FIVE WAYS TO IMPROVE PERSONAL WELL-BEING

At the Goodwash Company we take health and wellbeing seriously.

From the very start we have worked alongside TH:INK founder Georgina Gilbert to support the wellbeing of our volunteers and workforce.  This week we have turned to our resident expert to highlight 5 simple things we can ALL do to improve our wellbeing.

Imagine a world with no emotion – no one ever gets emotional, upset or angry, happy or sad, laughs or cry. No down times and no up times either, just one monotonous emotional line through your life…… But aren’t ups and downs what being a human being is all about?

Unfortunately, we can’t have one without the other so, we must compromise and make the most of our lives. The best that we can do is to manage our lives in a way that limits the negative times and makes the most of the positive ones. We must learn how to cope with the moments that cause us stress as best we can so that any negative impacts on our mood is hopefully short term or temporary.

For some this is ‘normal’ life, they cope with all the ranges of human emotion in a balanced and healthy way but for others, these ups and downs are so unmanageable that they cannot cope which can sometimes lead to irrational thoughts, outbursts of emotion, high anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and lack of confidence (the list is not exhaustive).

We are all made up differently and experience life very differently but mental health resilience is something we learn in life. We watch and learn as adolescents and as we progress through teenage years, we learn to communicate and rationalise emotions (usually).

Whilst for some maturing, communicating and rationalising emotions is normal but for others it can be confusing, frustrating and damaging to health both mentally and physically. So, what can we do to build resilience in our lives to help us cope with day to day existence?

FIVE ACTIONS TO IMPROVE PERSONAL WELL-BEING:

1. Connect – with people around you. Family, friends, colleagues and neighbours. Have conversations and they will enrich your life.
2. Be active – Get outside and experience the different elements. Bike, run, play a game, garden, basically get moving and find something that suits YOU.
3. Take notice – Be curious, observe the beautiful, the unusual, the similarities and the differences. Reflect and appreciate.
4. Keep learning – Try something new, rekindle an old passion. Set yourself challenges and this will build confidence.
5. Give – Do something for someone else. Volunteer your time, be a mentor. Giving back has its own rewards and will leave you feeling fulfilled.

Georgina adds, ‘The object of the five actions is to maintain a level of well-being that is sustainable over long periods of time. Inevitably we will experience moments that we will not cope with but, by practicing the five ways to well-being we can aim to keep a balance, maintain perspective and rational so that we can live a life that is full of healthy emotions’.

The important thing being that we can deal with the entire range of emotions without falling into crisis and finding ourselves in need of an intervention.

Georgina is not only a full time firefighter, female role model but also a GB level senior triathlete. This enables TH:INK to offer more innovative mental health interventions such as – walk & talk, a run, indoor climbing, or mountain walk (sometimes but not always, accompanied by Poppy, Pippa and Luis the terriers).

Look after the mind and the mind will look after the physical.