Mental Health and Wellbeing - 5 Steps - Be Active

Hello everyone, welcome to our next wellbeing blog.  This month we are focussing on ’Being Active’.

At Prospect House, we have used the ‘5 ways to wellbeing’ as a framework for our approach to Mental health and wellbeing. This comprises of

5 different elements:

Connect - Making time for relationships with friends, family and colleagues and elsewhere within your community.

Be active - Exercising, physical activity and enjoying good health.

Take notice - Being aware of the world around you and reflecting on your

experiences.

Keep learning - Trying new things and challenging yourself.

Give - Doing something nice for others, volunteering, making yourself

and others happy

Whoever we are and whatever our role, we all need support from the people around us. In a school this includes teachers, senior leaders, support staff, pupils and parents.

Taking a holistic approach means looking after the whole person, respecting and supporting them, and valuing their unique experience and contributions - the opposite of a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

In practice, this means:

• Providing support for colleagues to meet their individual needs.

• Being a role model for wellbeing wherever possible.

• Removing stigma attached to concern for wellbeing.

• Talking openly about wellbeing and mental health.

• Asking for help and encouraging others to do the same.

• Positive thinking and believing the best about others.

Our next area we would like to focus on is:

Connect

Regular physical activity is associated with lower rates of depression and anxiety across all age groups. Exercise is essential for slowing age-related cognitive decline and for promoting well-being.

But it doesn’t need to be particularly intense for you to feel good - slower-paced activities, such as walking, can have the benefit of encouraging social interactions as well providing some level of exercise.

Here are some activities you could try:

· Make time for exercise. Find something that you enjoy and that fits in with your lifestyle.

· Be physically active wherever possible; for example, a walk in the evening.

· Walk more. Even a ten-minute walk is good for physical and mental health.

· Try the NHS Active 10 app to motivate yourself towards 10 minutes of brisk walking per day.

· Get enough good quality sleep to give yourself the energy and stamina to stay active.

· Try the NHS Couch to 5k app to motivate yourself towards running for 30 minutes or so.