Welcome to Mental Health Awareness Week 2024

Welcome to our PPN NW Blog series for Mental Health Awareness Week 2024! With this year’s theme ‘Moving More For Our Mental Health’.

In asking for contributions for the series, we just gave the theme, what we will be sharing touches on the impact of Long-Term Conditions, insights from Experts by Experience and throughout how ‘moving’ doesn’t need to conform to a specific activity! (As I type this sentence I think ‘running – argghh’ - though if that’s what works for you, don’t let me stop you!)

We hope you enjoy the series, please like and share on our social media channels to help continue raising awareness around Mental Health, in particular #MomentsForMovement

I’ve spent the past couple of weeks thinking about what I was going to write this Mental Health Awareness week.  The theme is moving for your mental health and I suspect the procrastination I have experienced reflects my own relationship with exercise and physical activity throughout my life.  It has often been something that I have to do, but not necessarily something I’ve found enjoyable, so there has often been procrastination with doing it too!

We all know how important movement is for our health and wellbeing – including our mental health, but there are so many different ways to move and be active that aren’t always given as much attention.  It can feel like there is pressure to fit into the expectations that we see so frequently on social media, but we also know people don’t always show the full reality on social media.  There is a huge increase in the ease of access to different sources of physical activity – especially when we all shifted to YouTube videos during lockdown! In many ways it is so positive that we do all have so much more access to this, but the breadth of ways we can be physically active aren’t always well represented or easily accessible.  It can feel like a lot of pressure when it isn’t your natural disposition, or within your physical ability to run or do a High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) Workout!

It is important to remember though, that “movement” is a very broad category of something that is really good for us.  Sitting less is in itself important, and something that many of us inevitably do too much of because of the nature of our work.  Yet we know that sitting too much can be bad for us – the NHS pages quotes observational research from the 1950s where it was found bus drivers were twice as likely to have a heart attack as their bus conductor colleagues: the drivers sat for 90% of their shift, while the conductors climbed about 600 stairs!

This weekend I found myself talking about it with a friend and realising I’m at a different stage of my life with this again.  As a woman over 40, I’m now also thinking about my aging and health in a different way related to movement. There are different things I need to think about as I get older, about my posture, and my muscle strength, and the risks of what it could mean for me if I don’t do this.  It feels important that we have these conversations though and remember that the types of movement our body needs can change at different times of our life. 

What I have always found is that planning ways to be active with friends always makes it easier. Whether that was going out dancing in my twenties, going out hiking in my thirties, or now contemplating joining a pilates class with a friend in my forties, the additional benefit of spending time with people I enjoy the company of always helped it feel more achievable.  It brings me back to the 5 Ways to Wellbeing, which include being physically active, but also include connecting with people, and learning - all things we can apply to find different ways to move for our mental health.

 We hope you enjoy reading the Blog Series and are inspired to consider ‘Moving More For Our Mental Health’ both personally and professionally this week, but also moving forward!