What’s the 5-a-day for your mind?
Mindapples encourages people to think positively about the health of their minds.
The “5-a-day for your mind” campaign was created for mental health to achieve what the 5-a-day campaign has done for physical health: to make taking care of our minds a normal, natural thing for all of us. We all have mental health, and actually, we can all do simple things to maintain it. Recent studies suggest that around 40% of our mental wellbeing is down to our outlook and activities: the choices we make and the actions we take.
Mindapples started as an online campaign in 2008 to crowdsource the answer to the question: "what's the 5-a-day for your mind?" Five years on, Mindapples has brought mindapples trees to universities, music festivals, workplaces, public events and gathered over 50,000 mindapples suggestions.
Starting a conversation about mental health by asking “What’s the 5-a-day for your mind?” is a simple and effective way of engaging people to reflect and consider what they can do to take care of their minds. Mindapples have spread to 30 universities, encouraging students to consider what works for them and to share their ideas with others. University can be a challenging time for many and it is important to support and encourage students to create habits of self-care.
Integrating 5 things into our daily lives can act as breathers and restorers [1] helping us to maintain our mental wellbeing in a preventative way. Simply telling people what to do doesn't work for mental health. It's too personal, and in any case the evidence suggests taking prescribed actions to boost our wellbeing doesn't really work.
To help increase awareness and understanding, join in this year’s University Mental Health and Wellbeing Day and share your 5-a-day.
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