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.
Tips for week 1 are also set out in this article Mental Wellbeing during Covid 19 Week1
Welcome to week 2 of Dan’s tips from facebook on how to look after your mental health during lockdown. The text of these posts is repeated below in his words.
These tips are 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
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
It's day #6 of my wellbeing at home tips. It's Monday again, so our tip is about Connecting with people around you.
Last time I shared the best rated video calling apps which are getting very poplar to enable friends and loved ones to interact. Today’s tip is aimed at the parents among us.
Keeping children entertained is hard enough in the summer holiday's let alone during a pandemic alongside homeschooling. The other week the Evening Standard put together these tips on how to keep children entertained.
I love children myself but must say I am glad I don't have to entertain or school any during an open ended lockdown. I hope the tips in the article help those who do have to!
Hoping some of these ideas keep kids and therefore parents happier and therefore more mentally healthy during lockdown!
Tuesday - Be active
Hello Eagles!
It's day #7 of my wellbeing at home during lockdown tips.
Today is Tuesday and that means we are talking about being active.
I promised a variety of things in this space and last week we had some discussion about the needs of Eagles who are having to shield for 3 months.
With that in mind, this page from the WHO (the World Health Organisation, not the band!) is quite nice in my mind as it first of all discusses some important concepts then has a second part with various excercises you can do at home in limited space.
Lastly do check the sticky post on this Facebook page as we have several quailifed Eagles offering services to excercise at home such as Abi Barber, Hannah Copeland and I am sure there are more. There are also fun events to keeping you running if you are able to do that such as the virtual relay I have been seeing pics for today!
Lastly if you do want to get in touch email me wellbeing@ealingeagles.com
Wednesday - Keep learning
Hello Eagles.
It's a lovely day today and it's also day 8 of my wellbeing at home tips.
Since it is Wednesday our tip today is about Keeping on Learning.
Last week I shared a link to a directory of free learning resources. I wanted to do something today for those with less time than normal.
We all have to eat and the BBC has made a good resource of 39 home cupboard basics recipes.
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/storecupboard
These are healthy nutritious meals made with simple, easy to get ingredients which many of us may already have at home.
Also the supply chains have returned to some sense of normal but seems flour and yeast still hard to get.
*Disclaimer* I haven't checked these recipes for flour or yeast sorry!
Eating well is an important part of wellbeing. The old adage "you are what you eat" has a lot of truth to it and our mental wellbeing benefits from good, varied diets.
Hope you are keeping well in these trying times
Thursday - Give back to the community
Hello Eagles. It's day #9 of my wellbeing tips at home.
Today is Thursday so we are on the topic of Giving to the wider community
Last time I gave a link to official volunteering matching services. This time round I want to plug ourselves!
Do please give back to Eagles when and if you can. At the moment we do have things you can get involved with and participate in. Did you do a rainbow run yet? Did you take part in virtual relay?
Maybe you have a skill or idea you would love to share with the Eagles either during or after lockdown? if so let the committee know!
This is not meant to be a guilt trip but we have a great community here and please be active in it when you can.
When, not if, normal service for the club resumes, we have lots of useful and essential volunteering options such as tail running, help with beginners, volunteer at your local park run, train to be a LiRF or CiRF etc. For many of these you may even be in the ballot to get a coveted (or reviled, depending on your point of view) London Marathon place!
Groups like ours thrive on volunteers so please do consider what you can offer.
Do please continue to get in touch with me if you want to on mental health matters on wellbeing@ealingeagles.com
Friday - Take notice
It's day #10 of my stay at home tips. Sorry it's late I was sitting in the sun!
It's Friday today so our tip today is about Taking Notice of you Feelings and the World Around You.
Meditation has been used for millennia to help people calm down and feel more connected to the world around them.
Time In (previously Time Out) have put together a lit of the best meditation apps to help guide yourself through a session.
I think some are free and others paid for.
I personally call my running "active meditation" as I find being alone but active gives my head a rest and gives me some time to think.
Hope you are enjoyign the Bank Holiday and happy VE day.