This year’s mental health week theme is kindness. In such uncertain times, there are countless opportunities to be kind and help those in your local community, as well as yourself.
A multitude of boys in the KES community are doing charitable work to aid the NHS and their work often includes exercise, which is also a form of being kind to oneself.
With so much time on your hands, contemplate how much your parents do for you. It would be good to consider doing acts of kindness in return; for example, simple chores like doing the hoovering or the washing up just to ease some of their difficulties.
Lockdown is a very stressful environment, so it is important (as always) to take time to be kind to yourself, as well as others. You may think you should be forcing yourself to constantly use this time productively, but it is important that we take the time to relax and recuperate as well.
Dr Elena Touroni, a consultant psychologist and co-CEO of ‘My Online Therapy’ said: “We might feel the pressure to be especially productive or creative. But the reality is that we’re living through incredibly uncertain and stressful times.”
Due to the nature of this lockdown period, many of you may also find yourselves on social media for an extended period of time in order to stay connected with your friends. However, it is vital that you do so in a healthy way, since many people can find themselves comparing their situations to other people’s, which can have a negative effect on their mental health. If you find yourself in a position where thoughts like this creep into your mind, take a break from social media and be kind to yourself.
Challenge: Aim to spend 10 minutes a day meditating or even be away from all devices and try to disconnect from the virtual world completely.
As mentioned, a great way to be kind to oneself is exercise. The school has made it particularly easy to stay active with the KES Sport Instagram, which has many new challenges such as the “flappy bird press up challenge” and – of course – Mr Pavey’s renowned workout of the day.
Challenge: Go for a walk everyday this week.
Kindness shouldn’t only be done to others, practice it on yourself too!
