3rd February 2022
Time To Talk Day
Blog by Charlotte Lawrence
(Made With Many Student Placement in Wellingborough)
Time to Talk Day is an awareness day to encourage conversations about mental health between friends, families, communities, workplaces, and groups. Mind, Rethink Mental Illness, and Co-op have come together to empower people to have conversations about mental health and have created conversation packs to help you have these chats which can be downloaded or ordered for free here. Their motto is ‘However you do it, Talk, Listen, Change lives’.
The great thing about Time to Talk Day is that you can do it in your own way, whether that is a group walk, tea and talk morning, or a craft activity with friends. When people to talk about their mental health it can help to reduce the stigma around it and encourages you to make connections with others and to feel less alone. The benefits are endless, and you don’t have to know everything about mental health support or what someone may be going through, just lending an ear and being present in conversations can make all the difference.
People find ways to connect everywhere, and here at Made With Many, we encourage people to be creative in their approaches. I am a student on placement here in Wellingborough’s Made With Many but having the opportunity to connect with others who are passionate about art and being creative is really inspiring. Attending groups or activities can feel daunting, everyone in the group has probably felt this too at some point, and everyone is there with a shared interest, a mutual interest in arts. The Mental Health Foundation (2019) wrote an article about how arts can help improve your mental health. The article explores how arts can help to create a space for social connection and how through art we can express ourselves without needing to use worse, because as I am sure you can relate, sometimes when we are feeling a certain way it can be hard to verbally communicate this. There are many more reasons why art can be beneficial for our mental health so if you want to have a read click here.
So why not be creative this Time To Talk Day. Have conversations with your loved ones, friends, colleagues, express yourself in an artistic way, and remember that however you do it, if you talk and listen, you can change lives – including your own. #TimeToTalk
References
Mental Health Foundation (2019). How Arts can help improve your mental health. Mental Health Foundation.
Time to Talk Day (2022). What is Time to Talk Day. Time To Talk Day.
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