Mental Health Awareness Week May 2021 Nature
Nature
Mental health is important, especially after we have all faced such a challenging year with a world wide crisis and endured national lockdowns. With so much time spent inside, we find it refreshing that the theme for MHA week this year, is nature.
It is no surprise to hear that during the pandemic, research showed that one of the top coping strategies for people was taking walks and spending time in green spaces, and with sources showing that wildlife itself thrived in our absence, people really started to take in the beauty around them.
Nature is central to our psychological and emotional health, and with the many gardens and green spaces located around our various libraries, we can soundly agree that nothing beats sitting in the garden with a good book!
To learn more about the initiative, click here.
Meet Lydia!
Lydia Weston is an experienced tutor with a passion to help others learn how to bring mindfulness into their everyday lives to improve their own mental health and wellbeing. Want to find out more about mindfulness and its benefits? Then take a look at the video below.
Mindfulness
Expanding your own mindfulness is a proven way to help you better connect with your surroundings as well as what you are feeling within yourself. It relaxes the mind and body, and can help significantly reduce stress and worry, effectively helping stave off anxiety, unhappiness and depression. Join Lydia as she hosts a nature themed mindfulness session in the video below.
Books and Resources
Nottingham Cty Libraries have a vast array of resources, including books that are recommended by health experts and cover a wide array of conditions and topics. To find out more on our health and wellbeing page, click here.
We have also partnered up with Reading Well in an effort to help support people and help them manage and understand their health and wellbeing by providing helpful reading.
Looking for something in particular? Then go ahead and search our online catalogue for whatever you need!
Sounds of Nature
It’s amazing just how much difference the sounds of nature can make when it comes to helping keep calm and focused. It’s well proven that soft sounds of ambience, whether it be gentle waves, chirping of birds or even just the wind blowing through the trees can do great things in keeping peaceful and relaxed.
We personally believe it makes for incredible background sounds for when you are reading too!
Here are a few good examples of audio to match this year’s mental health week theme:
Slow Radio Take your pick from city to country. Close your eyes relax and listen
Bird Song Radio bring nature indoors. You can also download the RSPB Bird Song Radio App
Cities and Memory Project an eclectic mix of more than 3,000 archived sounds across more than 90 countries from the urban and natural world. Currently collating sounds from cities under lockdown like Clap for the NHS
YouTube Search YouTube for sounds of nature to help you relax and sleep.
