Did you know that this week is mental health awareness week? The focus this year is ‘nature’ and the importance of connecting with nature to help support mental health and balanced wellbeing.
Why nature?
The Mental Health Foundation is hosting this year’s mental health awareness week, which runs from the 10th to 16th May 2021. Across the country, people will be celebrating the mental health benefits of being around nature in their local community in a range of digital and creative ways.
“Mental Health Awareness Week has grown to be one of the biggest awareness weeks in the UK. This year the theme is on nature and its central role for our mental health. Since the beginning of the pandemic, millions of us turned to nature to help us get through lockdowns and our research shows that good mental health depends on us being able to connect with nature in some way and its power in both prevention of and recovery from poor mental health.
“During the week, we want to hear millions of people’s stories about how the natural world has supported their mental health.
“We also want to highlight the huge disparities between who is and who isn’t able to access nature. We want the week to explore how everyone across the UK can connect with nature and experience the mental health benefits wherever they live.”
Mark Rowland Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation
Virtual coffee morning
Our Time to Talk team will be hosting a virtual coffee morning on Thursday 20th May at 12 noon on Zoom. If you’d like to connect with others and discuss the importance of nature for balanced wellbeing, you can register to join on Eventbrite. We also share suggestions, hints, and tips on how you can connect with the natural world, and where to access our additional support services for mental health on our mental health and balanced wellbeing website page.
How can I get involved?
During Mental Health Awareness Week, why not try to make a habit each day of connecting to nature in your local area? Stop to listen to the birdsong, smell the freshly cut grass, take care of a house plant, notice any trees, flowers, or animals nearby. Take a moment to appreciate these connections. Why not share your images, videos or sound recordings of the nature on your doorstep (and how this made you feel) on social media using #ConnectWithNature and #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek
Alternatively, you could book a visit into one of our Countryside Mobility or Heritage Ability visitor sites and discover the great outdoors, beautiful gardens or scenic views with the help of our all-terrain mobility scooter or accessible information guides. For a full list of visitor sites, visits the Countryside Mobility website.