The Government Action Plan in response to Covid-19 acknowledges the importance of people maintaining their wellbeing and resilience to push through this sustained, unprecedented outbreak.
Most people’s lives have changed over the last number of months; their routines have been affected by the outbreak in different ways. We are all adapting to the ‘new normal’ and many of us are experiencing fatigue. Concerns regarding the reopening of child-care, schools, colleges and places of work are wearing on people and their families. Some people have withdrawn from active social engagement with life to protect themselves and their lives.
Our challenge is to equip ourselves with a better understanding of how we can be resilient by caring for our mental health and wellbeing. The five ways to wellbeing are simple actions to practice each day to maintain or improve our mental health and wellbeing
Keeping active – Look for ways to be active everyday. Go for a walk or a run. Step outside. Cycle, play a game, garden or dance. Discover a physical acitivity you enjoy which suits your lifestyle and level of mobility and fitness. Research has shown being physically active can improve your mental health and wellbeing.
Staying connected – Make time each day to Connect. Connect with the people around you. With family, friends, colleagues and neighbours. At home, work, school or in your local community. By staying connected and nurturing these relationships we feel happier and more secure, giving us a better sense of purpose.
Switching off and being creative – Switching off and being creative or learning something new. Be aware of the world around you and what you are feeling. Be Curious. Catch sight of the beautiful. Notice the changing seasons. Savour the moment whether you are walking to work, eating lunch or talking to friends. Pay attention to the present moment – to your thoughts, feelings and to the world around you
Eating well - When it comes to mental health and wellbeing, what you eat can make a big difference. Research shows that a diet rich in foods like fruit, vegetables and seeds helps protect your mental health
Managing your mood – Being aware of your emotional responses and understanding what might be behind them. There are a number of actions that you can take that will help you to manage your moods.
Over the coming weeks and months we will be looking at ways we can help look after our mental health and wellbeing through the use of practical initiatives and plans and hope you join us on our journey of resilience to help strengthen communities and individuals in Donegal.
The Donegal Volunteer Centre in partnership with Donegal County Museum are inviting you to ‘UnCover & ReDiscover Your Locality’.
Through this new community project, we encourage you to find out about your local heritage and share with us what you have uncovered or even rediscovered about your locality. Heritage is a very broad term which includes natural, built and cultural heritage, so it could be uncovering a hidden or unknown site or discovering new or updated information about it. You might uncover your local industrial heritage, find the oldest tree or discover who lived in your house long ago? For more inforamtion visit...
As part of the KEEP WELL Campaign, the Donegal Local Community Development Committee, together with the Balor Theatre invites the public to join them at the ‘Keep Well Community Christmas Concert’ - an evening of festive entertainment which will be broadcast simultaneously by Highland Radio and Ocean FM on Sunday 20th December 2020 after the 7 o’clock news. Radio na Gaeltachta will broadcast excerpts of the concert during Christmas week and it will also be made available to view on the Healthy Donegal, YouTube channel. The event will be compered by well known comedian Conal Gallen and will feature a host of Donegal talent in an extravaganza of festive and traditional music and song.
The Government Plan for Living with COVID-19: Resilience and Recovery 2020-2021 highlights the important role that individual and community resilience will play in contributing to our ongoing response to COVID-19. The ‘KEEP WELL’ campaign builds on the ‘In this Together’ campaign that happened earlier this year and aims to support people and communities in being resilient through looking after their physical and mental health and wellbeing over the coming months.
Cllr. Niamh Kennedy, Chair of the Donegal Local Community Development Committee said “People are at the heart of the ‘KEEP WELL’ campaign and Donegal County Council hopes that through the Keep Well Community Christmas Concert people will enjoy a sense of togetherness through a shared experience that will go, in some small way, to bring Christmas cheer to those who are missing their usual community Christmas events by staying at home #TogetherApart”.
For further information visit: http://www.donegalcoco.ie/community/healthydonegal/keepwellcampaign
http://www.donegalcoco.ie/community/healthydonegal
https://www.facebook.com/HealthyDonegal
https://www.instagram.com/healthy_donegal/
https://twitter.com/HealthyDonegal
The KEEP WELL campaign is brought to you with thanks to Healthy Ireland an initiative of the Government of Ireland with funding from the Healthy Ireland Fund and the Sláintecare fund delivered by Pobal.
Pictured: Students Kylie Gallinagh and Alana Bradley, members of Finn Valley College Wellbeing team, returning student's postcards to Ms Margaret Fitzgerald, Healthy Donegal Coordinator from Donegal County Council, along with Ms. Bernie Summerville, Well-being Coordinator, Finn Valley College.
Part of Healthy Donegal’s programme of work is to help equip young people, through educational initiatives, with a better understanding of how we can be resilient by caring for our mental health and wellbeing.
Pandemic Postcards was a Mental Health Art Project aimed at helping young people feel more connected by highlighting their individual hopes, dreams, and fears during the Covid19 Pandemic, through the medium of anonymous postcards. It allowed the author to privately share something they may have felt uncomfortable publicly sharing with others, perhaps for fear of being judged while providing the reader with a sense of comfort in that we all essentially have similar thoughts, hopes, fears, imperfections and bad habits and that our feelings can be unique and universal at the same time. Writing is also a useful wellbeing technique to help organise our thoughts. The process of documenting our feelings by making them visible can be therapeutic and help shift our perspective and encourage us to work on ways of changing things.
Students from the Finn Valley College, Stranorlar were invited to anonymously contribute a secret to this project. Some of the postcards that capture the predominant moods and feelings - from the anxious to the funny - experienced during the Covid19 Pandemic are displayed below and on the Healthy Donegal YouTube Channel - see link https://youtu.be/cM_dXKkPvqM and all other social media platforms.
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