World Mental Health Day

The World Health Organisation recognises World Mental Health Day on 10 October every year.

Being mentally healthy doesn’t just mean that you don’t have a mental health problem.

If you’re in good mental health, you can:

• make the most of your potential

• cope with life

• play a full part in your family, workplace, community and among friends.

I like to think in terms of mental and emotional wee-being.

In simple terms, we’re talking about how we react to the stresses and strains of everyday life.

We all have mental and emotional health.

Mental and Emotional health is part of a continuum. You’re either cooing or you’re not or you’re somewhere between these two extremes.

Mental illness is a term used to describe a range of diagnosed conditions all of which can affect mental and emotional well-being.

To be clear...

We all have mental and emotional health.

Many people with mental illness have mental and emotional health challenges.

But those with facing mental and emotional health challenges are not suffering a mental illness.

In the minds of many, they, mental health and mental illness are synonymous - they are not!

Mental health is everyone’s business. We all have times when we feel down or stressed or frightened. Most of the time those feelings pass. But sometimes they develop into a more serious problem and that could happen to any one of us.

Everyone is different.

You may bounce back from a setback while someone else may feel weighed down by it for a long time.

Research evidence suggests that these five simple steps will help you manage your mental health.

Connect with other people

Simply talking and being heard can have a great effect on your mental and emotional state. Connecting with others helps you shift your perspective from a self to others focus. More importantly, getting things out of your head and off your chest can be r really beneficial.

Key Action : Connect with people you can trust and in groups where you can be heard.

Be physically active

Probably the last thing you want to do when you’re feeling down is to get active. When we’re mentally and emotionally low our physical energy levels are low too.

This tells us that the mind, emotions and body are linked.

So any change in one of these three areas of our lives will affect the others. So even the smallest, determined increase in physical activity can have huge paybacks

Key Action: Make one small change in your physical routine each day. Start small then slowly do more and more. Two minutes of daily exercise, becoming five, then 10, then 20 then ..... is the way to go

Learn new skills

Your mind is incredible, amazing and mysterious. Even neuroscientists aren’t really sure how it does some of the things it does. But, they all agree that it likes making new connections.

Habits are really the result of connections the brain has made because of repetition.

Learning new skills, in short, gives the brain something else to think about. It creates new habits!

Learning takes focus and also shifts increases your perspective and perceptions of the world and your place within it

Key Action: Learn a new skill or study something different. It creates new habits and gives your mind something else to think about.

Give to others

It can feel good to give something of yourself, your time, your attention to others. Think about the random acts of kindness that you could do each day.

Key Action: Practice random acts of kindness

Pay attention to the present moment (mindfulness)

Mindfulness is a practice, a set of tools you can learn. There's nothing complicated about it it's just something that you need to practice. When we are not at our best in terms of our mental ane emotional health our minds can get 'stuck' in the past or 'worried' about the future, Being in the now is one way to bring your thoughts, and thus your mind, into a calmer space, Focusing on what is going on at this specific moment can be really beneficial,

Check Out this Video

https://youtu.be/riq2mh4yaFU

You Might find this article useful : The Power of Now

https://www.alanjones.blog/the-power-of-now/

Elyn Bres

Elyn Bres is Cornish for Clear Mind.

For the last eighteen months, through Covdi-19 lockdown and beyond, we've been running regular free mindfulness sessions and Coping Well support groups online.

Today, on World Mental Health Day, we are launching a new online Mental and Emotional Wellbeing resource,

Clear Mind is an online portal that will contain a growing collection of resources to support your mental and emotional wellbeing.

Already uploaded are a number of eBooks. inspirational videos and a Mindfulness Course. More will follow.

Member of Clear Mind will also get discounts on courses and services offered by Elyn Bres.

Membership costs £2 per month,

You can find out more here

https://elynbres.kartra.com/page/ClearMind

Thanks for reading

Alan /|\