The Students Association is thrilled to be partnering during Freshers with Mindapples to help bring awareness of looking after our wellbeing and mental health. With the right tools, training, and resources, we aspire to keep the conversation going and develop a framework for promoting wellbeing in everything we do. Take a look at our Freshers site for an upcoming Mindapples webinar, digital freebies and more ways to get involved!
We’ve benefitted from Mindapples sessions and learnt how to ‘Feed your Mind’ since our first session with an OU Mindapples Champion at the very first Volunteer Recognition Event in 2017. Since then, I’ve received Mindapples Champion training myself, a few weeks before we all locked down in 2020, and this year we took delivery of our very own Mindapples tree!
So what is Mindapples?
mindapple (mīnd-ăp-´əl) • n.
a day-to-day activity that is good for your mind
Mindapples was founded in 2008 by ‘Head Gardener’ Andy Gibson, who wanted to build a popular culture that made looking after our minds as natural as looking after our bodies. We all know about the 5-a-day for our bodies, and so the thinking behind Mindapples encourages us to consider the 5-a-day for our minds.
The aim is to build a cultural layer of good habits and self-care that can help make us all more mentally healthy. It can be as simple as reminding ourselves - whatever that little inner voice keeps telling us - that we are good enough; wearing a bright colour that lifts us and anyone else around us, and doing a kitchen dance every time Blinding Lights by The Weeknd comes on the radio… I’m sure I can’t be the only one who does that…
I had the great pleasure of sharing my 5-a-day, though I have many, many more, with Mindapples this August as part of their Give Me Five blog, and it was great to sit and think about the things that I so enjoy. Even thinking about them if we can’t do them helps, as I’ve so enjoyed armchair travel over the last 18 months.
And … oh, excuse me, Soul II Soul’s anthemic ‘Back to Life’ has just come on the radio. I must do a chair dance!
If you’d like some more good mood music, why not visit our Great mood generator playlist on Spotify where you can listen to 62 terrific tunes selected by OU students to put us all in a great mood. And if you want to listen to some chilled music to study and revise to, you need look no further than our Study playlist #1…
Love this!