Mental Health Awareness Week at Connections
Anxiety was the focus of this years Mental Health Awareness Week (May 12th -18th 2014).
At Connections, we devised a programme of events to promote services available to people, information on mental health issues and raise awareness of anxiety, what it is and how to manage it.
Anxiety can affect anyone at any time so the more we all know about it, the better we can deal with it. It is one of the most common health problems in the world. A little anxiety can be good for us, it can help us prepare for interviews or for exams but too much can give us problems. It’s a tricky little Gremlin that can sneak up on us and we don’t notice it until it starts going beyond an ‘unhealthy’ level. We wanted to let people know what signs to look out for, think about their own personal triggers and what they can do to help themselves.
We arranged three events spread over the week and invited other local organisations to participate with their own stalls and provide information on their services. Theses included East Dunbartonshire Voluntary Association, promoting their ‘Volunteering is good for your health’ campaign. East Dunbartonshire Leisure and Culture healthy reading scheme, Employability and people development team, health improvement team promoting the asset mapping project, and the local food co-op. The staff from the food co-op provided information on healthy eating as well as healthy soups and smoothies! The smoothies were made in a very innovative way to combine healthy eating with exercise with a converted bike powering the smoothie maker!
Finally, on the Friday, our own staff gave a talk on anxiety management and our colleague Danny Randall from the Supported Living Service in Dumbarton gave us all a talk on Mindfulness and encouraged us to try it for ourselves. It was so relaxing, one of us fell asleep... Thanks Danny! And we owe a huge debt of gratitude to all the people who have used our service past and present who helped out with the events, providing craft stalls and home baking as well as just turning up on the days and supporting the events.
About East Dunbartonshire Connections Service
Are you stressed, worried or anxious? Suffering from panic attacks? Experiencing feelings of depression? If you're between 16 and 65 years of age and live in the East Dunbartonshire area then maybe we can help.
Our Connections Service provides short-term support to people who are experiencing or are at risk of experiencing common mental health issues such as depression, stress and anxiety.
Click here to find out more: http://www.trfs.org.uk/what_we_do/east_dunbartonshire_connections_service
Commenting is now closed on this article.