We’ve spent the past few Wise Wednesday Crew sessions looking at how sleep (or lack of!) affects our concentration and productivity at school. A lot of the discussions have been around what we can change to ensure we are getting a good night’s sleep, like making sure we go to bed at a decent time every night and making sure we start winding down as we prepare for bed for example, by switching off devices! Over the past week, we’ve done a daily sleep check-in and I’m pleased to say that most Crew members, including myself, have noticed an improvement in the quality of our sleep just by making small changes.
This week, we started to explore what other lifestyle factors impact upon our health and wellbeing by reflecting on some of the ‘bad’ habits we may’ve gotten into. We used the following video as a discussion point – a tongue-in-cheek instruction guide on how to be miserable. I think at some point most – if not all – of us recognised ourselves in this! It’s definitely worth sharing here for you to watch, too:
Watching the video and having our discussions made us realise that:
It is only by understanding bad habits that we can carve out good ones.
Mr Wilmot revisited this message during Friday’s Crew session, leading a session around being aware of what we do that we know is bad for our mental and physical health – and what we can do to start making positive changes.
Crew showed courage by sharing some of the bad habits they’re aware of, mostly around comparing themselves to who they see online, over-thinking, self-sabotage and imposter syndrome.
We looked at what we do when we do feel in a low mood: stay in our rooms, withdraw from those around us, no physical activity, we might eat too much junk food – all with the aim of making us feel better – which it may do for a little while – but these behaviours actually make us feel worse in the long run!
With that in mind, Mr Wilmot encouraged us all to take some time out this weekend and do something solely for ourselves, ideally away from the online world… something we know we will enjoy, to help us to reset our minds and make us feel better about ourselves. Hopefully, by developing the good habit of checking in with ourselves and doing more of what makes us happy, we’ll be able to cope better with the daily stresses around us. In a world that glorifies ‘busy’, this has never been as important. It’s also a very timely challenge with Saturday being World Mental Health Day.
I pledged to go out for a run and be really mindful of my surroundings rather than keeping my head down and focussing on the ground (pleased to say that I achieved that this morning – noticing the gorgeous autumnal changes on my regular route has definitely made me feel happier!) I’ll be checking in with Mr Wilmot next week to see if he’s read the last 100 pages of that book he hasn’t got round to finishing and also see if Crew have stuck to their own pledges to spend some time checking in with themselves over the weekend.