Wellbeing
In recent years there has been a growing understanding of the importance of mental and emotional health, especially in the school and work environments. Maintaining a healthy balance between school tasks and recreational activities is crucial to staying positive and happy even more so now than ever.
Often searching for information online can be overwhelming, this page aims to share with you a collection of learning experiences, activities, advice and reliable news sources all in one place. Much of the advice and resources provided are suitable for students, parents and teachers alike.
Use the links below to navigate to the section you need:
6 Top tips for managing confinement (TES March 2020)
It is very easy to adopt bad habits when being stuck indoors: screen time overload, over snacking, too much sitting. Here are some top tips for managing confinement and maintaining your mental and and physical health.
Separate work and play
Your school hours are 7.45am - 3.20pm, between 1-2 extra hours may be needed to complete your work for the day - whatever time each day you choose to finish, stick to it and once you clock out, don't return until morning. Also remember to schedule your break and lunch times. Your academic education is very important but even more so is maintaining positive mental health.
Keep to a schedule
You know the saying... 'If you fail to plan, you're planning to fail.' Adhering to a routine allows us to foster habits that match our goals and aspirations. Developing a daily routine can help us to feel more in control of everything, and help us to make room for all that's important. Routine can aid our mental health. It can help us to cope with change, to form healthy habits, and to reduce our stress levels. If you have no plan to do other things, it's more than likely that you will allow yourself to work longer than you need to.
Get Active
A restriction on movement will soon take it's toll on our bodies, so combat that by creating a weekly workout schedule. Attending school, walking up and down the stairs between lessons, classroom activities, PE classes and CCAs have all contributed in the past to keeping us active. However, we now need to make up for the lack of movement. Many athletes, personal trainers and fitness enthusiasts have been offering fitness classes for you to simply put up on a screen and follow along. See the fitness section for our list of recommended, reliable trainers.
Keep a Healthy Diet
After the initial bulk buying frenzy that ensued soon after the announcements, many supermarkets are now well stocked again and people seemed to have calmed down a little! This means that our diet doesn't need to suffer. Fill your fridge with a range of fruit and veg and see how creative you can be in creating meals. Have a go at making some healthy recipes found in the 'screen detox' section.
Schedule time away from the screen
How difficult is it to stay away from technology at the moment? Zoom lessons on our ipads, social media on our phone, watching Netflix to relax. We can't really get away from it at the moment but we need to be conscious of stepping away from it as addiction will creep up on us. Have break and lunch time activities away from the screen. Have a few evenings a week taking part in an activity that doesn't require you staring at a screen. Or schedule in a set amount of time per day. Taks a look at the 'screen detox' activities.
Socialise
When the whole school suddenly starts working from home, we cut off a lot of the casual social interactions we’re used to having throughout the day that help us feel less lonely and break up the monotony of work. Set time aside to catch up with a friend or family member. Interacting with others boosts feelings of well-being and decreases feelings of depression. Research has shown that one sure way of improving your mood is to work on building social connections.
Need Some Support? Contact Our School Counsellors
Should you feel yourself becoming overwhelmed by the current situation, struggling to manage your emotions and need someone to talk to, our dedicated team of school counsellors are always on hand to offer support both students and teachers.
Ms Stephanie
Ms Anne
Ms Hui Ling
self care at home during covid19 (1).mp4A message from our School Counsellors on Self Care at Home
Keeping Active
Here are a few recommended fitness pages to get you started with your at home workouts. Most of the following have been chosen because they have series of daily, if not regular, workouts posted for you to build up your strength, stamina or flexibility.
The world's PE Teacher - Daily PE lessons by Joe Wicks, found on his YouTube channel - suitable for children and adults.
Free access to over 500 workouts from celebrity trainers and fitness experts across strength, cardio, dance and yoga.
A sequence of yoga exercises for kids, teens and adults. Some of the yoga sessions are made to ease particular areas of stress e.g. trauma, self-regulation and self awareness.
Live Zoom exercise classes from the USA. We are 12 hours ahead of Washington so this will limit your options of classes to just 2-3 day, but still worth a look.
Not for the faint hearted! Scott offers a range of workout videos focusing on particular body parts or full body workouts, usually with a high intensity structure. Most suitable for adults.
Mihrum Kirakosian is a choreographer who makes street dance tutorials for all to learn on youtube.
Exercises and tips from Physiotherapist Nick Sinfield on how to improve our posture as a result of poor sitting habits.
A fun, engaging, interactive website great for getting active during your breaks. Videos last 5 minutes on average. Take a look at the movement section.
Mindfulness and Meditation
Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment. Studies have shown that practicing mindfulness, even for just a few weeks, can bring a variety of physical, psychological, and social benefits such as: boosts immune system, improves sleep quality, reduces stress, improves memory, attention and decision making skills, increases positive emotions and self compassion- and these are not even half of the benefits. Have a look at our suggested resources to begin practising:
Calm App
Calm is the #1 app for Sleep, Meditation and Relaxation. Calm is recommended by top psychologists, therapists, and mental health experts.
Founders, Sara and Les, are passionate about helping others grow and live mindful, fulfilled lives. Their youtube channel offers powerful guided meditations, guided hypnosis, mindful movement practices and helpful mindful tips.
An app developed by teachers and psychologists to lead children of various ages through daily mood check-ins and mindfulness activities.
How to keep calm under pressure - 3 techniques are shown in this video to help you calm yourself and de-stress.
Active Screen Time Ideas
Mo Willems—a bestselling author and illustrator—has announced that he will be teaching drawing every weekday on YouTube to kids who are now at home. Mo will be having sessions called Lunch Doodles. Recordings of his sessions can be found on his You tube page.
Play through Vidcode's super-simple but fun tutorial that focuses on creating custom social media-style filters. Have a go a creating a meme to make others smile.
Turn the last book you read into a movie-style trailer that'll entice others to give it a read.
Use this video and discussion guide to understand how headlines shape the way we interpret science- and health-related news.
Feeling sad, stressed or angry while coping with COVID-19 is normal. It's not only the fear and anxiety about the coronavirus disease but also being away from schools, friends and relatives. Adjusting to new ways of learning and working is hard. But guess what? You are not alone.
Discover the stories, illustrations and messages of support shared by the Voices of Youth community around the world trying to adapt to this new (temporary) normal. And share yours!
We are in this together!
Screen Detox Activity Ideas
Action for Happiness Challenge
Action for Happiness is a relatively new website dedicated to helping people understand the facts behind happiness thus realising it's importance in our wellbeing. Thinking of happiness as a skill that needs to be learnt and developed means that we should be putting in extra effort to practising it and this challenge will do just that.
Log into the Action for Happiness website and have a browse through to learn more about the company and their goals
Click on the '10 Keys' tab to learn the 10 Keys to happier living.
Click on the 'Actions' tab to see all the suggestions they give for practising to 10 keys to happier living
Create a calendar and set goals/actions to start practising the 10 keys to happier living. It's a good idea to create one alongside your child and have some similar goals on certain days so that you can work on them together.
Complete you daily challenges and make a record of what you did and how it made you feel.
Share and spread the happy vibes! :-)
Happiness Facts
Want to know how beneficial happiness is for our wellbeing? Take a look at the interesting happiness facts below:
Happiness: a skill you can learn
Western neuroscience has now confirmed what Eastern wisdom has known for a long time: happiness is a skill we can learn.
Research shows that happiness, compassion and kindness are the products of skills that can be learned and enhanced through training, thanks to the neuroplasticity of our brains.
Mindfulness changes your brain
Recent research has shown that an 8 week mindfulness meditation class can lead to structural brain changes including increased grey-matter density in the hippocampus, known to be important for learning and memory, and in structures associated with self-awareness, compassion and introspection.
Positive emotions make us more resilient
Our emotions affect our long term well-being. Research shows that experiencing positive emotions in a 3-to-1 ratio with negative ones leads to a tipping point beyond which we naturally become more resilient to adversity and better able to achieve things.
Happiness is contagious
Our happiness influences the people we know and the people they know.
Research shows that the happiness of a close contact increases the chance of being happy by 15%. The happiness of a 2nd-degree contact (e.g. friend's spouse) by 10% and the happiness of a 3rd-degree contact (e.g. friend of a friend of a friend) by 6%.Happiness is contagious.
Together we are stronger
Having a network of social connections or high levels of social support has been shown to increase our immunity to infection, lower our risk of heart disease and reduce mental decline as we get older.
Not having close personal ties has been shown to pose significant risks for our health.
Happiness is good for your heart
Harvard School of Public Health examined 200 separate research studies on psychological wellbeing and cardiovascular health.Optimism and positive emotion were found to provide protection against cardiovascular disease, to slow progression of heart disease and reduce risk, by around 50%, of experiencing a cardiovascular event, such as a heart attack.
Happiness leads to success
Most people think that if they become successful, then they'll be happy. But recent discoveries in psychology and neuroscience show that this formula is backward: Happiness fuels success, not the other way around.
When we're positive, our brains are more motivated, engaged, creative, energetic and resilient.
Our happiness is not set in stone
Although our genes influence about 50% of the variation in our personal happiness, our circumstances (like income and environment) affect only about 10%.
As much as 40% is accounted for by our daily activities and the conscious choices we make. So the good news is that our actions really can make a difference.
Happiness facts (Quoted from Actionforhappiness.org)
PERMAH Wellbeing Survey (For Teachers and Parents)
Professor Martin Seligman suggests that the easiest way to care for your wellbeing is by understanding what is comprises of:
Positive emotion
Engagement
Relationships
Meaning
Accomplishment
Health
This survey measures how you are doing in each of the PERMAH wellbeing elements, and offers more than 200 small, evidence-based approaches you can action to improve your wellbeing. When you complete the survey, you immediately receive:
Your current levels of wellbeing & what your results mean
The wellbeing goals & details for the wellbeing activities you chose
Tips & tools to make it easier & more joyful to care for your wellbeing
Recommended Reading for Parents
The following links will take you to websites with information of how to cope with supporting your child during the Covid-19 Pandemic. These websites are from reputable organisations and will give you professional and worthwhile advice.
Ten Tips for Parents Navigating the New Realities of Online Education - (Institute of Digital Media and Child Development)
School's Out: A parents' Guide to Meeting the Challenge During the COVID-19 Pandemic - (Brookings Institution)
Supporting Families During COVID-19 - (Child Mind Institute)
Helping children cope with changes resulting from COVID-19 - (National Association of School Psychologists)
Helping children and young people while they are learning at home - (New Zealand Department of Education)
How to support your child's well being - (The Children's Society UK)
How to help teens shelter in place - Greater Good Magazine - Science Based Insights
How to talk to teens about Healthy Eating - The Whole U - University of Washington