Mental Health Monday - My 5 Ways to Wellbeing

It is essential that head teachers (and ex-heads, too!) regularly take time out to focus on their own mental health and well-being. A lovely sunny spring morning like today seems like an ideal time to do just that.

I have written elsewhere about my five ways to wellbeing that I use as an alternative to the ones suggested by the NHS. This is not because I disagree with their choices; it is just that I find them a little too 'aspirational, ' and nothing is more disheartening than setting targets for yourself and falling at the first hurdle (see 'couch to 5k' 2022).

So, let's do a bit of an audit, shall we?

My first 'way to wellbeing' is the act of being nostalgic. Very briefly, the thinking is that by engaging with nostalgia, we are getting in touch with a more innocent version of ourselves, one that is also further away from death. God, that looks bleak when written down in black and white! In the nostalgia column, two things immediately come to mind; firstly, we had a big family get-together yesterday to celebrate Mothering Sunday, and as is always the case for these kinds of events, the chat was mainly around shared past experiences. The other thing that comes to mind is less deep and meaningful, but I have discovered some sweets called 'Nostalgix' which replicate the flavours of the sweets from my childhood, and they are awesome! I am trying to limit myself to a pack a day at the moment for fear of it becoming a negative rather than a positive experience.

My second 'way' is the act of collecting. Now, my collecting has taken a bit of a turn in the last week, a turn which has included a 'character' jug (not a Toby Jug!) and a teddy bear. My main collection has been, and will continue to be, vinyl records, but I seem now to be collecting cricket memorabilia too. I had a few pieces already, but since acquiring a Dickie Bird character jug and an official Lords Cricket Ground teddy bear in the last seven days, I think I am going to brand them as part of an official collection.

Third on my list is the act of supporting, and fifth on my list is 'broadening horizons'. I have grouped them together as I have been doing them at the same time in the last week. Thankfully, the good weather we are having has coincided with the start of the cricket season and my 41st year supporting Somerset CCC. I made my first trip of 2025 to the County Ground on Friday last week for the first day of a friendly match, and it was great to be back. I plan to write a separate piece this week about my love of Somerset CCC, but for this post, I want to focus more on how it helps me 'broaden my horizons.' The wellbeing context in which I use this phrase is linked to our need to engage with our primitive instincts and be in a space that is larger than, say, an office or a classroom. Being in a large open space allows our prehistoric selves to relax as our threat awareness tells us we are not in danger, which it cannot do when we are hunched in front of a computer. In my view, there are no finer open spaces than the playing field at Taunton, as the picture attached to this post will prove. What it will not show, though, is how cold it was, as cricket in March tends to be!

The one area of my five ways to wellbeing that I have not been attending to over the last seven days is my mantra, which I think may have changed since I stopped being a head teacher. Four out of five is not bad, and I will definitely attempt to review my mantra over the coming seven days.

Time for another coffee (perhaps that should be my new mantra), and then back to writing!