For one week each May, the Mental Health Foundation campaigns around a specific theme for Mental Health Awareness Week. Click here to read more about the campaign on their website!

Mental Health Awareness Week is intended to help generate public debates around how anxiety, sleep deprivation, and exercise can impact our mental health. This year, the focus is mindfulness. Mindfulness is an exercise  that helps us change the way we think and feel about our experiences. Mindfulness is a useful tool for people with mental health issues, people dealing with stress, people coping with recurring depression, and anyone trying to improve their mental health and well-being.

Click here to read about mindfulness

Mindfulness includes techniques such as meditation, breathing and yoga, which help us become more aware of our thoughts, feelings, and bodies. The practices can help us improve our relationships, attentiveness, concentration, and emotional insight. Mindfulness can be practiced by anyone – children, young people and adults – individually or with others, in any environment.

Next time you feel overwhelmed or under pressure, try closing your eyes, taking a deep breath and slowly counting down from ten, thinking about how you fell. Or, with the great weather we have, step outside for a brief walk!