Coordinated by University Mental Health Advisers Network (UMHAN) with the help of Mental Wealth UK student groups, it’s a great opportunity to join in and promote better mental health at university. The 2011 Royal College of Psychiatrists report showed that university counselling and mental health services are experiencing increasingly high demand and with recent statistics indicating that student suicide rates have risen by 50% over the past years – the state of student mental health is an issue of great importance.

Mindapples at Newcastle University

Encouraging students to consider what they can do to look after their minds can help create positive habits of self-care. Since the launch of University Mental Health Day last year, 30 universities have used the mindapples tools and the “5-a-day” concept to help promote mental health awareness. Integrating 5 things into our daily lives can act as breathers and restorers helping us to maintain our mental wellbeing in a preventative way. This can be especially important during stressful times such as exam periods and life transitions.

This year’s University Mental Health and Wellbeing Day is bigger than ever, with events taking place across campuses in 33 UK universities. To find out what’s happening at your university and how to get involved – have a look at this useful guide over here: universitymentalhealthday.tumblr.com.

If you’re running a mindapples tree during this year’s mental health day, we’d love to see some photos and hear how it went – get in touch with us at hello@mindapples.org!

Posted by Ruta

V Inspired’s specially-designed Mindapples cards for their new campaign

We’re very proud to announce today that Mindapples is supporting a new national campaign by youth volunteering charity VInspired to encourage people all around the UK to take more time for their minds.

The campaign, led by VInspired in partnership with Mindapples and our friends at Action for Happiness, uses the Mindapples “5-a-day for your mind” concept to get people across the country talking about what they could do to take more care of their minds.

VInspired aim to inspire a new generation of young people to volunteer through a series of national campaigns. They have delivered one million volunteering opportunities for 14 – 25 year olds in the last five years and currently have over 130,000 members.

The “Making Time for your Mind” campaign promotes healthy minds and happy lives across Britain. Using their very own special edition of our applecards, Team V volunteers will be asking everyone “What’s the 5-a-day for your mind?” and inviting people to pledge one thing that they will do more of to look after their mental wellbeing.

To find out more about VInspired and to sign up to volunteer visit: www.vinspired.com

And if you would to host your own mindapples events in your community, you can buy our fabulous trees and toolkits here or get in touch with us hello@mindapples.org!

Hello to you, a very happy new year to all of you out there in Internet land.

2012 was a big year for Mindapples. We secured investment from the Maudsley Charity to help us grow, and launched our new training programme, Your Mind: A User’s Guide, which has been working with some big employers to raise corporate knowledge of how our minds work and how to use them effectively. We also supported “5-a-day for your mind” campaigns at 14 UK universities and, as always, were a colourful addition to the UK festivals circuit. Thanks to those of you who volunteered, supported us, told your friends and particularly who funded us, bought trees and toolkits and hired us to deliver training in your business. You are all very nice and we like you lots.

2013 looks like being even bigger as we start to scale up our training work and build our organisation to take the campaign to the next level. Here’s what we’re up to, and how you can help.

Mindapples is recruiting trainers

The increasing success of our training programme means we now need more people to deliver it, so we’re looking for smart, charming folks who can run amazing corporate training workshops and have a passion for how the mind works. Psychology training would be a big advantage, whether academic or self-taught (BSc or higher preferred), and if you fit the bill we pay healthy freelance rates, and commission if you bring in new clients.

So if you know the perfect Mindapples trainer, tell them to write to pickme@mindapples.org with their CV, the five things they do to look after their mind, and something funny why understanding your mind is important.

Promoting mental wellbeing in UK Universities

This February sees this year’s University Mental Health and Wellbeing Day, run by our friends at UMHAN, and we’re supporting more UK universities than ever to engage students in taking care of their minds. If you would like a Mindapples tree at your university to help you promote this important topic, we’re offering special discounts for universities on our tree sets throughout January and February 2013. Drop us a line at hello@mindapples.org to receive the discount, or browse our shop to see what we offer.

Patient education

At the end of 2012 we were awarded a small provisional grant from Comic Relief to adapt our training materials for clinical audiences and test whether knowing more about how our minds work can help people live well with chronic conditions. If you have clinical psychology expertise or an interest in patient education and empowerment, please drop us a line at knowledgeispower@mindapples.org.

Transform your workplace this year

We’re on a mission to get large and small businesses harnessing the minds of their people better. Our corporate training programmes introduce essential knowledge about how the mind works and are being used by some of the top companies in the world to help managers and staff work more effectively and stay healthy in the process. If you think your workplace could do with a little Mindapples love, visit www.mindapples.org/yourmind or drop us a line on yourmind@mindapples.org. And don’t forget you can also hire the Mindapples tree and bring in the Mindapples team to make your wellbeing day the colourful, apple-filled experience you know it should be.

That’s it. No more.

Well, we’ve got a few other surprises in the pipeline actually, so watch this space for further updates. And as always, thank you for helping Mindapples grow. Here’s to the Mindapples orchard continuing to thrive in 2013.

Andy
Head Gardener

Dan presented the mindapples idea and shared his own 5-a-day in turn asking students to share their mindapples “Many kids became very engaged, raising their hands and gleefully sharing what they do,” said Dan.

Here is what Dan said about the project:

What was the impact? 
“This is hard to quantify but I’d say it was a positive reminder of healthy activities, and a way to build a community experience around mental health”

Did you achieve what you set out to do?
“Yes, this was a more powerful exercise than just asking them to say things they do for their mental health”

What was the most interesting mindapple that came up?
“Prayer, because these children recognized the benefits of spirituality and the linkage to their mental health without anyone external suggesting it”

We would like to thank Dan for spreading the mindapples concept and taking the time to tell us about it.

If you would also like to have mindapples at your school, we have trees and toolkits available at our shop http://www.mindapples.org/shop. We are also currently offering discounts to schools and universities on our tree packages, for more information please get in touch with us at hello@mindapples.org.

Mindapples toolkit

Andy will be talking at the Conway Hall this Thursday 18th October 2012 about how our minds work and why we should get the best from them.

Our minds are our most precious asset, but how much do we really do to look after them? If we can take care of our bodies by going to the gym, or eating an apple, then what’s the equivalent for our minds?

Join Andy for an intensive hands-on introduction to how our minds work and why we should all learn how to get the best from them. From the hidden power of the subconscious to the physiology of influence, it will be a fascinating introduction to the power of our minds, including practical tips for managing our moods, understanding our decisions and being more mentally effective in our life and work.

Tickets are by donation to Action for Happiness.

Find out more about the event and book tickets here:
www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/4531022410

This World Mental Health Day, Mindapples founder Andy Gibson asks “What’s next for mental health?”

E-mail us your ideas at iknowwhatsnext@mindapples.org

Happy World Mental Health Day from the Mindapples team, we will be at Southwark Cathedral today from 11am – 2pm by London Bridge. Come by and share your 5-a-day with us!

Mindapples founder Andy Gibson will be presenting a half-day seminar at RSPH in London on November 15th, sharing lessons learnt about engaging people in the positive side of mental health.

The session will cover:

• Tips and techniques for talking about positive mental health with the general public
• The science of resilience and what psychology can teach us about looking after our minds
• A selection of interesting facts about the workings of the mind that will engage and benefit your communities
• A chance to share tips between participants about the most effective ways of engaging people in taking a more active role in maintaining their mental health

This session will particularly benefit health trainers, community workers and other professionals seeking to promote mental wellbeing and build resilience in patient groups and communities.

The cost of the workshop is £50 per person, if you are interested in attending please contact Gina Mohajer.

Since we started selling cardboard mindapples trees last month we’ve had interest from all sorts of unexpected places, the most glamorous of which is definitely the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

The students and staff at their Student Minds group were looking for ways to get students talking about the difficult subject of mental health, and the mindapples tree has been the perfect talking point at their recent promotional events.

Nathaniel Smith, Project Officer at Student Minds, University of New South Wales said:

“The Mindapples tree was of great value for our Student Minds event. The students at UNSW loved it, and found it to be an interactive and engaging way of discussing what remains a difficult subject for most. Having a big cardboard tree was obviously an effective tool for drawing curious students over to our stall. It showed students that although we’re committed to talking about a tricky topic in mental health, we want to do so in a positive and colourful manner.”

The tree seems to have acquired a little tan in the Sydney sunshine – the students decided to paint it brown – but it’s looking great and we’d recognise those colourful mindapples anywhere.

Buy your own Mindapples trees and event kits here.

While services such as nightline and counselling are great and absolutely necessary, I think a concept like mindapples would have helped me adjust and take better care of myself – providing a way to set a routine in a new environment. For example, some of my mindapples are “go for a walk”, “have a really nice breakfast” and “call my parents”. If I would have done those things back then on a regular basis, as I do now, I think I would have felt a bit more settled and in control. It would have also given me an opportunity to take the time to check in with myself on a daily basis.

Simple things can help you maintain yourself, whatever they are, and I think having Mindapples for students could really help them adjust better. Not only would it give them a reason to have a think about their wellbeing, but also a positive way to talk about it with their friends making it a completely normal conversation. Not a conversation you only have when you’re not doing too great.

Back in February this year, seven universities had mindapples at their University Mental Health and Wellbeing Day. The success of this and the great responses we received have inspired us to invite more universities to take part in promoting mental wellbeing at the beginning of this academic year. Students are likely to feel more pressure this year than ever before. Faced with increased tuition fees, an unstable job market and lack of guaranteed employment in addition to the usual stresses of moving away from home – we want to empower students and equip them with tools which can help them manage their wellbeing.

If you would like to have mindapples at your university please get in touch at hello@mindapples.org.  If your university has a wellbeing programme please tell us about it, we love hearing about what universities are doing for their students.

We also have brand new trees and toolkits, which are available at our shop www.mindapples.org/shop. Mindapples are offering discounts for universities and schools;  please e-mail us to get a discount code.

By Ruta Marcinkus

Mindapples is a partner in the first of a new series of online discussion programmes called ‘The Lock-in’, devised by myself and my good friend (and Star Wars legend) Jack Klaff. The Lock-in is an open-ended discussion format in which a collection of interesting people have a chance to explore their thoughts on a topic of general interest. No rush, no soundbites, just interesting people taking the time to listen to each other and share their ideas. Unhurried conversations for a digital age.

This Friday’s opening topic is The Mind, and we’re delighted to welcome a wonderful selection of guests:

• Bryan Appleyard, author of the Brain is Wider than the Sky
• Simon Bill, artist
• Nicky Forsythe, founder of Talk for Health
• Maria Kempinska, founder of Jongleurs Comedy Club
• Nathalie Nahai, web psychologist and author of the forthcoming book Web of Influence
• Dr Barry Smith, director of the Institute of Philosophy at the School of Advanced Study, University of London

Watch online at 7:30PM BST, live from V22 in London, and join the conversation on Twitter at @lockintv. It promises to be a really fascinating evening.

Posted by Andy