Please see the ninth edition of our Wellbeing Information & Tip sheet on Sleep here.  Since the beginning of lockdown, lots of people have reported difficulty sleeping, so this edition focuses on how important sleep is for our mental health & wellbeing and includes some simple tips and ideas to help you to improve your sleep during this challenging time. We hope you find one or two new ideas for how to sleep better, that improve and help you to maintain your wellbeing this week.

We would love to hear what’s worked for you. Please e-mail us at info@mindcharity.co.uk to share with us your tips. If you are happy for us to share these tips anonymously via our website and social media, please let us know in the e-mail.

Please click the following links for previous editions:

Edition 1 – Five Ways to Wellbeing / Edition 2 – Connect / Edition 3 – Be Active / Edition 4 – Take Notice / Edition 5 – Keep learning / Edition 6 – Give / Edition 7 – Ecotherapy / Edition 8 – Kindness

Please see the eighth edition of our Wellbeing Information and Tips Sheet here.

One of the ways that MiBH marked Mental Health Awareness week was to set up the hashtags #KindnessMattersBrightonHove and #KindnessMattersHastings on Twitter and ask people to share how they had experienced kindness.  We were really pleased to see so many individuals and a wide range of local organisations engage and contribute to this.  We wanted to share this with you, so edition 8 of our Wellbeing Info and Tips is a summary of some of these examples.  We hope you enjoy reading these and that they inspire you to show kindness to others and to yourself, improving your wellbeing this week.

If you haven’t already been in touch, we would love to hear what acts of kindness you’ve shown to others recently or to yourself. Please e-mail us at info@mindcharity.co.uk. If you are happy for us to share these anonymously via our website and social media, please let us know in the e-mail.

Wellbeing Information & Tips Edition 8

Please click the following links for other editions:

Edition 1 – Five Ways to Wellbeing / Edition 2 – Connect / Edition 3 – Be Active / Edition 4 – Take Notice / Edition 5 – Keep learning / Edition 6 – Give / Edition 7 – Ecotherapy / Edition 9 – Sleep

After lots of really positive feedback on our 5 Ways to Wellbeing Information & Tip sheets, we’ve decided to continue providing these on a different wellbeing related topic every fortnight. This week we have put together some information and tips on Ecotherapy/nature based activities, following on from some of our activities in Mental Health Awareness Week which included giving out free plants to local people, donated by Plumpton college.

Please see this week’s Wellbeing Information & Tip sheet on Ecotherapy here.  This edition is all about nature based activities and includes a range of local and national initiatives, activities and simple ideas to help you to maintain and improve your wellbeing during this challenging time. We recognise that since the latest government guidance, restrictions have changed slightly and that some of us are able to spend more time outside, by ourselves or with others providing it is at a safe distance. However, we also recognise that for a variety of reasons, this does not necessarily apply to all, so we have tried to include tips for engaging with nature which include staying at home/indoors.

We hope you find one or two new ideas for how to feel more connected with nature, that improve and help you to maintain your wellbeing this week.

We would love to hear what’s worked for you. Please e-mail us at info@mindcharity.co.uk to share with us your tips. If you are happy for us to share these tips anonymously via our website and social media, please let us know in the e-mail.

Please click the following links for other editions:

Edition 1 – Five Ways to Wellbeing / Edition 2 – Connect / Edition 3 – Be Active / Edition 4 – Take Notice / Edition 5 – Keep learning / Edition 6 – Give / Edition 8 – Kindness / Edition 9 – Sleep

Further changes to current government advice and guidance were announced this week:

PM address to the nation on coronavirus: 10 May 2020

The key change is in the Government shift to Staying alert and safe (social distancing) which covers a number of areas such as staying at home, visiting public places and going to work.

Changes have also been made to government information about what you can and cannot do Coronavirus outbreak FAQs: what you can and can’t do and Staying safe outside your home.

All changes came into effect from Wednesday 13^th May.

The recent changes include advice to the public about considering wearing face coverings in enclosed public spaces where you may be more likely to come into contact with people you do not normally meet such as shops, trains, buses to help reduce the spread of coronavirus: Public advised to cover faces in enclosed spaces

You are urged not to buy medical grade masks so they can be saved for frontline health and care workers, and instead make your own face coverings at home Read the guidance on how to wear and make a cloth face covering.

PLEASE NOTE that in line with the government guidance, we are continuing to offer our services by telephone, email, text and online. Please click here for further information on how to access our services

Mental Health Awareness Week 2020 is from 18^th – 24^th May, a national event hosted every year by the Mental Health Foundation to raise awareness. The theme this year is Kindness. Why Kindness? Find out more from the Mental Health Foundation here

One thing that we have seen all over the world is that kindness is prevailing in uncertain times. We have learnt that amid the fear there is also community, support and hope. The added benefit of helping others is that it is good for our own mental health and wellbeing. It can reduce stress and improve your emotional wellbeing. Find out more about how Doing Good Does You Good

Take a look at the final edition of our Weekly Wellbeing Information and Tips sheet here for ideas about you can be kind to others and to yourself by giving.

In Brighton we are grateful to Plumpton College which has kindly donated marigolds and herbs which we are distributing to people being supported by Time to Talk Befriending, Southdown and the Real Junk Food Project along with information about why looking after plants is good for your mental health. Check out the guide here. Photos of some of the plants are already on Twitter – look out for more later in the week!

And Hastings Foodbank will be delivering postcards that we have created to 250 households across Hastings and inviting people to decorate them with their ideas for why kindness matters and acts of kindness that they have experienced. We want the postcards to be put in windows for neighbours and passers-by to see – we hope this in turn will inspire more acts of kindness.

We are also asking people to fill in a second postcard and send it back to us with their experiences of either receiving or giving acts of kindness. There is a digital version of the kindness postcard that can be filled in online so kindness experiences can be shared with us online as well.

Please follow us on Twitter @MindBrighton during Mental Health Awareness Week and share with us acts of kindness that you have given or received using the hashtags #kindnessmattersbrightonhove, #kindnessmattershastings and #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek

Please see the sixth and final edition of our Weekly Wellbeing Information and Tips Sheet here.

This week is all about Give, and includes local and national initiatives, activities and simple ideas to maintain and improve your wellbeing during this challenging time.  We hope you find one or two new ideas for how to Give, that improve and help you to maintain your wellbeing this week.

We would love to hear what’s worked for you and ways you have given to others recently or plan to give in the coming weeks. Please e-mail us at info@mindcharity.co.uk to share with us your tips. If you are happy for us to share these tips anonymously via our website and social media, please let us know in the e-mail.

Next week is Mental Health Awareness Week (18^th – 24^th May), so although we won’t be bringing you a Weekly Wellbeing Information and Tip sheet, please click  here to find out what we’re doing to help raise awareness of mental health, how you can get involved and how it links with this year’s theme of Kindness.

Please click the following links for other editions:

Edition 1 – Five Ways to Wellbeing / Edition 2 – Connect / Edition 3 – Be Active / Edition 4 – Take Notice / Edition 5 – Keep learning / Edition 7 – Ecotherapy / Edition 8 – Kindness / Edition 9 – Sleep