“Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realises his or her own abilities can cope with normal a life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community”
Mental health is very important, not only for yourself but for the people around you as well, especially friends and family!
Mental health affects your thoughts, feelings and actions. You need to be able to express your emotions, to understand yourself and ask for help if needed. Throughout life, everyone has problems and we need to deal with them, and manage the situation so that it doesn’t get worse.
At Runnymede we help each other, and teachers and staff organised activities to allow students to express themselves during Mental Health Week.
Some of these activities were:
Making faces in order to represent our feelings.
Drawing squiggles and imagining what they could represent.
Making an origami duck, that gave us a little break, helping us to disconnect during class.
Mindfulness activities to think about life and rest a little... this could change your mood as you get a break from your daily routine.
I really enjoyed these activities, it was great to take a moment fir myself and think about helping other people.
Thank you for this fun week!
Mercedes Anastasio 7I
During Mental Health Week this year, we ere encouraged to think about other people and how they manage their feelings, family, friends, surroundings and school. Many people suffer from mental illnesses like depression, anxiety and stress-related problems. At Runnymede we celebrate these days so that students do not have to go through it alone.
Some of the activities we do at school are: origami, mood in pencil case, wearing our clothes inside-out, squiggles, listening, slow-breathing and exercise. We celebrate these days doing these things so that people do it feel alone and realise that theses things can happen to everyone.
In my opinion, my favourite activity was the squiggles because you can express how you are feeling inside. Some people that have anxiety normally enjoy squiggling. Other people in my class liked inside-out clothes or mood in pencil case. Doing “mood in pencil case” was hilarious because everyone made silly faces and there was also a lot of creativity involved, like using pen cartridges. In the “inside out day”, people wore their blazers, jumpers or skirts the wrong way round.
This week was very important because we all worked as a community, together to realise that no-one is alone... that certain people are not the only ones feeling depressed or struggling with mental health issues.
By Sarina Y7
Mental health includes our emotional, mental and social well-being. It affects us in many different ways. It changes how we feel, how we think and how we act. Mental Health Week at Runnymede helped me to think about other people in the world that may be struggling with mental health problems.
Mental Health Week at Runnymede could help lots of people. Doing different activities during Mental Health Week allows us to have a break from our normal timetable. This improves our mood and helps us focus on ourselves more. It can also reduce our stress and our anxiety. Some exercises that we have done at Runnymede have been: meditation, stress relief workouts, origami, creative writing, mindful colouring etc.
Mental Health Week may help a child that has problems with their families or with friends because the child has time to relax, which can help them to forget about everything and it is as if all your thoughts were flying away. It is like being in a completely different world where there are no problems.
I think that some important points for someone to be able to have good mental health are: having the support of your family, having good friends, being able to talk about your problems with someone that you can trust, having a good school life and having self-acceptance.
By Cristina Huertas 7I
What is Mental Health Week?
Mental health week is supposed to make you remember about everyone around you who might have a mental health problem and that you should help them if they need help. Mental health week happens once a year and it lasts for a week mental health week was created on May, 2018.
I like mental health week at school you can do fun and creative activities activities such as:
Slow breathing
Origami
Exercise
Squiggle
Making faces from things inside our pencil cases.
Inside out clothing.
Listening.
The two activities that I enjoyed the most were the origami and the squiggle as with both of them you could create and imagine things which was very fun.
Why is there a mental health week?
At school we do mental health week so that the people with mental issues do not feel alone. To help people feel that they are not alone, we are encouraged to have discussions around mental health at school as well as take part in a range of activities.
By Bosco Sánchez 7F