I am so pleased that this poem I wrote after volunteering at my local football club for Time to Change last year is going to be shared with followers of the national campaign. Every time I have something to say about unhelpful attitudes towards talking about mental health and mental illness (and feel myself losing compassion) I will refer to the wiser me who was able to step back and write this. It's Time to Change It’s time to change The way we talk About what’s in our heads

Remember a while back I told you about my wellness strategies involving social media? There are a proliferation of memes today, videos, slogans and hashtags which will hopefully trend and increase awareness of mental health. Unfortunately, this does not always lead to a greater understanding or action to help elevate mental health to an equal position as physical health as seen by continuing stigma of the severely affected and the decreasing quality and quantity of mental hea

Checking in with yourself every now and then about  - does your online self feel like your real self? By definition online networks grow moment to moment and can soon become all encompassing as we take every opportunity to check for updates and sometimes miss out on real life moments of calm and peace. Our online worlds can become a bubble containing only what we want to see and paradoxically this can leave us feeling less connected to our real lives as we endlessly react to

When we take responsibility for who we interact with and what we are drawn into online we automatically become more discerning about how we use social media. We can decide the level of challenge/noise we want to be faced with by checking our feeds and messages less often and by being smart and turning off notifications. If we are proactive about shaping our experience online, I fully believe social media doesn’t need to be another source of stress in life. These tips were wri