Category: Mental Health

This documentary is about a BBC investigation into the mental health of university students during the corona virus pandemic. Within the first lockdown in March 2020 through May there were at least 10 suspected student suicides at UK universities according to freedom of information requests submitted to 137 institutions. In 2018, university minister called on vice chancellors to priorities student mental health on campus but over two years later nearly half of the universities that responded to BBC News responded that they hold no data or records on student suicides.

When talking to a tutor at a university they talked about how there has been a rise in student mental health issues and that tutors are not trained to deal with these complex mental health issues. Personal tutors should be doing wellbeing checks to see if students are missing classes or hand ins but they already have too much to do as so students are more likely to fall through the cracks. They also talked about how we need to destigmatise mental health so that more students will seek the appropriate support.

One of the underlying messages learned from this investigations it that many of the students did not seek support and instead kept their feelings to themselves and did not express them to anyone. A lot of the friends and family interview talked about they had no idea that thing were that bad.

The investigation also highlighted that there just don’t seem to be enough resources for universities to tackle this problem, Universities UK said the demand for mental health has doubled and universities cannot tackle this alone. This implies that more can and needs to be done in order to better support students with their mental health. Although the corona virus pandemic has exasperated the issue further, there was already a mental health crisis before that wasn’t being effectively handled.

Bibliography 

The Student Mental Health Crisis (2020) [Television]. BBC. 15 December 2020.

This documentary covers the life of Caroline Flack and her rise to fame, and explores the circumstances that led to her death, as her friends and family talk candidly as they come to terms with their loss.

While this documentary does not directly relate to the target audience I am aiming my project at, it does discuss some of the causes that led to Caroline Flack taking her own life. Within the documentary, many of Caroline Flack’s friends and family talk about how she often would hid her feelings and not discuss with them how she was feeling. They also mention how she was addicted to social media, and so she would often read through the numerous hate comments that she was reading online and never discuss how that made her feel with any of her fiends or family. As shown in my previously mental health posts, keeping feelings bottled up and not discussing them with others often leads to more intense feelings of loneliness and isolation.

The documentary also discussed how she never wanted anyone to know that she experienced these low moments within her life, which may be the reason she never opened up to anyone or sought any help. This leads into the idea about mental health still being stigmatised within todays society and that we need to tackle this issues so that hopefully less people will feel ashamed about suffering from mental health issues and will seek the appropriate help that they need.

What I have learnt

The main elements that I have taken away from this documentary is that when it comes to mental health, some of the main issues that stop people from seeking help and attempting to take there life is;

• Stigma
• Keeping feelings hidden
• Not talking to anyone
• Social media

This suggests that it will be important to try and tackle some if these issues through my mental health animations. Because my animations will be to help educate young children about what mental health is, hopefully I will be able to help reduce the stigma around it. I am also planning on talking about how to maintain good mental health, which will hopefully tackle the issue of people keeping their feelings hidden and not seeking help when they need it.

Bibliography 

Caroline Flack: Her Life and Death (2021) [Television]. Channel 4. 17 March 2021.

Within this documentary Roman Kemp explores the mental health and suicide crisis affecting young men in the UK. The documentary takes a closer look at the urgent issue of young men’s mental health and why an increasing number of them are taking their own lives and the reason why so many never seem to seek help. Roman Kemp explores what can be done to encourage more people to seek help, what preventative action we need to be taking, and the lasting impact suicide has on the loved ones left behind.

Although this documentary is more focused on male suicide, it does bring attention to the rise in mental health issues that are arising within young people. More and more children and teenagers seem to be struggling with poor mental health and suicidal thoughts, with children as young as 11 calling up suicide crisis lines for help.

While three quarters of all suicides are committed by men, these individuals seem to be more resistant to seeking help and often appear happy and content to friends and family up until the point that they commit suicide. This highlights that more needs to be done in getting people, especially men to start opening up to others about their feelings, and feeling comfortable enough to seek help when required. 1 in 5 people in the UK will have suicidal thoughts at some point in there life and more needs to be done to help these people from acting on those feelings.

One of the most important things I learnt from this documentary is how important communication and opening up about feelings are. Talking to someone about how you truly feel can help you to rationalise how you are feeling and can even help you to find the right support needed to start to feel more content. Keeping things bottled up and hidden only leads to more negative feelings such as isolation and loneliness and can result in feeling suicidal. This documentary explores the lives of three men of killed themselves during the pandemic, during which many people were alone and isolated due to the lockdowns and social distancing laws in place. This again highlights that fact that now more than ever we need to make sure that we are checking in on our friends and communicating so people do not feel as if they are along.

What I have learnt

All this is very helpful in terms of research for my mental health animations as it suggests just some points that will be good to communicate to children such as normalising talking about our feelings with others. From this documentary it is clear that a lot of these men that sadly died did not open up about their feelings to anyone and instead kept their emotions to themselves. This was obviously very detrimental to their mental wellbeing, and so normalising talking about feelings within my mental health animations will hopefully help children to open up more when they are feeling down and know to seek help when they need it.

Bibliography

Roman Kemp: Our Silent Emergency (2021) [Television]. BBC Three. 16 March 2021, 21:00.

Relaxation and Mindfulness

Both relaxation and mindfulness are skills to be learnt and practised as they are both great techniques that can help at times of increased stress, pressure and worry.

Relaxation 

Practising relaxation is very good for your wellbeing and can help to better manage emotions such as anxiety, worry or stress. Although there are many different forms of relaxation, the three most well-practised are breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation and guided imagery.

Mindfulness

This is a technique that involves purposely trying to focus on being in the present moment and allowing thoughts to just enter and leave your mind.

Benefits of practising mindfulness include:

• Increases your ability to be self aware
• Stress reduction
• Feeling more able to cope with difficult situations
• Feeling more in control of what to focus on
• Being less judgmental of yourself
• Helps reduce more physical symptoms associated with stress and anxiety

How to practise mindfulness 

Mindful eating – Pay attention to the taste taste, textures, sight and smell of what you are eating and drinking.

Mindful moving – Notice how you move when walking, running or jogging, think about the different surfaces you are moving across feel.

Body scan – Start from your head and work you way down to just focus on the individual parts of you body. Focus on the feeling of warmth throughout your body, how you are breathing.

Mindful drawing – Focus on the pen or pencil, the colour you are using, how it feelings against the texture of the paper. Try not to think about what it is you are drawing but the feeling of drawing.

Mindful meditation – Sit quietly and focus on your breathing, your thoughts, sensations in your body and what you can hear around you.

Bibliography 

Student Wellbeing Centre (2021) Relaxation and Mindfulness [Blog]. Available from: https://cpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/dist/4/8317/files/2019/07/Relaxation.pdf. [Accessed 15 March 2021]

Managing low mood and depression

Depression and low mood can occur for a variety of different reasons, such as certain situations, feelings, emotions or events or can either be triggered by seemingly nothing, which we can internalise to believe that there is no valid reason for feeling that way we do. It is completely normal to feel bouts of low mood, however if the feeling persists, it is important to seek help from a GP.

Below are just some examples of the causes and symptoms of low mood or depression.

How to manage low moods and depression

Routine

Having a routine gives you structure and purpose and is something to aim to have even when going through a period of low mood. Each evening, plan for the following day so when you wake up, all you need to do is follow your plan.

Self-care

Feeling low or depressed can often cause individuals to forget about self-care. Getting enough sleep, eating properly and regularly, exercising, spending time with others and relaxing are just some of the fundamentals to try and achieve even when feeling low, as often poor self-care can lead to further feelings of low mood.

Positive self-talk 

Often when we feel low we will start to talk negatively about ourselves which can lead to a downward spiral of negative thought and often a lack of motivation to do anything. Instead, try to turn all negative thoughts about yourself into a positive to help raise your esteem and motivation about yourself.

Keep a diary or journal 

Keeping a mood journal can often be useful in pinpointing why you feel a certain way and what has caused that feeling. By jotting down when you feel different emotions and what was happening at the point you felt that emotion, you will hopefully begin to notice a pattern in why you feel down at certain points and what potentially is causing that feeling.

Distraction techniques 

This technique is only a short term fix but distracting yourself through watching something on TV or reading a book can be good in keeping your mind off unwanted thoughts for a little while.

Open up 

Opening up can be extremely helpful as i tallows you to get things off your chest and rationalise them in the process. It can help ease isolation and you are far more likely to be offered compassion rather than the rejection you maybe fearing.

Seek support 

Animation talking about depression

Below is an animation that talks about what depression is and how it feels in a more narrative style. I really like how depression is depicted within this animation and personified, but still manages to get across the seriousness and factual information about what it is like to live with depression. I think that this video really succeeds in informing people what depression is actually like while still presenting the video in a light tone through the images shown. This is something I hope to achieve through my animations due to my target audience being children. I want my videos to be informative and education while still keeping a light tone so that I don’t scare the children with my subject matter.

I had a black dog, his name was depression

Bibliography – [complete references]

Student Wellbeing Centre (2021) Managing low mood and depression [Blog]. Available from: https://cpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/dist/4/8317/files/2019/07/Low-Mood-2-1.pdf. [Accessed 15 March 2021]

Although I am planning for my mental health animations to be aimed at primary school aged children, the University of Lincoln’s student wellbeing centre has a lot of helpful resources with information that is beneficial to my research. On the wellbeing site there is a section for self-help guides that provide information on managing stress, eating well, relaxation and mindfulness etc.

Self-help guides

Managing stress

What causes stress?

Stress is a perfectly natural felling to experience and can be caused by many different things. As a student, some of the most common causes of stress include:

• Deadlines
• Exam preparation
• Academic pressure
• Expectations of yourself
• The need to impress others
• Busy schedule
• Poor sleep
• Poor eating habits

Ways to manage stress 

Open up 

Talking to someone can help to rationalise issues. Friends, family, teachers, whoever your are most comfortable with, opening up and talking can really help to eleviate some of the stress felt.

Manage your time 

Using diaries or planners can help you to organise your time and make sure that your are using your time efficiently so you feel less stressed about the work you need to get done. Writing  every day list that also include normal day to day activities can also help to make sure you are making the most of each day and hopefully reduce the stress felt towards deadlines and academic pressure.

Take breaks 

Making sure to take regular breaks throughout the day will help to keep your mind active and healthy. Staring at a screen for long hours each day without taking a break can be very bad for your mental health and cause you to lose motivation in working. Regular breaks helps to give the mind some time to rest a rejuvenate so you are able to work at 100% performance on work.

Get some fresh air 

Going out for a walk can help reduce feelings of stress. Getting away from where you normally do work and getting some fresh air can help to reduce the stress and replenish feelings of calmness.

Look after yourself 

When feeling stressed, we are often guilty of not looking after ourselves. Making sure you get enough sleep, eating properly and regularly, exercising, spending time with others are just some of the fundamentals of looking after oneself.

Bibliography 

https://cpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/dist/4/8317/files/2019/07/Stress-2.pdf

What is mental health?

Mental health is the mental well-being, so our emotions, thoughts and feelings, ability to solve problems and overcome difficulties, social connections and out understanding of the world around us. The world health organisation (WHO) describes mental health as;

“A state of well-being in which the individual realises his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community”

Bad mental health can affect:

• Work, school, or home life
• relationships with people
• sleep
• appetite
• energy levels
• ability to think clearly
• physical health
• life satisfaction and more

However, having  good mental health means that you can:

• Make the most of your potential
• Cope with life
• Play a full part in your family, workplace, community and among friends

What is mental illness?

Mental illness however is an illness that affects the way individuals think, feel, behave or interact with others. There are a number of different mental illnesses, such as depression, and they all have different symptoms and effect a persons life in different ways.

An important factor to note about mental health and mental illness is that they are not the opposite of each other. A person may have good mental health but still have a mental illness, or someone could have no mental illness and still have bad mental health. Good mental health isn’t about feeling happy all the time and ignoring any problems, its about living and coping well despite the problems. Everyones mental health is in a state of flux, with days of bad mental health and days of good mental health, the important thing is to make sure that you find a balance.

How to look after your mental health?

Talk about your feelings 

Talking can be a good way to cope with problems you are carrying around in your head. By talking to someone it may lift some of the burden you may feel and make you feel better afterwords. It may also encourage others to do the same and open up about their problems too. Although it may not be easy to open up about how you are feeling straight away and may feel a little uncomfortable, try and give it some time. Opening up is one of the best ways to sort through feelings and may really help in improving your mental health.

Keep active 

Regular exercise can boost your self-esteem and can help you concentrate, sleep and feel better. Exercise is a great way to keep both the body and mind active, and helps in creating good mental health. While experts recommend around 30 minutes of exercise five days a week, this doesn’t have to be too strenuous. Just going on a walk and getting some fresh air should help in improving your mental health.

Eat well

What we eat can have an effect of how we feel. Eating lots of sugary foods and just junk food in general can make people feel very lafargic and just not great in general. The brain needs lots of nutrients in order to stay healthy, which is why its so important to have a good healthy and balanced diet, for both your physical and mental health. A healthy diet should include:

• A variety of fruit and vegetables
• Wholegrain cereals or bread
• Nuts and seeds
• Dairy products
• Oily fish
• Plenty of water

It is good to try and limit the amount of high caffeine, sugary drinks and alcohol you consume as these in large quantities are not great for you physical or mental health.

Drink sensibly 

People often tend to drink alcohol to change their mood, such as to deal with loneliness or fear. This is not a good coping mechanism due to the effects being temporary and the individual often feeling worse once the drink has worn off. If excessive drinking is used as a coping mechanism then the person will start to build up a tolerance and have to consume more alcohol each time. A light drink occasionally is perfectly health for most people as long as they stay within the recommended limits (three to four units a day for men and two to three units a day for women)

Keep in touch 

Strong ties with family and friends can really help in dealing with the normal stresses of life. They can help keep you active, keep you grounded and can help you solve practical problems. It’s worth working at relationships that make you feel loved or valued. But, if you think being around someone is damaging your mental health, it may be best to take a break from them or call it a day completely. It’s possible to end a relationship in a way that feels okay for both of you.

Ask for help

If things are getting too much for you and you feel you can’t cope, ask for help. Your family or friends may be able to offer practical help or a listening ear. Local services are there to help you. Examples of support  support include

• Joining a support group
• Find a counsellor
• Talk to your GP

Take a break

It is important to take time out of your day to just take a break. This is where for a few minuets, hours or maybe a whole day, you take a break to look after yourself and your mental health. Taking a break may mean being very active. It may mean not doing very much at all. Activities such as yoga or meditation, maybe helpful in finding peace. Listen to your body. If you’re really tired, give yourself time to sleep. Without good sleep, our mental health suffers and our concentration goes downhill.

Do something you’re good at 

Enjoying yourself can help beat stress. Doing an activity you enjoy probably means you’re good at it, and achieving something boosts your self-esteem. Concentrating on a hobby, like gardening or doing crosswords, can help you forget your worries for a while and can change your mood.

Accept who you are 

It’s much healthier to accept that you’re unique than to wish you were more like someone else. Feeling good about yourself boosts your confidence to learn new skills, visit new places and make new friends. Good self-esteem helps you cope when life takes a difficult turn.

Care for others 

Caring for others is often an important part of keeping up relationships with people close to you. It can even bring you closer together. Helping out can make us feel needed and valued, and that boosts our self-esteem. It also helps us to see the world from another angle. This can help to put our own problems in perspective. Caring for a pet can improve your wellbeing too. The bond between you and your pet can be as strong as between people.Looking after a pet can bring structure to your day and can act as a link to other people.

Bibliography

Mental Health Foundation (2021) How to look after your metal health. Available from: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/sites/default/files/How%20to…mental%20health.pdf [Accessed 12 March]

Lincoln Live Lounge – Dr Alex George

Within this talk Dr Alex George the new UK Youth Mental Heath Ambassador for the department of education and Julie Spencer the head of student wellbeing at the University of Lincoln talk about mental health. The talk focuses on what mental health is, how to cope with mental health, what services are available at Lincoln and what Dr Alex’s new position means in terms of improving mental health in education.

Within the talk Dr Alex talks about how he is an A&E doctor, and that around 1/3 of the patients he sees come in with mental health cases. A&E should not be the first place that people open up about mental health, which is one of the issues Dr Alex wishes to tackle as a mental health ambassador, and get people talking about their issues and getting the support need before it become a crisis.

What Dr Alex wants to focus on as the Youth Mental Health Ambassador:

• Reducing the stigma around mental health
• Improving education and schools approach to wellbeing
• Having mental health higher up on the school curriculum
• More support teams available
• Having intervention earlier, before children develop issues or need referrals

Some of the advice given during the talk about maintaining good mental health was to take time out of your day and putting energy into looking after yourself, getting into good habits and routines early on which can follow you through life, and opening up and talking to others about your feelings rather than bottling them down. By opening up, intervention can occur and reduce the chance of a bigger problem developing.

One of the more interesting topics brought up during that talk was that Dr Alex wanted to focus his attention on informing schools about mental health due to the lack of coverage taught when he was in education. While there seem to be a lot of resources available for university students via students wellbeing centres and website which offer both in person, and virtual support, primary and secondary schools seem to be lacking some of this. This is clearly evident in the research I have conducted previously via my interview with a primary school teachers, and generally research into the curriculum and external resources.

What I have learnt 

From this talk it is clear that the government and schools are trying to do more to raise awareness of mental health in education, especially in primary and secondary schools where there seems to be less support than at university. Issues such as stigma and trying to get people to open up and seek helps before the issue becomes a crises seem to be the main problems wanting to be addressed.

This suggests that it would be good for my animations to be presented in a way that will help in reducing the stigma of mental health. It would also be beneficial for my animations to show how children could seek help, so that if the feel that their mental health is falling, then they know what to do to get help before the issue gets bigger and needs more critical intention.

Bibliography

University of Lincoln (2021) Lincoln Live Lounge with Dr Alex George [Facebook]. 10 March. Available from: https://fb.watch/4bhYgG6PEr/. [Accessed 13 March 2021].

Because I wish to make these animations available as school resources, I first need to see what is already accessible to my target audience. To discover this I will look into the national curriculum to understand what is being taught to my target audience in school, as well as look at external resources such as BBC bitesize to learn if there are any resources already covering mental health and wellbeing.

National curriculum for Key stage 1 and 2

Compulsory national curriculum subjects at primary school are:

• English
• Maths
• Science
• Design and technology
• History
• Geography
• Art and design
• Music
• Physical education (including swimming0
• Computing
• Ancient and modern foreign languages (at key stage 2)
• Religious education

Schools often also tech

• Personal, social and health education (PSHE)
• Citizenship
• Modern foreign languages (at key stage 1)

As is shown in the compulsory subjects taught in primary schools, mental health or wellbeing is not one of the subjects covered. However, in the section detailing what schools also tend to cover along side the compulsory subjects there is the subject of Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) which is most likely where the topics of mental health and wellbeing would be covered if schools chose to teach those topics, although I can’t say for certain. While looking into the national has given me some insight into what is taught in primary education, it’s still fairly ambiguous whether or not the subjects of mental health and wellbeing are covered in primary schools or not.

BBC Bitesize

BBC Bitesize is an external learning resource for children to use when studying. The site is divided into the different key stages so that children can access learning resources at the appropriate learning level for them. Below is the list of subjects that a key stage 2 student may be studying and can find resources for. As is shown in the image below, there is not specific section on mental health, however, there is a section for PSHE, which is most likely where any resources on mental health and wellbeing would be if this sites has any at all.

After selecting the subject PSHE and Citizenship, you are then brought to this page where the topics are self, relationships, health and safety and community. Again there are no particular topic which seem to cover mental health, with the closest being ‘Emotional wellbeing’ under the topic of self. Within this topic there is not much coverage on mental health, instead the videos cover the topics of anger, what it’s like to live with various illnesses and allergies, and what it is like to be the new child in class. While all these are very important topics, it is a little disappointing that there is not more coverage on mental health.

Resources available on BBC Teach 

The next external learning resource site I looked into was BBC Teach which provides classroom resources for students. Just like with BBC Bitesize, the resources are split into key stages with various resources for the different subjects of the curriculum.

After clicking on the subject PSHE I came across a lot more resources that had links to mental health than I did when looking on the BBC Bitesize website. Below are some videos available to key stage 2 children on mental health issues from the perspective of a young person. While these clips are great in highlighting some of the mental illnesses in society, however, there seem to be no clips that explain what mental health actually is to children, only what mental illnesses are.

I think these clips on mental illnesses are presented for key stage 2 children in a very informative yet child friendly way. The videos are narrated by children who have a mental illness and talk about their experience with coping with the condition. The animations highlight the children narration in a way that does not mock or undermine the seriousness of the topics being discussed. The animation style and colour scheme used to the videos is very fitting in illustrating the children stories but not drawing too much attention away from what is being said in the video.

Underneath each of the videos as talking points which teachers could ask after showing the video to the class. These talking points allow for children to open up and potentially discuss what they have just watched and ask questions about mental illness and how to help someone with mental illness.

Below are some more resources from BBC Teach which cover the topic of growth mindset, and how to develop a positive mindset.

After watching these videos I was a little disappointed that it didn’t cover more about mental health. These collection of videos basically cover how it is good to have a positive mindset and how to obtain that. Again I think that the animation style and the way the topic was discussed was in a child appropriate manner, and has given me a lot to think about where the presentation of my mental health animations are concerned.

While this has helped me to understand what is taught in the curriculum for primary school children, and the resources that are available externally to children on the topic of mental health, I still don’t know if mental health is talked about in schools, or if the children even access these external sources. Because of this I plan to interview a primary school teacher in order to gain more of an understanding on if the topic of mental health is ever discussed with children in primary school, and if my project of creating mental health animations that could be shown to primary school children to educate them on the subject would even be appropriate or useful.

Bibliography 

BBC Bitesize (2021)  Key stage 2 PSHE and Citizenship. Available from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zqtnvcw. [Accessed 8 March 2021]

BBC Teach (2021) PSHE KS2 / KS3: When I Worry About Things. Available from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/pshe-ks2–ks3-when-i-worry-about-things/z7jyd6f. [Accessed 8 March 2021]

BBC Teach (2021) PSHE KS2: Growth Mindset. Available from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/pshe-ks2-growth-mindset/zkph92p. [Accessed 8 March 2021]

Government (2021) The National Curriculum. Available from: https://www.gov.uk/national-curriculum/key-stage-1-and-2. [Accessed 8 March 2021]