The other day I heard someone say how boredom can become a real issue when struggling with mental health issues, and how being interested by nature and seeking out new species can be a help. It made absolute sense I thought. If mental health issues oblige you to take time out, to step back fromContinue reading “Well Spring”
Tag Archives: Wellbeing
Carefree
Behind the term “young carers”, there are so many individual stories, lives and everyday experiences. Young Carers Action Day, 16 March 2023, feels like an opportunity to think what might enrich young carers’ lives across their very different situations. We imagine childhood and youth should be carefree, fun, relaxed, even as we remember that growingContinue reading “Carefree”
On Prescription
Now that social prescribing has become a familiar term, it is easy to forget that just a few years ago prescribing was still all about medicine and pharmacies. Maybe more than anything else, social prescribing embodies a gradual move to more preventative healthcare and healthcare going beyond the immediate and beyond the physical. When socialContinue reading “On Prescription”
Deeper Than Words
Trauma has so many different roots and forms. Looking up synonyms for trauma, I found words like pain, damage, disturbance, hurt, scars, wounds and shock. Some people will retreat inwards, into silence. Others will want to talk, to emote. Some will experience trauma bonds, wanting to relive what happened. I recently read about the experiencesContinue reading “Deeper Than Words”
Concrete Cows
A few years ago I heard about Providence Youth Club in Battersea, London, welcoming a group of farm animals from The Shallowford Trust’s Dartmoor farm to a local city carpark for a week. Londoners could come to see the calves, lambs and pigs in the straw in pens just across the street from shops andContinue reading “Concrete Cows”
Endless Possibility
In my house sits an old guitar, unused for many years. Sometimes I’ve wondered about learning to play, but still haven’t taken the plunge. All I remember about the one and only time I went to a guitar class (at a music club for young people, when I was about 12), was all the talkContinue reading “Endless Possibility”
Day By Day
Are you a creature of habit? I know I am. I do like to be spontaneous too and to try different things, but I find that life works better if I follow a routine. Working for myself from home that’s particularly important – but in other parts of my life as well, routine really helps.Continue reading “Day By Day”
New Encounters
Art and nature – how they interact, how they benefit wellbeing together and apart – are integral to my Medley arts for wellbeing initiative. So when I heard about Nature In Art, an art gallery, I obviously wanted to learn more. Located 2 miles outside Gloucester, this is none other than the world’s first artContinue reading “New Encounters”
All Ears
I recently saw a quote on a T shirt which read: “Animals may not be our whole lives, but they make our lives whole”. Maybe you agree with that saying? Having a companion animal is known to boost mental – as well as physical – health, as proven by research studies and by the everydayContinue reading “All Ears”
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 meContinue reading “Earthbound?”
Medley 