Five behaviours for mental wellbeing
Our mental health determines our experience of the world so profoundly that to view it as something like fitness, which can be improved with straightforward exercise, seems unrealistic.
But this is not the message coming from New Zealand’s top psychologists and mental health academics following Mental Health Awareness Week.
During a mental health seminar at AUT University’s Northcote campus, the Five Ways To Wellbeing were repeatedly endorsed as simple daily behaviours to help stave off mental illness.
Developed by the UK’s New Economics Foundation, the five ways are:
1. making an effort to be part of a network of relationships that you actively work on, by talking, listening and being there for others.
the act of volunteering your time, words and presence to others, so that relationships become a two-way experience.
looking for and noticing the little things in life that give you joy and make you happy.
just as we need to keep our bodies active, we need to keep our minds active. We need constant challenges that push and stretch us just enough.
engaging in even moderate physical activity three to five times a week has been shown to significantly reduce symptoms of depression.
‘‘These are five very simple behaviours that if you incorporate into your daily life, there is a huge body of research to indicate that they will improve your resilience and overall wellbeing,’’ chief executive of the New Zealand Mental Health Foundation Shaun Robinson says.
Robinson was however keen to acknowledge the benefits from these behaviours do have limits. ‘‘To say this to a young woman in South Auckland who’s living in a garage and escaping domestic violence would be an insult, but it will help. It won’t overcome those huge social determinants, but on a population level it does make a difference.’’