5aday

Get inside our heads

The art of research

A few people have asked us recently if we’re trying to produce an official “five-a-day” from the Mindapples research. There are a lot of different lists of recommended actions for our mental health, and many offer interesting talking points. We don’t want to add to that pile by producing yet another set of five things […]

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Steve’s 5-A-Day

Steve Bridger wrote us a very thoughtful post for his 5-a-day: LISTEN TO A TED TALK. I do this often – or more accurately on those mornings when I answer my daily five o’clock alarm call, which if I’m honest, is about two or three times a week. TED talks typically last 20 minutes and rarely fail […]

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Amy’s 5-A-Day

Amy Sample Ward sent us her interesting and sociable 5-a-day: Walking away from the computer: as much as I love the interwebs and all my connections there, life is only complete if I take care of the rest of the world and connections offline. Talking about subjects other than my field of work: it’s true! […]

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Happy New Year!

A mental health building block you can buy from Etsy

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Alastair Campbell’s five-a-day

Yesterday, Jo and I went to Stand to Reason’s ‘Celebrating Recovery’ conference at City Hall to pester politicians about Mindapples. And within five minutes of arriving, we’d already got Alastair Campbell’s five-a-day! In case you can’t read that, it says: Sleep Family / home Exercise (including playing football) Bigger cause (including Burnley FC) Laughter (see […]

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Tal Ben Shahar

Tal Ben Shahar, Harvard positive psychology lecturer and author, has been kind enough to send through his five-a-day: Time with people I love – usually with family members. Doing something that is meaningful and pleasurable to me professionally (usually writing). Quiet listening to favorite music. Physical exercise for 30-60 minutes (running/yoga/etc). Gratitudes before going to […]

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Calling all bloggers

Dear blogosphere, It gives me great pleasure to invite you to join the Mindapples project and tell the world, what’s your five a day? Here’s how it works: Write a post telling your readers five things you do that help keep you mentally well (and answer any of the other survey questions too if you […]

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Recreational mental health

I’ve had some good chats with Stian Westlake and Yvonne Roberts of the Young Foundation recently, and we were talking amongst other things about ‘prevention’ and ‘cure’ in mental and physical health. The physical health community has been directing a lot of energy towards ‘preventative’ healthcare recently, and the mental health community has naturally followed […]

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12 steps to happiness

Here’s another take on the “things you should do to be happy” riff, this time from the Care Services Improvement Partnership. Interestingly they reference the economic crisis – which is funny because the economic crisis is also referencing us. Here’s a summary of their, erm… twelve: In situations of sustained social, economic and psychological stress, […]

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Robert Holden’s Five

Robert Holden, author, positive psychology guru and director of the Happiness Project (as seen in the BBC documentary ‘How To Be Happy’ no less), has been kind enough to send through his five-a-day. One “I love you.” One act of kindness. One “Thank you.” One act of forgiveness. One big laugh. His list so short […]

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