Blue
9/10/23
World Mental Health Day 2023
Tomorrow is World Mental Health Day. The idea behind this day is to get everyone talking about mental health and for us to realise that talking about our mental health is important. It is also a day to remember you are not on your own!
What is Mental Health?
If someone asked you how do you keep your body healthy I bet you could answer them straight away. What would you say?
Keeping your body healthy means doing exercise, making sure we wash our bodies and clean our teeth, having a balanced diet, not having too much sugar, drinking milk or water. Anything else you can think of?
But if someone asked you what is mental health you might find it a bit trickier to answer. Do you know what everyone means when they are talking about your mental health?
Mental health is all about how you feel. It is about the thoughts you have and how you react to them. It is also about the choices you make or how you behave when you are feeling happy, excited, frustrated, overwhelmed, lonely, scared, sad or angry. Mental health is often talked about more when you are struggling or finding something difficult. It is how you cope with this and what you can do to help if you find yourself feeling in a way you don’t want to and how you can deal with that.
Just like keeping our bodies healthy it is also so important that we look after our mental health. It is okay to feel sad and have a cry. It is ok to be frustrated or cross about something. Everyone feels those things. But how you deal with those feelings and how you react is important.
Lots of people feel overwhelmed at some point in their life and struggle with their mental health. It’s common to struggle with your feelings and you are definitely not alone if you are. It is very important to remember that you are not on your own and there are people that can help you.
You are not alone campaign by Young Minds. Providing support for young people suffering with their mental health.
Are you wearing yellow to school tomorrow? It is part of Young Minds #helloyellow campaign.
Ways to help your mental health
Talk to Someone
The most important thing to remember if you are struggling with something is you are not on your own. There are so many people who care about you and would want to help if you needed it. We thought about people that we could ask for help or talk to if we needed help…
Mum or Dad or another grown up you live with
Your teacher or teaching assistant
Your Grandparents
Your friend
Your brother or sister
Your old teacher
A grown up on the playground
Your childminder
Is there anyone we haven’t thought of that you would feel comfortable talking to if you needed help with how you were feeling?
Improving our mental health
Just like keeping your body healthy there are ways to help your mental health too. Is there something you really enjoy doing? Spending some time doing things we enjoy is really important to help keep out mind in a more positive place. If everything is feeling difficult or hard trying to balance that out with good things can really help. We thought of some things that we like to do to keep a positive healthy mindset….
Exercise! Exercise is good for keeping your body healthy but also really helps with your mental health too.
Getting some fresh air. Getting outside and doing something is really good for our mental health.
Spending time with our friends and having fun.
Listening to music and maybe even having a dance can help cheer you up and put you in a better mood.
Spending some time by yourself doing something you want to do.
Having a fun day out with your family.
Having time with Mum or Dad with just you.
Going to the beach and listening to the sea!
Recommended Links for World Mental Health Day 2023
If your school is wearing something yellow tomorrow the charity behind that idea is Young Minds. You can find out more about this charity and the support they give to young people on their website.
Another useful link is itv’s Britain Get Talking. They have set a ‘homework’ task aimed at getting children and parents/carers talking about what is going on and having a conversation about any worries or fears you may have.
All photos and illustrations in this blog post are Whizzbots, Public Domain and Shutterstock Images.
Other images on the site may be Creative Commons Images, which are credited appropriately.