Mental health 鈥樷he emotional and spiritual resilience which allows us to enjoy life and survive pain, disappointment and sadness. It is a positive sense of well-being and an underlying belief in our own, and others鈥, dignity and worth鈥
(Health Education Authority. Mental Health Promotion: A quality framework. London: Health Education Authority 1997)
Take a moment. Stop reading this (please do come back!) and take thirty seconds, a minute or as long as you need to think about your mind. Think about how you connect with your mind and what it does for you. Think about a time you played and had fun: how did it make you feel, how did it make those around you feel, and how did the environment make you feel?
Welcome back.
Our minds are precious. Do you look after yours positively like you would our physical health? If not, consider why not.
In the past, there has tended to be a stigma around discussing mental health but perhaps one positive outcome of the pandemic is that our collective awareness of mental health, and the need to discuss it, has increased. It now feels slightly easier now to talk about mental health, both our own and that of others, including children.
Supporting positive mental health and wellbeing in adults
We are all likely to have been affected by one or more of significant life events that have caused pain, disappointment or sadness, and we all deal with these in a different way. It is how we learn to be resilient; change can help you to become a more resilient person.
Resilience is important for mental health and research has shown that those with greater resilience are able to respond to those stressful life events, and are less stressed when they happen.
So how can we promote positive mental health and wellbeing?
What is good support for one person may not be for another, and some of the below points you might find more helpful than others. Creating your own 鈥榳ellbeing list鈥 with what supports your mental health will help you to reflect and give you ideas of steps that will best support you and your mental wellbeing.
- Get outside for a walk or jog, and use all of your senses to immerse yourself in what is around you. Depending on the weather or time of day, you will have a different experience each time.
- Exercise to the level you can manage, building up to a goal. When you exercise, your body releases endorphins which produces a positive feeling in the body.
- Relax 鈥 read a book, take a bath or do something else you enjoy (or combine all three!)
- Make sure you are getting enough sleep. Sleep helps the mind to process and 鈥榝ile鈥 our memories, emotions and thoughts about the day.
- Talk about how you are feeling. If someone asks if you are okay, does your reply of 鈥淚鈥檓 fine鈥 have any truth? Find a good time to talk to a friend and/or family or a colleague. Walking and talking is often a better way to get your thoughts and feelings heard, rather than just sitting down with a cuppa.
Supporting positive mental wellbeing in children
Think of the lifelong benefits of supporting children鈥檚 resilience and in turn, how this contributes to their mental health. As parents, carers and early educators, we can provide positive wellbeing and mental health messages.
Most of the things you can do to support your own wellbeing are equally beneficial for children:
- Getting outdoors together has many benefits both mentally and physically, providing fresh air, vitamin D, exercise and time to play and talk.
- Spending time together doing what you enjoy, making that child feel safe, cared for and also having fun is promoting their positive mental health.
- Talking to someone about how you are feeling is a positive step and we need to develop a child鈥檚 skills in this area too so that they feel comfortable to talk about their own emotions. While it might feel easier to talk about positive emotions, we need to make sure those less positive ones are just as easy to name and that children know that it is okay to feel like that.
- Open up discussions on why they feel a certain way, reassure them that it is okay to feel like that and talk about what can be done to support their wellbeing. For younger children, using appropriate books can support you with this.
- Play 鈥 you are never too old or young to play! Open-ended imaginative play will support children鈥檚 learning and development while they have fun. Get creative together, remembering that it is the process of making or doing that matters, not the end product.
This year鈥檚 National Week of Play focuses on making connections through play and as the saying goes: 鈥淲e don鈥檛 just stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.鈥
Play can support your own wellbeing as well as that of your children, family and friends. Take some time to reflect on how you embrace play: find opportunities to have a game in the local woodlands, take a ball to the park or play a board game together. We can all learn though play 鈥 it helps us develop new skills and can bring us closer together, building supportive friendships so we can all feel able to talk to someone about how we are feeling, and know that support is there, in whatever format meets our needs.
And finally, bringing this back to your own wellbeing and care, don鈥檛 forget to regular connect with how you are feeling. How can you support your own mental health, and what actions can/will you take? Make sure you always talk to someone about how you feel as and when you need to.
Further information
There is a wide range of information about mental health available online. Here are just a few:
You can also read our informative blogs on resilience online: