pets and environment? People who have a strong sense of connectedness have longer and healthier lives. Maintaining connections requires an investment of time and energy. For people with busy lives, this can seem to fall at the bottom of our agendas and relationships can easily dwindle. This week think about who you haven’t had contact with for a while and reach out. If you feel a bit anxious about doing this, just remember that we have all been socially isolated over the last 12 months and may be our social confidence has reduced.
Physical activity – we all know it, being active makes us feel better but doing it can be such hard work especially after a long day. You don’t have to become a marathon runner and many of us have found walking in nature during lockdown has stopped us going completely stir crazy.
Not having a minimum of 30 minutes of activity is responsible for 17% of early deaths in the UK. Physical inactivity is the principle cause of a huge number of common health conditions including:
- 10% of heart disease cases • 13% of type 2 diabetes cases • 18% of colon cancer cases • 17% of breast cancer cases
People who exercise are 30% less likely to develop depression or anxiety.
The Walking for Health scheme is run nationwide and helps people get connected and get fitter at the same time.
Walking for Health – Walking for Health | Home
What about buddying up with a friend or colleague to help you develop a new exercise habit? It doesn’t have to involve buying expensive equipment or joining a gym. How about offering to walk your neighbour’s dog twice a week, taking a friend’s children to the park – they will enjoy it for certain!
Learning – developing a learning brain has significant benefits for our mental and physical health. It also helps build connectedness – we may learn a new skill, hobby or interest that involves sharing this with others, or it may just give us something different to talk about positively. Is there something that you’ve always wanted to know more about? We aren’t at school any more so aren’t being forced to learn certain topics just for the sake of it. Think about an interest you have or a skill you’ve admired in someone else and wished you could do. We have so much access to knowledge now and it doesn’t have to cost a fortune either. Develop a plan to start your own learning journey. I learnt to play the drums at 45. I’ll never be Phil Collins but that doesn’t matter. Keeping your learning brain also helps reduce the risk of dementia and depression.
Awareness – take notice of where you are, being mindful and curious like a child about your environment. The art of being in the moment, called mindfulness has significant mental health benefits and also increases performance and motivation. Be more mindful about what you do every day – what you eat, drink. Have a mindful shower in the morning or after work. Notice the trees that you drive past every day, how they change with each season. Just reflecting on every day experiences can help us appreciate what matters to us. There are so many technological ways to connect with mindfulness – apps such as Calm, Headspace but also lots of free sites such as:
Mindworks also run a free fundamentals online course:
Beginners Guide to Meditation: Techniques & Tips to Learn to Sit [Video] (mindworks.org)
Giving – looking outwards can improve our mental health by changing perspective and enabling us to have a sense of greater purpose. So many acts of kindness have been shown over the last 12 months, it can be easy to focus only on the negatives but our sense of community spirit has improved. ‘Paying it forward’ means when we receive an act of kindness we do something positive for someone else rather than accepting or repaying the person who was kind to us. It doesn’t always have to mean giving to someone else, it can be something else such as nature and our environment. Maybe you want to join together in your local community – with neighbours, work colleagues, an educational or religious group. Consider committing to a ‘giving back’ initiative building that sense of connectedness in a shared way is powerful and develops a sense of purpose. Sharing a commitment is far more likely to be achieved as we can help motivate each other.
‘Walk and talk’ (eco-therapy)
During the pandemic, we began to offer ‘walk and talk’ therapy. Many of our clients – young and old have said they have found being outside in nature and talking was somehow easier than in a clinic room. Some enjoyed just sitting on a quiet bench, for others walking enabled them to get a different perspective on their difficulties, we walked with people’s dogs and even with our dogs if the client wanted to connect with a pet. Its also an opportunity for clients to develop confidence in going out again and challenge anxiety. Eco-therapy can involve many activities – learning in nature, animal focused therapy eg pat dog and equine therapy, adventure activities with trainers who have specific expertise in mental health issues. This can join up the 5 ways to wellbeing. Find out if there is a group scheme near you:
About ecotherapy programmes | Mind, the mental health charity – help for mental health problems
If you’d like to discuss the eco-therapy options we offer, please contact us Email: wellness-consultancy@outlook.com; www.wellnessconsultancy.org
Helpful Links
https://mentalhealth-uk.org/get-involved/mental-health-awareness-days/mental-health-awareness-week
Whatever way you choose to develop your wellbeing, celebrate your achievement.
Rachel Wesley
The Wellness Consultancy