Introduction
Many of you may know Dan Vandenburg as the club's Mental Health Champion, which is a scheme sponsored by England Athletics. He does various talks and things related to looking after your mental health.
As such, Dan wanted to do something for the club during what is probably a testing time mentally for many of us. Towards this, he will be posting on facebook every weekday around 3pm with a tip on how to look after your mental health during lockdown. The text of these posts is repeated below in his words.
These tips will be based on a tried and tested 5 point wellbeing model. Each weekday will be linked to one point in the model. The points and days related to each one are (click on the link to go straight to the that tip for this week):
1: Connect with people around you - Monday
2: Be active (hopefully an easier one for Eagles!) - Tuesday
4: Give back to the community - Thursday
5: Take notice of your feelings and the world around you - Friday
He hopefully has enough content to take us through May but will keep doing this as best he can while lockdown continues.
If you ever want to talk to Dan in private, he is a trained Mental health First Aider and you can reach him on wellbeing@ealingeagles.com.
In the immortal words of Jerry Springer "Look after eachother and yourselves".
Monday - Connect with people
Hello all. It's the first day of my looking after your mental health tips as trailed yesterday. It's Monday today so that means our first tip is in the realms of connecting with people around you.
Here's the tip:
Stay in touch with video conferencing. We are lucky with have the tech we do today. Many of us are doing this anyway with friends and family but incase you are not sure what to use, wired.com did a helpful review of the main players so you can find the right one for you.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/best-video-conference-apps
I'm a huge extrovert and while video chatting isn't the same as real face to face interactions it's helping me towards that itch.
You don't need the latest PC or anything to do this and for many a smartphone will suffice.
Tuesday - Be active
Hello all. Day 2 of my wellbeing while at home tips.
It's Tuesday today so today's tip is about how to stay active at home.
Joe Wilkes, the body coach, has got lots of attention for PE classes on TV in the morning aimed at schoolkids and our very own Abi Barber is doing online yoga courses. Hannah Copeland is also doing at home fitness classes for runners. You can see the details of these classes here: https://www.ealingeagles.com/news/2020/4/24/virtual-training-with-covid19
Further afield, Time Out have rebranded as Time In (some more Eagle Eyed amongst you may have noticed this). On Saturday they posted their guide to the best online fitness classes you can do at home. https://www.timeout.com/london/sport-and-fitness/the-best-online-fitness-classes
Most of these classes have a monthly fee. While we all have differing amounts of space at home hopefully you can find something that works for you in this list.
Wednesday - Keep learning
It's day 3 of my wellbeing at home tips. Today is a Wednesday so our theme is Keep Learning.
I'm a little hesitant over this one as we all are affected by this pandemic differently, some with more time some with less. Also, I believe we should be kind to ourselves and not put ourselves under extra pressure to perform.
Human beings are artistic, contemplative beings and so keeping our mind active and engaged is useful for general wellbeing. Learning something new can also be relaxing and enjoyable and distract us from our wider problems.
With that in mind todays tip is that LifeHack have put together this list of free educational resources. So if you do have time and the inclination maybe you can find some way to learn something new.
https://www.lifehack.org/articles/money/25-killer-sites-for-free-online-education.html
Thursday - Give back to the community
It's day #4 of my wellbeing at home tips. Today is Thursday so our tip is about Giving back to the wider community.
Being and importantly, feeling, part of something bigger gives us as human beings satisfaction and purpose. The lockdown really impacts on these aspects of our wellbeing.
That sense of community is why we are all Eagles afterall!
Getting involved in your local community is something you can do from your doorstep. Being more active in our little Facebook group doesn't take much and similarly, take the time out to connect with other similar groups I am sure you are members of too.
If you are able to give time and spend some time outside potentially too then this page on Gov.UK describes the various volunteering oportunity organisations in the UK. Think of them as Job Centres for volunteering.
The NHS volunteer drive got lots of support very quickly and so shows that the public can step up if needed. (It was also controversial in some areas of politics but I won't go there)
Again, I want to recognise we all have differing abilities in this space, so will have diversity in these tips but wanted to get this big one done first.
https://www.gov.uk/government/get-involved/take-part/volunteer
Friday - Take notice
Today is Friday so that means we are talking about Taking notice of your feelings and the world around you.
Since It's the start of a new month I wanted to share the idea of a Coping Calendar. This is a monthly process with a small wellbeing task to do each day. I attach an example I like from Action for Happiness, incase you want to give it a go. You can also make your own of course!
Some of them are more tips than tasks but you get the idea. I'm going to give this one a go why not join me?
Several of the entries are about taking stock, noticing how you are in the moment and enjoying the small things we often take for granted. These seem like important things right now.
A reminder you can always email me with questions or issues to do with mental health on wellbeing@ealingeagles.com. I check the email account once a day roughly.
