How You Can Take Care of Others

While the past two posts have discussed ways you can take care of your own mental health and wellbeing, as the last post in this three-part series, I wanted to talk about how you can help others around you. Especially at a school like Uni, with such a competitive environment, it's overwhelmingly common to see students giving up that extra hour of sleep to get 5 more points on that test or perfect that presentation for the next day. On a wider scale, current children and teens report levels of anxiety and depression that are even higher than psychiatric ward patients in the 1950's. Incredible, right? If that statistic doesn't worry you about the mental health and wellbeing of current students, it definitely should. 

One small thing that I've been trying to do every day, or as often as I can, is writing small encouragement notes and posting them around the community. On the right is an example of one of these notes. You can even do this with sidewalk chalk and draw a cute message on your driveway that people can pass by on walks. It's super simple and quick and you may never know how much it helps someone. It's incredible how impactful a small encouraging message can be in someone's day. This is part of a project called "Letters of Light" that was put in place during Mental Health Awareness month. Reminding someone that they matter, that there are people who care for them, or just providing a little push of encouragement and motivation can be all that a person needs to keep going. These notes can not only benefit people around the community in a small way but aims to bring greater awareness to the stigma around mental illness and the overall importance of taking care of one's mental health. 

If you're interested in this project, you can read more about it on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/lettersoflightproject/