Looking after your mental wellbeing can boost your resilience, which can improve your ability to cope with life’s challenges, lift self-confidence and enhance performance. The ‘5 Ways to Wellbeing’ are about making conscious and deliberate choices to look after our mental health. The ideas that follow are simple evidence based actions that are applicable to people from all walks of life.
So – what are the 5 ways? Just like trying to eat 5 fruit and veg a day, there are 5 things you can do to improve your mental health and wellbeing every day. It may be useful to remember them as ‘CLANG’.
- Connect: Build connections with people around you.
- Keep Learning: Learn something new to boost your confidence and have fun.
- Be Active: Boost your energy and mood by doing something active.
- Take Notice: Be curious about the world and savour the moment.
- Give: Do something nice for someone.
Connect
Get together with the people around you, with family & friends. At home, school or in the community. Relationships are important and building your relationships will support you and keep you going every day… so make time for them.
Keep Learning
Try something new. Go back to an old interest. Sign up for new course. Take on a responsibility at school. Fix something that’s broken. Learn to play an instrument or how to cook your favourite food. Set a challenge you enjoy achieving. Learning new things will make you more confident as well as being fun!
Be Active
Go for a walk or run. Step outside. Cycle. Play a game. Garden. Dance. Exercising makes you feel good and improves your physical health too. Find an activity you enjoy.
Take Notice
Be curious. Catch sight of the beautiful. Remark on the unusual. Notice the changing seasons. Enjoy the moment, whether you are walking to school, eating lunch or talking to friends. Be aware of the world around you and what you are feeling. Thinking about your experiences will help you appreciate what matters to you.
Give
Do something nice for a friend, or a stranger. Thank someone. Smile. Volunteer your time. Join a community group. Look out, as well as in. Seeing yourself, and your happiness, as linked to the wider community can be very rewarding and makes connections with the people around you.
Practice makes perfect…
Just like learning any new skill, we need to practice the 5 ways and make a conscious effort to keep doing them regularly. It is easy to slip back into previous habits, so find methods to incorporate the 5 ways into your daily life. Take action and notice the difference they make so that you are more able to cope with challenges when they arise.