By Miss Munro-Hall, Head of PSHCEE 

May 9th – 15th is Mental Health Awareness Week 2022.

With loneliness as its theme, our Year 9 Wellbeing Leads were keen to raise awareness of the impact of loneliness on our mental health and the practical steps we can take to address it, so they recorded a short video to share with our school community.

In form time, classes viewed the video then discussed ways to address loneliness, with students and staff both contributing to our NHEHS and GDST Wellbeing Wells of tips to help you feel better.

Some of the top tips for strong mental health included:

Spend time with people who make you feel happy

Recognise when you need a break and take it

Share your feelings

Spend time with your pets

Do things that make you happy – and smile!

Don’t feel guilty about relaxing

Surround yourself with a nice environment eg plants

Watch Netflix with B&J ice cream

Exercise and stay hydrated

Tidy your room while listening to good music

Try new things or take up a hobby

Deep breathing to calm down when you’re feeling nervous

Spend time with your family bit also have some alone time to

Do something you love

Sleep and soft toys

Be present in the moment without distractions like your phone

Keep talking to your friends and family to make it easier to discuss the hard things when they come up

Make sure you have enough sleep

For more advice on how to cope with loneliness and how to improve your mental health, organiser of #MentalHealthWeek, the Mental Health Foundation has some tips here as well as excellent advice on how to support other people who are experiencing loneliness too.