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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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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Mind Plan
I spent the weekend at Social Innovation Camp helping the Owngrown team do interesting things with real apples. Amongst the team was the lovely Jim Rokos, and meeting him properly reminded me to post a link to this. As Jim puts it: “The main food-groups of a balanced diet are well known. However, the essential […]
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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 […]
Continue reading How mad are you?
Thanks to everyone who wrote in telling me to watch the BBC2 documentary ‘How Mad Are You?’ A really fascinating study of the fine line between ‘mad’ and ‘sane’, and quite sensitively done (if you can overlook the strange Joe Millionaire production style). The stories of those who had recovered from serious illness were incredibly […]
Continue reading 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 […]
Continue reading Five things happy people do
And here’s another expert list of “things we should do to be happy”, this time from neuroscientist Gabrielle LeBlanc who has “canvassed the leading experts on what happy people have in common”. Well okay, actually it’s from Oprah.com. 🙂 Here’s a quick summary… Find your own golden self Eudaimonia means striving toward excellence based on […]
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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, […]
Continue reading 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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