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Supporting adult learners’ positive mental health
Supporting adult learners’ positive mental health

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1.3 Boosting your mental wellbeing

Being aware of, and able to reflect on, your own feelings, psychological pain or even physical manifestations of stressors building up, means you can then determine and choose how to reduce them. In addition to the strategies identified in the stress bucket model, shown in Section 1.1, you may have other specific strategies that work for you, such as going to the gym, meditating or watching TV. The important thing is to be willing to challenge and change entrenched habits, behaviours and self-beliefs. For example, you may feel you do not have enough time to engage in stress-relieving activities because you are extremely busy at work and home. This perspective is, however, short-sighted because failure to address stress can lead to long-term health problems, which may then lead to time away from work.

A door with the words ‘Open’ and ‘Time for change’ on it.

The NHS provides an approach for reducing stressors which you may already be familiar with, the 5 Steps to Mental Wellbeing.

Activity 2 Five steps to mental wellbeing

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes for each chosen activity

Read the NHS 5 Steps to Wellbeing [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] and identify some time this week when you can choose and then apply one or more of the suggested activities. Keep a reflective journal and score your mood before you engage in the activities, and afterwards. Record your feelings and set small goals for incorporating these activities into your daily life to enable a stress release.

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Discussion

It can take between 18 and 254 days to change a habit, with 66 days being the average time (Lally et al., 2010), so be kind to yourself if you plan to undertake stress relieving activities but end up being distracted and not keeping fully on task. The saying ‘practice makes perfect’ is key to making these valuable changes.

Having identified your signs of stress in Activity 1, you may find it beneficial to also explore your workplace mental health support. Set some time aside, as you would do to support your learners, to support yourself and research which resources and services are available. They might be useful now, or in the future.