FIVE A DAY FOR MENTAL HEALTH

The government is constantly recommending everyone to eat their “Five a Day” (five portions of fruit or vegetables per day), to keep our bodies healthy and reduce the risk of many serious conditions like heart disease and cancer. However the results of recent government backed research at Cambridge University recommend “Five a Day” to keep our minds healthy too. Not five fruit and vegetables but five simple actions to keep our minds in good shape. The recommendations are that we should all aim to connect with friends and family, learn new things, help others, keep active and notice the beauty in everyday things.

These are all important factors in our overall happiness and mental wellbeing and university researchers are recommending that we should all aim to do them on a daily basis. Connecting with family and friends is good for us as it gives us support as well as enriching our lives. Learning new things is good as it keeps the mind active, giving us something to focus on. Helping others is rewarding both for ourselves and for those we help. Keeping active helps us to keep fit and the exercise helps us to feel good. It’s just a shame that the government has to remind us all to look for the beauty in everyday things. We live in such a materialistic world that it is sometimes easy to miss the simple things that can give us such pleasure in our everyday lives. Taking notice of and admiring the world around us, helps us to truly appreciate what we have.