Medley

Earthbound?

In a basket where I keep cards and letters, I recently found a greetings card sent in 2009, with a very striking image. It’s entitled “Trees Amid The Waters Near Taponas, Rhone, France” and it is an aerial photograph taken by Yann Arthus Bertrand during the floods of March 2001. Seeing this image made me look around for other aerial photographsby other photographers, like this one below with the road dominating.

Going back to the Yann Arthus Bertrand image, it is other-worldly, enthralling, even unreal. What is water, what is reflection, what is tree? It blurs the lines, makes me look again and really think about what I see. Which way up should I look at the image? Does it even matter? It’s an entirely different perspective, and no wonder when the photograph was taken from the air. Suddenly our earthbound focus is turned on its head, literally perhaps. But the card also explains how these floods were caused not only by heavy rain but by issues with river clearance and construction on floodplains, so it combines this new angle with everyday reality.

Yann Arthus Bertrand became famous for his aerial photography. The amazing range of pictures ht took for “Earth From The Air: A photographic portrait if our planet” were exhibited across the world and formed a bestsellng book. Obviously each image is very different. It’s the floodwaters in the picture I’ve described which makes that photograph disconcerting. But each has this unusual perspective as the camera looks down at the Earth.

Aerial photography might seem everyday. Now with the growing use of drones we are more used to seeing aerial footage of events. And for years many people have displayed aerial views of their houses or area on their wall. Yet somehow Yann Arthus Bertrand’s photographs make me think again about this style of photograph. One way I think nature impacts wellbeing is by changing our perspective and outlook on the world around us, and on life. Nature is familiar to many of us, reassuring and beautiful – but also “other”. Life is a fight for nature as it is for us, but in different ways. So many of the issues that preoccupy and overshadow our lives – work pressures, waiting lists, cost of living – feel a world away from nature. That’s partly why nature is calming and restful for us. When I’m outside in nature, I might not forget issues that are on my mind, but they recede for a while and feel less immediate. I’m looking from another perspective.

So if nature on the ground can change our outlook, seeing nature from the air could do this all the more! Size and scale alter. Looking at the Earth From The Air photographs, you get a different sense of the vastness of some features of the Earth, and the smallness of others. It reminds me of astronauts talking about seeing Planet Earth from outer space – yet another, far more distant perspective!

Looking at images like these feels liberating, exciting, awe-inspiring, lifting mood. Do you agree? Look at some of the images at www.earthfromtheair.com and then share what you think in Medley’s Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/359291215486002

Picture The Scene

Do you ever visualize a scene, a place or an experience in your mind, maybe reliving it from memory, or creating it in your imagination? It might feel real or remote or even dream-like. And it might have a strong impact on wellbeing.

Photo by Nadine Wuchenauer on Pexels.com

Recently I heard someone describe the use of visualization within therapy for depression. This might be positive visualization, which I’ve known for a while people can find helpful. Maybe they visualize a scene which calms or uplifts them. This might be a garden, a seashore, any outdoor scene – for so many of us find being outdoors to be helpful and hopeful, positive and liberating. Or it might be any indoor scene, maybe a warm room on a winter’s day, or a sunlit windowseat. There might be other people, maybe a lively crowd or just one or two people you would like to see there. Or you might treasure an opportunity to be alone.

Visualization can also be negative, as some trials have explored. Negative visualization needs to be closely supported and limited, as it can be deeply disturbing – but within a therapy setting, it can enable some people to delve further into memory or trauma, which might help them understand the roots of their depression.

Another way of using visualization is to think through how you respond to particular events or situations. The other day someone made a critical comment to me. As I thought about this I visualized my reaction. I pictured the comment as a ball. I could let it hit me and wind me, by dwelling on the comment. I could dodge aside and try to forget it altogether. I could bat it away, maybe by remembering other, nicer things people say. Or I could let it fall to the ground and walk on. I’ll remember the comment, for now anyway. But when it comes back into my mind, I’m walking on.

Visualization helped. I’d like to try drawing these different responses too.

As someone who sees and experiences all the time how art can help mental health and wellbeing, visualization has set me thinking again about art. It can open up other ways of visualizing. Instead of imagining or describing a scene or experience, you could try recreating it on paper. You could draw out the scene itself, or motifs and symbols to record the ideas or experience. Your picture could be a detailed scene, or you might reduce it to a few main elements, like a path, a tree, a figure and a wall. There’s no need to create a masterpiece. It’s sad that many people feel art is not for them, that it is out of their reach, because they struggle with drawing. Your scene could focus on colour to represent mood, like a black mass to show the darkness of fear. You could use outline shapes or stick figures. Or you could try collage to create a scene – use colour papers or fabrics, or cut photos of flowers out of a plants catalogue to create a beautiful garden you could visualize as a refuge.

Do you feel visualization could help you? Maybe it already has. Could you visualize a positive scene to spur you on, or visualize different ways of reacting to something? I would really like to hear any experiences in Medley’s Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/359291215486002 Thank you.

In The Bleak Midwinter

Midwinter has descended. Darkness falls so early and cold and ice refuse to clear. Next week sees the winter solstice, then Christmas. How do you see winter and darkness? Do they feel to you dismal, hopeless, a struggle? Or do you see them as a chance to recharge?

Many of us see winter and darkness as a negative, something to be endured, waiting for longer and lighter days. I do count down to the winter solstice eaxh year. I know people who feel restless and trapped on these dark evenings, shut inside so early. Stilling this restlessness isn’t easy, although music can help if the darkness feels too hushed and quiet. Darkness is depressing and limiting, and saps energy, particularly if it is cold as well. Evenindoor hobbies like painting or craft are less possile in artificial light. And obviously darkness can feel menacing and can aid and abet crime. Some peopl efear darkness or have a specific phobia of night time or the dark. Yet others feel more at ease in the darkness – some people who have agoraphobia find going out after dark more possible.

Traditionally, darkness – of winter or of night – is seen as a time of rest, of renewal, of withdrawal even from the world. In winter nature itself rests, slows, hibernates. Little grows.

Rest and renewal in nature could transfer to us too. Some do see winter as a time to recharhe, to do less, to relax And some finds this really boosts wellbeing, as they feel restored. Others rebel. Hibernating feels dreary, frustratig, blank. Particularly this year with the high cost of living and fuel, relaxing ism’t so easy when you;re shivering in three jerseys.

Falling within a few days of the winter solstice, Christmas is all about light in the darkness. It was the light of a star which led the Three Kings to the stable where Jesus lay, the Light of the World. Many of us mark Christmas with lights, sparkling in all different colours from our houses and public spaces, defiant in the darkness. Candles and Christingles shine bright. So too the sound of carol singing or of church bells emerging out of the darkness is powerful. With lights and music, the night comes alive.

And night time is always alive. Many creatures depend on darkness, and are mainly or only seen or heard at night – owls, small mammals, insects. Some people like night walking, feeling part of this unknown world, as their eyes gradually adjust to the dark and they hear or glimpse nature astir all around them. I’d rather walk by day! But I do like looking at the night sky, at the stars or the shadows cast by moonlight, or hearing an owl call outside and imagining what other creatures may be on the move, maybe a mole or a badger. There’s real beauty in darkness, it can feel dramatic and vast. Darkness’s mystery can be unsettling but also exciting.

Winter itself is less dormant than it looks. There’s still a lot to see. If possible, look out for the red stems of dogwood, for berries on cotoneaster or holly, for ivy growing along tree trunks, for plant seedheads and for tiny buds on tree twigs. And once the solstice has come and gone and earth begins – slowly – to turn back to the light, more will change.

Are winter and darkness positives or negatives for you? I would really like to hear any thoughts in Medley’s Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/359291215486002 Thank you.

Refuge

It feels so apt that Grief Awareness Week falls in December, in winter. It’s a time of darkness, of gloom, as the year draws to an end. All around us, nature feels bare and barren. Winter can fuel depression and many people feel more isolated as they have to spend time indoors, shut in as light fades early. All this mirrors feelings of loss and grief.

My arts for wellbeing initiative, Medley, exists to share how art, music and nature can all help improve mental health and wellbeing. But this could feel facile, flippant, insulting. To someone experiencing the sheer brutal absence that grief is all about – to someone who has lost a loved one recently or years ago – to omeone bereaved by sudden accident or by long, painful illness – someone suggesting that they try art or craft or singing or walking might feel an insult. It might feel as if that person has totally failed to grasp what they are enduring. How could art, music or nature possibly help?

And it’s important to recognize that obviously they will not change what someone is experiencing. There may be times when it is impossible to concentrate, or to feel motivated, or when it feels wrong to enjoy. Grief can be confusing and exhausting and every day is different.

But art, music and nature could become tiny islands, havens, a moment to recharge or to shelter from the storm. They could help someone express what they are feeling, maybe through journaling. Some people write a journal in the form of letters or notes to the person they have lost, telling them how they feel or sharing all the little everyday things they might have told them. Art really enhances a journal as you add decorative borders or use different colours. I know some people also use art or craft to make a personal tribute to their loved one, maybe a name picture or a quilt or a painting or any handcrafted item, maybe for the house or garden. The artist Emma Douglas created an exhibition of artwork about her son and life following his death, rooted in memories, records and diaries. I heard about this Drawing On exhibition when it was shown at Norwich Cathedral in 2019.

Some people try art or craft for the first time – maybe they need a new pastime as time drags. For others, who have long enjoyed art or craft, it may feel natural to turn to this familiar refuge – or it may not. They may find their creativity has deserted them for a time. Trying a different artform could help, or something different, like music or nature, might help more.

Music could channel and express emotions. Loud, lively songs could express anger or disbelief or combat the silence. Beautiful, uplifting classical music might express your deep sadness, but might also feel just too beautiful, too emotional. When there are so many diverse music styles, one may help more than another. Particular songs may awaken memories of the past, and these could be too bittersweet but might be a wonderful treasury of memory. Choral music, hymns or worship songs can build faith and hope.

Many people find being in nature soothing and calming. There’s something elemental and restorative about being outside, exposed to wind and rain and sun. Again, nature could become a way to remember a loved one, by planting a tree or dedicating a tree in a nearby park or woodland, or by plating a memorial rose or flowerbed. But it could be less specific than that too. Keeping a garden in order might become a struggle following a bereavement, particularly for an older or ill person, but I’ve seen how it can also be a lifeline, a purpose, even a joy.

It would be very helpful if you would like to share any thoughts or responses in Medley’s Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/359291215486002 Thank you.

Spice Of Life

What could art, music or nature possibly have to do with struggling against an eating disorder? Recovery through rock art, rap or riding a bicycle?

In the face of life-changing conditions like eating disorders, art, music and nature could be dismissed as trivial, distracting, unlikely to address or resolve the deep issues behind the condition. Talking therapy or CBT may be preferred, alongside diet or eating plans and maybe medication. And all of these can be vital, life-giving and liberating. So many eating issues have roots in experiences and challenges which might seem unrelated. Exploring what may have sparked the condition is so important – maybe to uncover suppressed trauma, or focusing on feelings already out in the open and trying to lessen their power.

Specific art therapy can be a way to do this exploring, and to express feelings through colour and line. But the arts can also play a part in other ways, not only as specific therapy.

In her book “The Reading Cure: How Books Restored My Appetite”, Laura Freeman writes how learning, stimulus, taking up an interest and pastime, can be the best way to get through. For her, this was books as she lived with anorexia. In another passage, she writes that therapy is important – but that as time went on, she needed more than therapy, new thoughts to free her and to open up life once more.

This is one way that art, music and nature can help combat eating issues. Stimulus is what they are all about. Colour and light and sound and rhythm and trees and flight. Art is productive and absorbing. Music lifts the spirits and can express more than any amount of words. And nature creates such a different perspective on issues which may dominate our minds but which do not even figure in nature.

Art and craft can become endless treasure troves of creativity and challenge. Music can transform mood. Nature opens up sky, space, air. They might all help you think less aout eating and more about the richness of the rest of life.

So all these things can become a treasure trove, but also far more – a tool, a form of self-expression to give voice to what troubles or torments you maybe. Paint in colours you feel express what is inside. Draw symbols (a wall maybe, or a dark sky, or glimmers of light). Try journaling regularly. Sing along to songs. Try percussion to express anger or relieve tension. Focus on the elements on a walk, feeling the wind blow against you or blow you along. Dig and clear soil to clear your mind. None of these things take the place of therapy, of medical help, of eating more or less. But they might let in a shaft of light.

Maybe food has become an ally, a haven, a refuge – or maybe an enemy, a barrier, a threat. I’ve read the writer Jennifer Rees Larcombe’s experiences of seeing food as a substitute for love. It’s impossible to generalise, but binge eating can have roots in feeling a lack, maybe isolation and loneliness, or inactivity and boredom. Eating becomes a way to spend time, to feel “full”, to seek fulfilment. But creativity too can satisfy and fulfil, as you complete a painting or colouring or drawing. It can also boost self worth, which can be an issue in anorexia in particular. And it can help create a feeling of agency in your own recovery, of being active, not passive. Everyone is different, and an eating disorder is a highly emotive and personal experience. Within that experience, art, music and nature might open up some space – as too could faith.

I would really like to hear any thoughts in Medley’s Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/359291215486002 Thank you.

Together Or Alone?

When people share how art helps them, they talk about feeling absorbed and focused, shutting out issues, entering a world of their own. All this conjures up quiet, private creativity. But many art for wellbeing initiatives run as groups, in public. So do people benefit more from art for wellbeing as part of a group, or when they try activities as individuals? These are questions I’ve been reflecting on ever since I began not only running projects but also leading an art and craft group.

Inevitably it is group participation which is far more likely to be recorded, surveyed, monitored, so there’s far greater awareness of its benefits and impacts. If someone starts experimenting with art for their own wellbeing, even if it is at someone else’s suggestion, it’s likely to go unrecorded. In this way, arts for wellbeing initiatives might only tell half the story.

While every group will be different, in most groups the opportunity to spend time with others is uppermost. It’s a chance to share a common interest, and this in itself enriches the activity as people pool ideas, interpret an activity differently or add a new twist. For example, some people might follow an idea to the letter, while others might add different media or materials. In many groups, conversation is key. People might spend so long talking that they run out of time to finish their artwork! I feel this is a positive. The actual art and craft might be overshadowed, but this highlights what it is that participants want and need. Creativity for them may be a way in, common ground, even an activity which relaxes them so they find it easier to talk and share. The impact is more about the experience than it is about the finished product.

Any group’s dynamic depends on far more than the leader. Participants who are happy to contribute and share enhance the experience hugely for leader and members alike.

Trying art for wellbeing as an individual has clear benefits all its own – freedom and flexibility. You are free to try whichever artform or craft you like, whenever and wherever is possible for you, with little or no commitment. This could be entirely positive. Time to yourself might be particularly precious, a haven away. But what helps one person will not suit another. People may struggle with motivation or ideas, or fail to find time if there’s no specific event to attend. Then again, for some art needs to be private all the more because they use art to express very personal feelings or thoughts, maybe by journaling.

In a way the art for wellbeing projects I run feel like a halfway house, combining individual and group elements. People take part in their own time from home, receiving a weekly email resource with example images, but also have the chance to join a private Facebook group for each project. Around 50% of participants join these groups, and judging by their comments they seem to welcome the opportunity to share artwork, to compare, to see how others interpret the theme or idea. Sometimes the group can be a sfe space to share an issue they’re facing, or how art helps them.

Do you find art helpful as an individual or as part of a group? I would really like to hear any experiences in Medley’s Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/359291215486002 Thank you.

Showtime

November can be a dark and dreary month – the very opposite of musical shows, which explode with rhythm and colour and life! So this November I’m sharing a suggestion each day of a song from a musical to listen to (in a Facebook group) – just go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/557385639483426/

Life-enhancing would have to be the first word that comes to my mind when I think about musicals. Any play or film could be life-enhancing, but a musical show is super-charged. At any moment in the show, music might strike up and performers burst into song. At once the mood changes. Music, song and dance can lift the mood, or cast a shadow, excite or quieten the audience. They might build suspense, move the story along, build drama to a crescendo or create an interlude. A musical show is diverse and varied. There’s stimulus on all different levels, which is known to improve mental wellbeing. Time flies.

By now musical shows have a long and hugely varied heritage. There are nusicals set all over the world, performed on stage and screen, in all different musical styles. Dance styles vary too, such as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers’ stand-out tap routines in the Thirties. Some shows create a fantasy world – think of The Wizard Of Oz, or Mary Poppins flying through the air. You could say there’s an element of fantasy in all musicals, because we don’t go around singing in everyday life. Maybe we should!

Music’s unique part in mind and memory is still emerging. It is known that when people’s menory fails through dementia, musical memory can remain. I wonder whether musical shows might prove particularly memorable, combining as they do words and melody, story and score? Maybe hearing again songs from the shows could revive an entire experience and mood, if only for a little while. We build our strongest musical memory before the age of thirty, so the songs most likely to revive that memory will depend on the age of the hearer.

Sometimes, music, song and/or dance are integral to the story itself, as in the musicals Cabaret and Dirty Dancing, and The Sound Of Music, where Maria teaches her charges to sing. But even when they have no specific place in the plot, they may express far more than could words alone, powerful though they are.

Musicals may be inspired by books and literature, like Oliver, based on the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist, or by legend, like the musical Camelot. Musicals can be outbursts of life and joy, but they can also cover important and thought-provoking themes. Oh What A Lovely War explores the horrors of conflict. Even The Soung Of Music, an idyll of singing in mountain pastures, is set against a backdrop of war and escape. West Side Story never hides the struggles of the immigrant experience in New York. And Andrew Llod Webber’s Evita focuses on the life of Eva Peron and the controversies of Argentinian politics. Far from being a dose of escapism, then, musical shows can shine a light on the darkness of human experience as feelings run high. So they are rarely remote from real life.

A lot of negativity has been directed at musicals. Some find them melodramatic, pretentious or farcical, or feel the music detracts from the plot. Many prefer opera in the grand tradition. I feel there’s space for musicals, opera and spoken-word drama alike. As they say, variety is the spice of life.

Turning A Page

Maybe you enjoy books. Maybe they transport you to another world, absorb you, inspire, uplift or entertain you. I know that for many people, sometimes, books can boost wellbeing more than anything else – more even than art and craft, music or nature, the themes this blog more usually highlights. So Shared Reading, an initiative I heard about recently, sound s agreat possibility.

Shared Reading is run by The Reader, which focuses on “the power of literature and reading aloud to transform lives”. Their work sounds so very positive and helpful. From their headquarters in Liverpool, The Reader oversees a network of small Shared Reading groups across the country, in different locations, as well as online alternatives. Each group is run by a volunteer, who will read aloud a book, poem or short story. Attendees can do some of the reading aloud themselves, or they can contribute to conversations about what they hear – or they can simply enjoy listening and taking it all in. It sounds very flexible, which is obviously important when people are all so different. I’ve read feedback from people who have attended, saying how Shared Reading has really enhanced their lives, easing isolation and boosting their confidence.

The initiative is supported by various funding bodies, such as the National Lottery Communities Fund and Arts Council England, which clearly recognise its strong impact on participants. I heard about Shared Reading through Prescribe Arts, a new online arts & health platform. As social prescribing grows, demand for groups like these will only grow too.

Storytelling has a long heritage as an oral tradition. Communities would gather to invent, share and pass on stories or ballads, sometimes down through the generations. Before the printing press, and when fewer people could read or write, telling stories was largely unconnected to the written word. People gathered to tell or to listen, so that stories became an opportunity to connect, to bond, to react together. It was built around community. Very different to the more private, individual activity that reading has mainly become.

While many people like book clubs, these groups seem different as the actual reading is done together, in a group, aloud – whereas most book clubs gather to talk about a book already read.

In a sense, then, reading aloud returns storytelling to its roots. It enables participants to share. Some people who might rarely think to read alone, or who don’t easily settle to concentrate on a book may find they absorb a story more when they hear it spoken or if they read aloud themselves. Some find reading too passive and receptive, but reading aloud makes it productive, as you enable the story to come to life. Moreover, when isolation is known to be so damaging to wellbeing, reading with others becomes a great way to spend time in a group, sharing an interest so it feels natural and unforced. Reading aloud groups could be helpful for people with partial or total sight loss, who miss reading for themselves. And people who have dyslexia may enjoy an opportunity to experience books without struggling to read them.

If you’d like to learn more about Shared Reading, go to www.thereader.org And it would be great if you would like to share any thoughts or experiences in Medley’s Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/359291215486002 Thank you.

Art Meets Nature

Have you heard of the Singing, Ringing Tree? It is an outdoor sculpture on the Wayside Art Trail, on moorland high over Burnley in Lancashire. Hearing about it recently for the first time, the Tree really captured my imagination. What a unique way to draw together art, nature and music in one structure. The steel pipe sculpture resembles a tree, and as wind gusts over the Pennines it makes its own music.

I wonder where and what you would sculpt if you were given the opportunity to create and place a sculpture somewhere outdoors? Would you site it in your owwn gardem or in a local park, or in the countryside – on a roadside verge or in a wood or in a nature reserve? And what would you sculpt? That might depend on the site. Many outdoor sculptures tend to be large, to catch the eye in a landscape and command the view. Think of Henry Moore’s imposing solid sculptures, on display outdoors in the grounds of the Henry Moore Foundation in Hertfordshire and at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. But of course there are no rules.

As with so much creativity, there are endless possibilities. Outdoor sculptures use all kinds of media and materials, from found materials to bronze or natural materials. They can be earthbound, fixed, rooted as it were, or displayed off the ground.

If creativity expresses something of ourselves, of what matters to us, then outdoor sculpture places our own imprint on nature and on open spaces.

Sometimes the sculptures depict subjects from nature itself, such as Elisabeth Frink’s sculptures of horses, which I have seen in two very different outdoor settings. Sometimes outdoor sculptures take nature as their starting point but interpret it in a more abstract or imaginative way, just like the Singing, Ringing Tree. Some abstract sculptures echo the shapes and forms of their outdoor sites. Others depict figures, linking people to the landscape. Antony Gormley’s figures on the beach at Formby in Merseyside would be a memorable example as they seem to stare out to sea. And some sculptures commemorate particular events, or traditions, or local industry, trade or farming. Sculptures can link present and past, outdoors & indoors, nature & community.

Most outdoor sculptures become a permanent part of a landscape, either as single artworks or as part of a sculpture trail or park. But other outdoor sculpture is temporary, like an art exhibition, such as the Raveningham Centre in south Norfolk’s annual sculpture trail, which takes a new theme every year.

Outdoor sculptures can become another way to interact with the natural world. They draw out a response and could make the viewer think more about a place or space. In turn, nature itself can alter the way the viewer interacts with the artwork. An outdoor sculpture may look very different through different times of the day or year, as light plays over it or it is cast into shadow, or as rain soaks or leaves fall. Seeing art in nature can make you observe colours, light, shape and form in new ways. Writing this, I have just seen a spider’s web suspended outside my window, evenly and intricately spun. What is this but outdoor sculpture of a different kind?

It would be great if you’d like to share what outdoor sculptures you have seen, or what you think about art in nature, in Medley’s Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/359291215486002 Thank you.

Move To The Beat

What comes to mind when you hear the word “dyspraxia”? This is Dyspraxia Awareness Week – 10-16 October – so I thought I would explore dyspraxia in this blog, and see how music, nature and art might help.

While dyslexia is now a well-known term, focusing on issues with literacy (spelling, reading and writing), dyspraxia on the other hand is still far less familiar. And yet 5% of the poulation has dyspraxia.

Issues with co-ordination are central to dyspraxia: issues with what is called “gross” and “fine” motor co-ordination, from mobility to using a pen. Dyspraxia can also sometimes impact speech and/or organisation and time management. Degrees of severity vary.

Dyspraxia and dyslexia alike are related to autism and other forms of neurodiversity.

Running Medley, my online arts for wellbeing initiative, I’m always looking to learn what specific wellbeing impacts there could be for people with particular issues. I’m also committed to combining art, music and nature wherever possible, so I’m wondering here how all three areas might impact dyspraxia.

The theme of this year’s Dyspraxia Awareness Week is Get Moving With Dyspraxia, highlighting the need for physical activity to boost physical and mental health. Sometimes people with dyspraxia have negative experiences of physical activity, maybe from schooldays. They may be embarassed by their co-ordination issues, or fear injury. Fewer than a third of people who have dyspraxia take the recommended amount of exercise for adults, compared with 61% in the general population. So this is an important theme.

I wonder if music could help people with dyspraxia to “Get Moving”? Exercising to music can be enjoyable, motivating, natural and instinctive, as a song with a strong beat makes you want to dance, or clap, or stretch. People could do this at home, to get used to movement and dance away from prying or judgemental eyes. And music is so mood-boosting that it could make exercise a more positive and uplifting experience. Instead of overthinking exercising, you could focus more on your response to the music.

Connecting with nature too might encourage physical activity. Going for a walk in a park or in the countryside to see birds or trees could be a way to get outdoors and exercise while, again, taking the focus off the exercise itself. You’re enjoying time in the fresh air and watching nature – and getting active along the way, with no pressure. Nature can also be very calming, which might relax someone nervous about taking exercise.

Art may not help with physical activity, but could still be liberating and relaxxing for people with dyspraxia. It is all about experimenting. That’s the essence of creativity – no rules, no set limits. There are so many different possibilities to try that issues with fine motor co-ordination need be no barrier to many art forms.

Do you have experiences or thoughts and ideas to share? Do share these in Medley’s Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/359291215486002 Or to learn more about Dyspraxia Awareness Week and resources, go to https://dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/awareness-week/