How to maintain good mental health by spreading kindness during lockdown

Kindness is defined as the act of doing something towards yourself or others motivated by a genuine desire to make a positive difference.

This year’s theme of mental health awareness week was ‘the power of kindness’ which shows that it is linked to our mental health.

The act of spreading kindness is something that is bound to make us feel good which in turn has a positive impact on our overall mental health.

Remember that even the smallest acts of kindness can change someone’s morale and help change their day.

Although we are all separated from our loved ones at this time, we can show that we are still all connected and all in this together by spreading kindness to those around us.

Here are some ideas of ways that you can spread kindness during lockdown –

Be kind to your family. Living in close quarters with our immediate family all day every day is bound to become difficult and there may be tensions within relationships, either with your parents/carers or siblings. Why not make a conscious effort to be kind to your immediate family? This may remove some of that tension at home and therefore improve your mental health.

Donate to a charity. There are plenty of charities who need support at the moment in aid of helping the current pandemic so a huge act of kindness would be to donate what you can to a charity of your choice. If you can’t donate personally, encourage someone in your family to. Every little helps.

Donate unwanted toys etc. Why not donate your old unwanted childhood toys/books to a local charity in aid of giving them to other children who might really appreciate and need them during this time?

Donate to a local foodbank. Foodbanks are doing a lot of work at the moment to help people in need so why not donate a few items of food from your house that you have extra of. They would really appreciate it.

Social action idea 1. I came up with the idea for a social action project called the #CreateKindnessDiary. The idea behind it is that you create a diary by doing something creative each day to express your emotions during lockdown and use that and spread it to your friends/family/community. The message is that we all need to be kind to ourselves and spread that message of kindness to others around us.

Social action idea 2. Why not become a community pen pal? Write a letter or make something creative and send it to a friend/family member/neighbour/anyone you think needs a message of kindness.Why not encourage people in your household to do the same?

Other social action ideas. Click here to find links to other social action ideas.

Help a friend who is struggling. Spread kindness to a friend you know has been struggling by sending them a joke, funny video or a motivational quote. Let them know you’re thinking of them.

Offer to lend a hand at home. Your parents or carers may have a lot on their plate at the moment so why not spread kindness by offering to help with chores around the house? They will probably appreciate the extra help.

Smile to people you see when out. Spreading kindness can be as simple as smiling to anyone you see when out for your daily exercise. This could make someone’s day.

Thank your teachers. Why not make a thank you card or something creative to express your gratitude to your teachers for supporting us all during this unprecedented time?

Bake or cook something for a neighbour. If you know an elderly or vulnerable neighbour, why not cook them a meal or bake them a sweet treat and deliver it to their door? That will be a nice surprise.

Can you think of any other ways that we can spread kindness during lockdown?

Remember that these acts of kindness are important and can continue even while lockdown is slowly eased.

CHALLENGE: choose a few of these suggestions and take them on throughout the next week and reflect on how that has made an impact on your mental health.

Thanks for reading guys, be sure to check in at the end of the week for a post on how practicing mindfulness can help us maintain a positive mindset during lockdown.

Erna
EmpowHER intern

My name is Erna, I am 20 years old and I’m an intern for the EmpowHER project at the British Red Cross. I am doing this internship alongside studying for my psychology degree at university. I have enjoyed working with the team on helping to empower young women and girls to take on social action projects and look forward to working with groups in the future. In my spare time I like to draw, go cycling and take my puppy for long walks. I hope you’ll enjoy the series of blog posts that I’ll be doing on taking care of our mental health in lockdown.

How to stay connected with others during lockdown?

We’ve been in lockdown for a good couple of months now and the idea of social distancing is becoming normal – however staying connected with family and friends has never been more important.

Humans are social beings so it is completely normal to be finding this very difficult and to feel lonely at times and for the situation to be having a negative impact on our mental health.

It doesn’t matter how we connect, what’s important is bridging that distance.

So, what are some ways that we can stay connected with others during lockdown?

Go old school and become a pen pal. (You can access the link to the community pen pals social action here). Obviously in today’s society we are used to using technology but why not do something different and write and send a letter to a friend or family member? This will be a nice surprise and you might even motivate them to write one back to you.

Quiz night. Everyone loves a good quiz. Get a group of friends or a group of your family members on a group video call and host a quiz once a week. Or if you’re fed up of video calls why not send a list of quiz questions to a group chat and have everyone answer them on there.

Virtual book club. Create a group chat with your friends and decide on a book that you will all read every couple of weeks or every month. Get together on the chat and share your views and how you’re finding it.

Make the most of your time outside. We know we’re supposed to be staying at home but when we are out on one of our walks maybe video call a family member who lives further away and show them around your neighbourhood. This will make you feel closer to them.

Set a challenge. Come up with a challenge to do with fitness, or a hobby. This could be challenging your friends to do 10 sit ups everyday and increase it by 1 everyday or if you and your friends like art, challenge them to paint a picture every week. You can access our social action page here for ideas!

Buy and send someone you love a thoughtful present. I decided to send my best friend a book of motivational quotes to help her and her family get through this difficult time. The present can be handmade too so feel free to be as creative as you want.

Remember that if you are struggling with being away from loved ones and are feeling lonely or isolated you can find the contact details of the Samaritans here: samaritans.org where you can speak to someone for free or childline.org.uk where you can log on and speak to a trained counsellor or interact with forums with other young people. I call Samaritans occasionally for additional help as I don’t have the strongest support network at home and I always find it really comforting to have someone on the other end of the phone willing to listen.

Remember that you are not alone in missing being around friends and family. My dad lives and works abroad and he hasn’t been able to visit because of lockdown restrictions so my family and I have been finding it difficult being away from him but we make sure to videocall every night to catch up which I find has been helping me.

CHALLENGE:

Reach out to a friend or family member that you haven’t made contact with for a while OR try one of the suggestions above this week and record how it made you feel in a diary.

Thanks for reading guys, next week I will be discussing how exercise, nutrition and routine can all impact on our mental health.

Erna,
EmpowHER intern

My name is Erna, I am 20 years old and I’m an intern for the EmpowHER project at the British Red Cross. I am doing this internship alongside studying for my psychology degree at university. I have enjoyed working with the team on helping to empower young women and girls to take on social action projects and look forward to working with groups in the future. In my spare time I like to draw, go cycling and take my puppy for long walks. I hope you’ll enjoy the series of blog posts that I’ll be doing on taking care of our mental health in lockdown.

My experience of being a young NHS volunteer

My name is Erna, I’m 20 years old and currently studying Psychology at university. I have been a volunteer for the NHS for a couple of years and I’m going to be telling you a bit about my experience.

What made me start volunteering?

I started volunteering after I decided to take a break from studying. I wanted to do something meaningful to fill up some of my time when a family friend who is a volunteer mentioned the role to me. I was immediately drawn to it.

What is my role?

I am an NHS volunteer in a hospital in Bristol. I work on the neurosurgery ward.

This is an example of a typical shift but each one varies depending on the patients and their needs on the day.

What is a normal shift like?

9.30 am – I enter the hospital and sign in. Go up to my ward and walk through being greeted by all the staff.

9.50am – I will get the tea trolley ready and topped up ready for the 10am tea round.

10am – I walk from one end of the ward to the other making hot drinks for patients. I always take a piece of paper with me to make note of any patients who I think might need some of my time later on.

10.45am – I will go back and sort the kitchen out.

11am – I will go around again, collecting mugs and collecting any lunch and dinner menus for the next day.

11.30am – 12.30pm – I will go around and help any patients who need it with filling in their menus.

12.30 – 1.30pm – lunch – getting patients their food and a hot drink if they want one#

1.30 – 2pm – clearing up lunch service

2 – 3pm – spending time with patients who need to talk or play a game etc.

3pm – afternoon tea round

3.30 – 5pm – spending time with patients

5 – 5.30 – clear up and sort out the kitchen

6pm – sign out

Once a month I will volunteer with my family friend who has a dog who is a therapy dog. I will walk around my ward with her and the dog and spend time with patients who need a bit of extra comfort from a furry friend.

*I am currently training my own dog Milo so he can qualify to be a therapy dog and come and volunteer with me in the future.

<– This is Milo!

What do I do that makes me different to other volunteers?

I always come to my volunteering shift which a bag of supplies. This includes art supplies (paper, whiteboard, pencils, colours, colouring books), crossword and wordsearch books and games like dominoes and connect 4. I bring this with me in case I notice a patient displaying an interest in art of games and then I’ll spend some of my shift doing that with them. I am able to take the pressure off the rest of the staff on the ward by spending time with patients who need the extra support.

A bit about some patients that I’ve worked/spent time with:

Abstract self-portrait drawn by Patient A

For confidentiality reasons I’ve called the patients A, B, C…etc.

Patient A – I spent quite a bit of time with this patient who decided to give me this abstract self-portrait that she did while she’s been in hospital as a thank you (portrait to the right).

She said “there should be more young people in the world who are willing to give up their time to help people like me”

Patient B – I spent weeks with patient B who I admired for his extremely positive outlook. He told me that he had done a fine art degree when he was younger and said he wanted to draw me. His condition didn’t allow him to finish it but I think it’s amazing (portrait to the left). He said that he enjoyed spending time with me and telling me his cheesy jokes.

Patient C – patient C is a young patient with brain cancer, he told me how he was struggling with not being about to concentrate and use his hands. So, I offered to give him some colouring pages. We also spent quite a lot of time playing connect 4 and dominoes which he enjoyed.

Patient D – I realised that patient D liked to chat at the beginning of my shift and I spent a lot of time sat in her room talking about her life. I was also in the room when she got some very bad news but she told me that I should be proud of myself for being able to comfort somebody who was receiving such bad news. Patient D told me that she appreciated my time as other members of staff on the ward wouldn’t have been able to set the time aside to sit and talk to her.

Patient E – He had spent 12 weeks in hospital so far and I noticed that he expressed an interest in sketching and doodling. He asked if I would sit so he could draw me. He wasn’t satisfied with the finished product but I thought it was amazing (portrait to the right). It put a smile on his face the whole time that he was drawing me, he told me “you made my day better”.

What have I learnt from volunteering?

I have learnt that I’ve grown in confidence. I started off as quite shy and scared of talking to lots of different people but now I do it with confidence
I have learnt that I can work in a stressful environment – at the beginning I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to cope with a hospital setting but now I enjoy the thrill of it.
I have learnt how to deal with lots of different people with a variety of needs.

Would I recommend it to other young people?

I would 100% recommend volunteering to other young people. I feel like I have become a better person by doing it and you get so my joy and fulfilment from helping others. Also, if you are a young person interested in a role in healthcare this is a great way to learn and get experience in that area.

Power in Pride

“The beauty of standing up for your rights is others see you standing and stand up as well.”
Cassandra Duffy

The EmpowHER groups over the past few weeks have been talking openly about pride and the LGBTQ+ community. We have explored the fact that pride is not just one big party – pride is a protest. Pride is an incredible example for the girls to see what social action and movements are and the successes they can have.

Proud to be allies

We have a group based within the Muslim community. The girls were exploring how they might make change in the world – in general – and began to get excited about supporting the LGBTQ+ community. One girl opened up and said during a planning session “I want to show this community that we are not are against them. People assume we do not support them – but most of us do. We want to show them that we support them, we care and love is love.” Flash forward a few weeks later and we are sat around, with our rainbow pens and rainbow postcards, writing messages of support that are going to be given out at Manchester Pride by the British Red Cross team in August.

When speaking to other groups about spreading kindness at pride, they leapt at the chance of getting involved! This soon escalated to there being over 50 messages of love and support ready to be handed out -take a look below the sheer about of messages we have lined up:

I am so proud of the girls. These young women are the next generation and are showing that through kindness, they will be inclusive and they will be allies of this community. Many have been so considerate and thoughtful about how they make change, they are taking extra postcards home to really think about what they write and how it might help someone.

Proud to be ourselves

Another amazing group of EmpowHER young women also realised that supporting Pride was the perfect social action project for them. They wanted to use the visibility of Pride month to show everyone in their school what a joy it is to be an inclusive and open community and they weren’t afraid to get messy doing it!

We spoke about the importance of Pride, as a celebration of love and a protest for equality, and the girls explored how being LGBTQ+ can be a difficult and dangerous experience for some people. They learnt about how some people have to leave their homes because being open about their sexuality puts them in danger, and how the Red Cross supports people who might have had to seek asylum here for that reason.

Fuelled by what they’d learnt and their own experiences, the group wrote letters to our EmpowHER groups who wanted to support Pride, sharing why it was so important to them:

And to make a big impact in their last week of term, the EmpowHER girls organised their own Pride Event in the form of a ‘colour fight’ on the school field! They wanted an opportunity to celebrate together as a group, and show everyone that saw them how happy and proud they are to fly the rainbow flag!

It was an absolutely joyous occasion, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a group of young women leave an event looking so empowHERed!

Fundraising fun for Red Cross Week

The EmpowHER team have been getting stuck into our own social action projects and raising some money for Red Cross Week…

One of the best bits of my job is the moment when I’m meeting a new EmpowHER group for the first time, and I ask them to tell me what they think ‘social action’ is. I tend to get a room of blank stares and puzzled expressions to begin with, but with a bit of coaxing we quickly get down to the crux of it – social action is all about doing something to help others, finding a way to make a positive change in the world.

By the end of the session the girls and young women, those of the initial blank stares and puzzled expressions, will have filled an A2 page all the ways they can help others. The range of ideas always amazes me, from visiting neighbours who live alone to creating artwork that they can sell to raise money for a good cause. And so the seeds of a social action project are planted!

Practicing what we preach

Lots of EmpowHER social action plans are born out of specific talents and interests of the girls and young women in a group. So when the EmpowHER team started thinking about how we could contribute to the massive national fundraising effort that is Red Cross Week, we knew we should take our own advice and play to our unique strengths and passions!

Red Cross Week is a brilliant fundraising extravaganza run each year at the British Red Cross. It’s an opportunity not only to raise some all-important funds to make sure we can continue doing the great humanitarian work we do, but also a chance to raise our profile with the public. Red Cross is held every year on the week when we celebrate the birthday of the founder of the Red Cross Movement – Henry Dunant. So it’s a perfect time to start conversations with people about how the Red Cross started and the foundations of our belief that kindess can create a better world for everyone.

So that’s how we ended up with our ‘Blind date with a book’ campaign – setting up those who donate to our Red Cross Week Just Giving Page with a mystery book either about or written by an empowHERing woman – check out our previous blog post ‘What’s on our Bookshelves’ to find out more about the inspiration behind it!

The newest member of our fabulous team, Jess, drew on her love of baking and getting people together to hold a bake sale in her new office in Coventry, and all of us have been out at local supermarkets shaking a bucket for the cause and sharing lots of smiles with the shopping public (or in my case getting quite a few bemused looks as I danced along to the music of a talented busker performing nearby)

And of course our wonderful EmpowHER groups got in on the action too – despite being only a week or two into cohort 2! An amazing group of young women from Uniting Communities Org went bucket-shaking with Rhian at their local Tesco and raised a whopping £96.75, whilst a school-based group in Gloucester ran a Red Cross Tea Party at break time and raised £19.30. That’s their first taste of social action, and we can’t wait to see what they’ll do next!

A massive thank you to the wonderful #EmpowHER girls from @UnitingComOrg who shook their buckets for @RedCrossWeek and collected an amazing £96.75 at @Tesco this evening. Great job team! #listentothosebuckets #shakeshakeshake pic.twitter.com/evUw1y9UZS
— Rhian Groome (@RhianGroome) May 10, 2019

In the meantime, we’re still busy role-modelling that social action habits are for life, and raising as much money as we can for Red Cross Week in the process. It’s not too late to donate and get yourself a date with an empowHERing read, or to drop a few coins in the bucket of the next Red Cross fundraiser you see!