Lesson video

Welcome to the second lesson in this unit on mental wellbeing, where we will be developing our understanding about mental health and learning to look after it.

I'm Mrs. Harris, and in this lesson we're going to be exploring mental health and breaking down some of the stigma that surrounds it.

For this lesson, you will need an exercise book or paper and a pen.

This is what our lesson is going to look like today.

You should already have completed the intro quiz.

I'm now going to recap our previous lesson.

We looked at exam stress and anxiety and we may well refer to some of the coping mechanisms we talked about in that lesson.

We'll also try out some of the efficient techniques we learned.

Then we're going to develop our understanding of mental health and look at some of the stigmas surrounding it.

We were looking at some examples of mental health issues.

Once we identify some mental health issues, we will look at ways we can look after our own mental health.

And at the end of the lesson, there will be an exit quiz for you to reflect on what we have learned.

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

Mental health affects how we think, feel and act is a measure of how well a person is just in their mind instead of their body.

In our last lesson, we talked about exam stress and how this might make you feel anxious.

And anxiety is a common mental health issue.

Stigma is a feeling of shame associated with a particular circumstance, quality or person.

In this lesson, we will look at some of the negative terms, useful terms to talk about mental health or why we should change the vocabulary we use so that we can break down that stigma.

Wellbeing is quite often confused with the key term, mental health, wellbeing is the state of being comfortable and happy and it can affect our mental health and vice versa but they are slightly different concepts.

How might this image be representative of the concept of mental health? Think about our definition of mental health from the previous slide.

It's a measure of how well a person is just in their mind instead of their body.

How does this image represent this? Take a moment to write this down in your book or on your piece of paper.

You may wish to pause the video while you do this.

We're now going to develop our understanding of mental health.

Remember mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being.

What inappropriate words might people use when referring to mental health, you might have used these words yourself or heard other people using them.

There's often a stigma, a feeling of shame, linked to mental health and some of this can be attributed to our lack of understanding in this area, and often the use of unhelpful and inaccurate key terms. The stigma can be felt by both the person living with a mental health issue or other people's perception of mental health.

Take a moment to note down some words that people may wrongly use when talking about mental health you may wish to pause the video while you do this.

Do your answers match mine? The use of these terms perpetuate the stigma surrounding mental health.

We need to get better at talking about mental health, the same way we would talk about our physical health.

If we had a soul lag or frozen shoulder, we would go to the doctor and openly share what our symptoms and issues were, they should be the same if we identify an issue with our mental health, which of the following are examples of mental health issues have a look at the issues in this table.

Some are examples of common mental health problems and some are not, make a list of all those you think are mental health issues.

If you are up for a challenge, which do you think is the most common issue.

Again, you may wish to pause the video while you do this.

Well done.

Does your list match mine? This is not an exhaustive list.

There are many more examples of mental health issues.

Some of the examples from the previous slide such as isolating yourself and sleeping problems, maybe symptoms of a mental health issue, but are not regarded as mental health issues in their own rights.

You may well have experienced some of the issues listed here.

If you are, then remember to have a trusted adult nearby or you may know someone who is.

What is important is that we use the terminology of both realise that they are illnesses of our mind and should be regarded the same as physical illnesses.

There has been much more talk about mental health in recent years.

Your Minds are a UK charity that support young people with their mental health.

And you may well have been involved in supporting their Hello Yellow campaign each October to highlight mental health issues.

And on that day people are asked to wear yellow.

Documentaries by Jesse Fondling, Little Mix's and Prince William around the area of mental health has also helped to break down the stigma we've been talking about.

Let's recap for a moment.

Depression is the most common type of mental health issue.

Is this true or false? Did you get it right? Everyone feels low from time to time, but if this continues then you may be experiencing depression.

We've talked about reducing the stigma around mental health and how and more people are talking about it and how important it is to look after it.

Here's a piece of text that summarises some information about it.

This way, engaging with a piece of text is a little like highlighting.

And we talked about that in our last lesson and we're going to be choosing three keywords.

I'm going to read it out.

I would like you to read it out and you may wish to do this more than once and then reduce its information to three keywords.

Mental health is just as important as physical health and shouldn't be ignored.

This is because our mental health affects the way we feel, think and act in situations.

Mental health is important at all stages of our life but sometimes it's more at risk during adolescence after a traumatic event, due to family history or biological factors such as genes.

Some of the early warning signs could be having low energy, sleeping too much or too little, feeling worried, thinking of harming yourself, fighting with friends and family and many more.

You are probably going to want to pause the video in order to do this effectively.

So what three words did you pick out? Were any of them like this list? You might've considered health to be important both mentally and physically.

You might also have thought it was interesting that mental health can be linked to your genetic makeup.

Or this, you could have picked up mental as this is something we are talking about a lot more.

You may have been interested to read that mental health problems can sometimes present themselves in adolescents and also be more common if someone in your family lives with a mental health issue.

Or maybe you are interested to know that traumatic events in your life can sometimes spark a mental health issue or the information about some of the warning signs struck a cord and so you picked out worried.

We are now go to learn about how to look after our mental health.

Which of the following are ways of looking after our mental health, have a look at these in the table.

Some are examples about how to look after our mental health and some are not.

Make a list of all those you think would be useful if you're up for a challenge, which would you find the most useful and why? You may wish to pause the video while you do this.

Does your list match mine? Some of these are similar to our self-help strategies when dealing with stress and anxiety but there are others here that you might want to consider.

Keeping a gratitude journal is a good way of focusing on what is going right in your life and can help to develop a positive outlook on life.

If you jot down things you're grateful for each day or once a week, then it can help to reframe your thoughts in a more helpful and positive way.

This can be coupled with the suggestion of letting go of blame choosing not to focus on scenarios that have been less positive.

We'll go to use this scenario to apply what we've learned in this lesson so far.

Here is Zoya, and he was a friend Aisha, and here is a message that Zoya has sent to her friend.

"Hi, Aisha, sorry I've not been replying much.

I've been feeling a bit down over the past few days actually the past week or so.

My energy levels feel so low at the moment and I asked them if I could miss gymnastics this week cause I just don't feel up to it.

Getting to sleep is really difficult sometimes as my mind is racing about all the work I need to get done for school, I'm just so tired.

I know you often find it hard to get up in the morning, have you've got any advice for me? So this has all been about me, hope you're okay." What advice could Aisha offer her friend to support Zoya's mental health? So this is your task.

What advice could Aisha offer her friend, to support Zoya's mental health? It is worth knowing that Zoya normally has quite a busy schedule after school, and so not having the motivation to go to gymnastics is quite significant.

Pause the video to complete this task and then resume when you are finished.

Do your answer much mine? Here's some of the advice that Aisha could offer her friend, talking to her parents would be good advice if they may be unaware on how she's feeling.

It is probably a good idea to suggest that she keeps going to gymnastics.

As we saw that getting regular exercise and eating a healthy diet is a good way to look after our mental health.

Keeping a gratitude journal would also be helpful as it would help Zoya to focus on the positive aspects of her life.

Her GP could offer her advice and support.

It is definitely a great idea to advise Zoya to deal with her problems as they arise so that they do not build up.

I'm sure you included lots of these points in your advice to Zoya and may even have come up with some of your own.

What I should need to remember when supporting Zoya is empathy.

Empathy is the ability to share and understand the feelings of another.

It is more than sympathy, which is feeling sorry for someone it is actually putting yourself in someone else's shoes and trying to really understand what they are going through.

Using empathy a whole lot more will take away the stigma surrounding mental health and help us to truly support others and ourselves.

This is your task.

Can you draw a different image that represents what empathy means to you? Remember the definition of empathy the ability to share and understand the feelings of others.

Pause the video to complete this task and then resume when you are finished.

That brings us to the end of our lesson on breaking down mental health stigma.

Before you go and complete your exit quiz I'd like to thank you for engaging with the tasks and asked you to use one of the revision techniques from our previous session and write down as much as you can about what we have learned from our lesson today in 60 seconds.

I look forward to carrying on our learning in the next lesson, in this unit.