This week is Mental Health Awareness Week and the theme this year is kindness.

Kindness has been selected by the Mental Health Foundation in response to the coronavirus pandemic, which is having an immense impact on people’s mental health.

Mark Rowland, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, said: “We want to use Mental Health Awareness Week to celebrate the thousands of acts of kindness that are so important to our mental health. And we want to start a discussion on the kind of society we want to shape as we emerge from this pandemic.”

So how does kindness help our mental health?

1. Good for your heart – Acts of kindness creates a hormone called oxytocin, sometimes called the ‘kindness hormone!’ This hormone releases nitric oxide, which opens up our blood vessels and lowers blood pressure.
2. Slows ageing – Scientists have found that if you introduce the kindness hormone to skin cells put under stress, the levels of oxidative stress considerably reduce.
3. Makes you feel happy – Being kind produces the chemical serotonin, the ‘happy chemical,’ When you are kind to another person your brain’s pleasure centres light up, which makes you feel happy.
4. Reduces anxiety – Low levels of serotonin in the body is connected to anxiety and depression. Kindness helps increase serotonin.
5. Supports immune system – How we feel emotionally can physically effect our immune system, if you are kind to someone or someone is kind to you, or even seeing can spear our immune system into action.
6. Reduces pain – Kindness produces endorphins, hormones that manage stress and reduce feelings of pain.
7. Gives us energy – A study by the University of California Berkeley, Greater Good Science Center presented that engaging in acts of kindness makes people feel stronger and more energetic.
8. It creates a ripple effect – whether you’re giving, receiving or seeing kindness, the positive effects are experienced in the brain of everyone. You being kind will improve someone else’s mood and make them more likely to act kind themselves, so kindness will spread super fast!

What can we do to be kind to others?

1. Listen
2. Start up an online book club or film club 
3. Make a cup of tea for someone you live with
4. Tell someone you know why you are thankful for them
5. Donate to a charity
6. Arrange to have a video lunch with a colleague
7. Donate to foodbanks
8. Offer support to vulnerable neighbours

What can we do to be kind to ourselves?

1. Let yourself be listened to
2. Stay active
3. Keep connected with friends & family
4. Cook a nutritious homemade meal
5. Watch or read something uplifting
6. Make a music playlist
7. Take 10 minutes or so to practice mindfulness
8. Take time to reflect and practice self-compassion

For more information on how to look after your mental health during the coronavirus outbreak please visit

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/coronavirus

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/mental-health-awareness-week

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/52557800

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/coronavirus/random-acts-kindness