Eli has been speaking to us about his experiences on the Healthy Minds programme and how it supported him and helped him to develop during his time at the University of Bristol. (more…)
Category: Healthy Minds
Keeping Active to Combat Loneliness
This year for Mental Health Awareness week the theme has been loneliness. Loneliness is something many of us experience throughout our lives, whether we’re at university or later in life. Feeling lonely can really impact your mental health, as you may feel the absence of meaningful relationships around you. Finding connections is an important part of combatting loneliness – whether that’s with ourselves, others or with the world around us.
Keeping active is often promoted as one of the ways that you can promote good mental health; it can help improve your sleep, boost your mood and reduce stress! Regular activity can also help provide the benefits of a structured routine and help build a sense of community.
Today we’re going to highlight some of the ways you can keep active whilst also combatting loneliness.
An Interview with ManSquared
This week we caught up with the team behind ManSquared, a project developing mental fitness tools to help facilitate open and vulnerable conversations between men.
Hello! Why don’t you introduce yourself?
We’re a group of four University of Bristol students all studying innovation, passionate about male mental fitness having seen the impact it has had on ourselves, our friends, families and communities.
Anna is a wild swimmer, keen rugby player and studies psychology.
Finn is a history student who loves football and the outdoors.
Jamie can’t get enough of his electronic music and loves spending time on his bike.
Rachel is captain of the Bristol Jets Pom team and enjoys being creative in her free time.
Running for Wellbeing (part two) – The Five Ways
Sick of wellbeing? We don’t blame you!
Wellbeing is quite the topic right now and, because of that fact, wellbeing might possibly be a source of confusion, concern and annoyance for you. As something currently quite ill defined, tricky to grasp and without any consensus on actions or deliverables, I can really understand this.
Without being overly reductionist, let’s try in this short blog post to clear up the issue.
Running for Wellbeing
In this blog post our Pete Burrows, our University and Run Series and Wellbeing expert, ‘joins the dots’ between the activity of running and our individual wellbeing. It is for people whose ‘personal best’ has nothing to do with numbers – be that race time or distance – and everything to do with being your most authentic, happiest self and living your best life.
COVID-19 and the Good News for Wellbeing
Global perceptions of physical activities, like running, have been thoroughly shaken up and questioned during the pandemic. With so many of the more “traditional” forms of activity off-limits as a result of gyms and indoor sports facilities closing, more of us than ever have turned to running, as a free, always-open, option. This has presented a unique and very real opportunity to continue to break every stigma, stereotype, and general misunderstanding surrounding what running looks like, who running is for, why we choose running as an activity, and the overarching benefits it gives.
Whilst reported levels of physical activity have fluctuated due to the ongoing restrictions, overall the perceived value of being active has grown significantly in the last year COVID-19.
5 Tips for Managing Stress from our University ‘Healthy Minds’ Supervisor
There is no denying that 2020 has been a difficult year and we have – individually and collectively – faced more challenges this year than we might ever have expected. Feelings of stress and burnout are rife this year in particular and we want to support you in managing and overcoming them!
Bristol GBBO Star, Briony Williams, announced as Great Bristol 10k University Ambassador
The University is delighted to announce Briony Williams as their Ambassador for this year’s Great Bristol 10k in May.
Get Active To Reduce Stress (Plus 7 More Top Tips)
Monday 4 – Friday 8 November 2019 is #InternationalStressAwarenessWeek. Stress is something that gets talked about a lot day-to-day but is commonly misunderstood. It’s normal to hear friends, peers and colleagues tell you that they are “feeling a bit stressed, but it’s okay”. Stress has become normalised in society and has both negative and positive impacts on the human experience. It is important for us all to understand the impact of stress in our own lives, and also how we can better manage any negative consequences that may arise.
One step that we can all take to reduce negative stress is to factor daily movement into our everyday lives. It is by far one of the most under-utilised stress-busting tools and we have lots of ways to help you stay active on campus this year! For more information about how Bristol Uni Sport can help, visit our website to see all the opportunities available.
Healthy Minds: Charlotte’s Story
When Charlotte Jones first stepped into her university’s gym two years ago, she had no idea that exercise would be the remedy to the depression and anxiety she’d been living with.
Charlotte experienced mental health difficulties following a series of personal issues which coincided with the pressure of her final year at the University of Bristol, where she was studying Neuroscience.
The 23-year-old is shared her story on World Mental Health Day [10 October] to give hope to others who are going through a tough period, particularly whilst at University.
Charlotte had experienced low-level mental ill-health before coming to university in 2014, but was coping well. This was the case until her final year when her brother fell ill, a family member passed away and her relationship broke down.
At the same time, Charlotte was having to manage her dissertation project and the looming prospect of her final exams.