mental health

Get inside our heads

Pitching Mindapples to the mental health sector

15 September 2009

Mindapples has been on its summer holidays for a month, but with World Mental Health Day and New Year’s Resolutions fast approaching, we’re back and kicking up a gear again (in a nice sustainable, healthy sort of way). So, to kick things off, here’s a video of me pitching Mindapples at the Innovation Exchange Festival […]

Solitude

10 July 2009

We’ve been a bit quiet here on the Mindapples blog (my book coming out, Lauren’s MA due in, Tessy on holiday…), but there’s a lot going on behind the scenes. One of the things I’ve been up to is contributing to a new Channel 4 programme, Alone in the Wild, in which Ed Wardle will […]

Steph’s five a day

28 March 2009

My lovely friend Steph , a product designer, has shared her five a day with us… “I’ve heard of this from a friend…Lauren gives good hugs too” I heavily daydream and all the time. Here is what are in my daydreams-when I listen to piano music I believe I am playing that tune (by the […]

Times for your mind

5 March 2009

Interesting piece in the Times a while back (thanks to the lovely Katherine at the RSA for sending it my way) about simple daily activities you can do for your mind. Paul Farmer of Mind is quoted but the ideas seem to come from all over the place. I’d be interested to hear what people […]

Like clockwork

25 February 2009

The secret life of your bodyclock by Horizon was on last night. It took me on a journey into the secret world of the human internal body clock Our body clock controls what we do and how well we do it. In relation to When is asleep not asleep? This program explored the idea of […]

When is asleep not asleep?

22 February 2009

New Scientist asks “Are bad sleeping habits driving us mad?” “TAKE anyone with a psychiatric disorder and the chances are they don’t sleep well. The result of their illness, you might think. Now this long-standing assumption is being turned on its head, with the radical suggestion that poor sleep might actually cause some psychiatric illnesses […]

Nature delivered

16 February 2009

Graze is officially recognised by the NHS as supporting the 5-a-day scheme. It was started by seven friends who shared a passion for food. It allows British office workers to improve the way they eat at work. You can order tasty food online and get it delivered to your desks. With boxes containing everything from […]

Andy Gibson explains Mindapples

Craig at the O’Reilly GMT blog has very kindly posted a video interview with me explaining the Mindapples project and talking a bit about how far we’ve got. He caught me on the hop a bit: no time to do my hair, although I did manage to dress up a bit. Here’s the video from […]

The art of research

23 January 2009

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 […]

Alastair Campbell’s five-a-day

16 December 2008

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 […]