Lesson video

Hi, I'm Ms. Lowe and I'm the RSHE teacher for today.

Thank you so much for choosing to complete your learning with me.

Today's lesson is all about how talking supports mental health.

And because of the themes and the topics that we're gonna cover today, it's important to complete your learning with the company of an adult.

So here is our outcome for today's lesson.

And by the end, you are gonna be able to explain how talking about feelings can help us to manage problems. Every RSHE lesson should begin with a set of ground rules.

This ensures that every conversation had in RSHE is respectful and we're all able to learn effectively.

So Laura is reminding us that in RSHE, we should listen to others.

It's okay to disagree with each other, but we should listen properly before making assumptions or deciding how to respond.

And when disagreeing, we challenge the statement and not the person.

Andeep is reminding us to respect privacy.

We can discuss examples, but we don't use names or descriptions that can identify anyone including ourselves.

Izzy is reminding us to choose a level of participation that suits us.

Everyone has the right to choose not to answer a question or to join in a discussion, but we never put anyone on the spot.

And finally, Jacob is reminding us that in RSHE, there is no judgement.

We can explore beliefs and misunderstandings about a topic without the fear of being judged.

So let's have a look at our keywords for today's lesson.

Our first word is mental health, the health of our minds and emotions.

Next, we have support, the actions taken to help someone who is in a difficult or dangerous situation, such as providing care and seeking medical attention.

Finally, stress.

Your body and mind's response to challenging situations.

And here is a look at what we are gonna be talking about together today.

We're gonna begin by asking the question, what does good mental health look like? And we all have mental health.

Dr.

Elsie here says that mental health is all about our state of mind.

Do we feel good? Do we feel bad? Are we happy? Are we worried? And it's the way in which we process our thoughts, our emotions, and our behaviours.

It is very important to look after our mental health.

In the same way that we should try to exercise and eat healthily to look after our bodies, our state of mind also needs looking after.

We can picture mental health as a spectrum.

So on one end we have healthy, our mental health is really good.

We feel good about ourselves.

We're processing our emotions and our thoughts really well.

Then we have managing, where we may be struggling a little, but we are able to cope with some of the negative emotions that we're experiencing.

Struggling, which is where we may be finding it a bit more difficult to process our thoughts and emotions.

We might be leaning into more of a negative mental health.

And then finally, suffering.

Our mental health can sit anywhere on this spectrum and it can often change throughout our lifetime, depending on our circumstances.

So it isn't something that is set in stone, and this is why it's really important that we look after our mental health.

Where we sit on the spectrum can also vary from one person to the next, and as does the support that we might need.

So for example, if somebody sees their mental health on this end of the spectrum where they are healthy or managing, they may need support from people like friends or family.

They could even engage in self-help.

So things like journaling, taking a long walk, practising mindfulness or meditating.

Whereas on the other end of the spectrum where we have struggling and suffering, this is where people may benefit more from support from trained professionals such as therapists, counsellors, or GPs.

Now, we're gonna pause here and we're gonna check our understanding.

What I want you to do is to complete the mental health spectrum with the missing words.

So pause the video here, have a go, and then we'll go through the correct answer together.

Really great work.

So you should have said that on this end of the spectrum, we have healthy, then we have managing, then we have struggling, and then suffering.

Well done if you labelled the mental health spectrum correctly.

So good mental health doesn't mean being happy all the time.

Good mental health is the ability to cope with the normal day-to-day stress of life, and to be able to use your abilities to contribute positively to your community.

Lucas here is saying that his mental health is good sometimes, but he does get really anxious before an exam.

Dr.

Elsie here says that being anxious before exams is an example of normal stress.

Stress that we may go through on a day-to-day basis.

By using a revision timetable and taking regular breaks, this can be helpful for us and you can also get support from your teachers and family.

So we can see here that Lucas and his mental health is sitting right on that healthy or managing side of the spectrum.

Alex says, "Although my mental health is mostly good, I remember feeling low for weeks when my granddad moved away." And Dr.

Elsie says that, "Change can be unsettling for us all and it's very normal to feel sad when someone we love moves away.

It's important to make time to keep in touch with your granddad and remember to talk to your friends and family when you feel low." This person is saying, "I feel so sad all the time.

I can't sleep.

I don't want to eat and I don't want to see anyone.

I've tried talking to friends and family, but they just don't understand." Dr.

Elsie here says, "Thank you for sharing how you feel, that's very brave.

You seem to be struggling and suffering with your mental health so it'd be a good idea to talk to a trained professional.

You can get further support through trusted adults at school, at home, or your doctor." And let's pause here and let's check our understanding.

True or false? If someone is struggling or suffering with their mental health, they may use self-help.

All right, so pause the video here and tell me is that true or false? Really well done if you said false.

But why is this false? Although self-help can be useful in looking after our mental health, anyone struggling or suffering with their mental health might need the support of trained professionals.

Now, we're gonna put our learning into practise.

So what I'd like for you to do is to use the words below to complete the missing gaps.

So you're gonna read through that statement as it is with the gaps present, read through all the words in the word bank and then see if you can figure out which words go in the correct gaps.

You're gonna pause the video here and then we'll go through the correct answer together.

Great work.

Let's have a look at what your paragraph should look like.

So your paragraph should say, "Mental health is about our state of mind and the way in which we process our thoughts, emotions and behaviours.

Good mental health doesn't mean being happy all the time.

It is the ability to cope with the normal stress of life and to be able to use your abilities to contribute positively to your community." Well done if your paragraph looks the same as mine.

So you might have noticed that the word sad and struggle were not needed in this paragraph.

They were red heron.

So well done as well if you managed to spot that.

Now we're moving on to the second part of our lesson where we're asking the question, how does talking support our mental health? So we can use the stress bucket analogy here.

So what I want you to do is to imagine that every day we are carrying a bucket round with us wherever we go.

And this bucket represents our capacity to cope with stress.

Now, what I want you to do is to imagine that every time we feel stressed, the bucket fills up a little bit more with water.

So here we have exams. This is some stress that we might experience in our life and this fills up the bucket a little more.

Maybe we forget to do some homework.

This adds a little bit more stress into the bucket.

Maybe we experience peer pressure, and again, this is adding a little more stress into our stress bucket.

We then might have an argument with a friend, which again is gonna top that stress bucket up a little bit more.

In time, what's gonna happen is that bucket will start to feel heavier and heavier, and may even start to overflow.

And what this represents is it is making the stress harder to cope with and harder to carry.

However, talking to others about our feelings can help us to let some of that water out so that the bucket is lighter and doesn't overflow.

It's important to remember that everyone's bucket is different.

Some people might have a very small bucket which overfills quickly.

Others may have a larger bucket and they may therefore have a larger capacity to cope with more stress.

Each person's struggle belongs to them, and we shouldn't expect people to respond to stress in a certain way or in the same way as each other.

Let's pause here and let's check our understanding.

Which of these statements is correct? The bucket we carry with us.

Read through those three statements and tell me what finishes that sentence.

Really well done if you said A and C.

So the bucket that we carry with us represents our capacity to cope with stress.

We said that some people may have a smaller bucket that fills up and overflows quicker, and we said that some people might have a larger bucket, which represents their ability to cope with more stress.

And then C, we said that it fills up with water each time we feel stress, so little stresses that we experience throughout the day can add water into our bucket, and over time, that bucket can feel harder to carry.

Now B was incorrect because actually talking to others about our feelings reduces some of the load from that stress bucket, making it easier to carry.

Now everyone has feelings and anyone can talk about their feelings and it's not a sign of weakness at all.

In fact, it's a sign of real strength.

If we think back to earlier in the video when Dr.

Elsie was talking to somebody who said that they're struggling and suffering with their mental health, Dr.

Elsie used the phrase brave.

She said it's really brave that they had built up the courage and the strength to be able to talk about something that was really difficult for them.

So that's important to remember that everyone has these feelings and anyone can talk about them.

Ignoring our feelings or bottling them up can make things more difficult later on.

Keeping feelings to ourself might seem like a good idea, but it can cause us to feel more stressed, anxious, and physically unwell too.

Again, let's think back to that stress bucket.

If we were to keep our stresses, our feelings, our anxiety in, we are just making that bucket harder and harder to carry.

We might feel bad talking about our feelings because we don't wanna bring our friends down.

Remember, an important part of friendship is being a good listener and offering support, in the same way that we would want to do that for our friends, they want to be there for us.

Sofia here is saying, "I feel so nervous about next week's school trip as I've never been away from home for that long." Aisha here says, "I totally understand.

I felt the same way when I went on a school trip last year, but friends distracted me and I felt better after the first night, it was great." So we can see here that Sofia's been really brave and she's opened up to Aisha, and spoken about her feelings, and Aisha has been a great friend.

In response, she's listened and she's offered support and spoken a bit about her own experiences and how she overcame them.

Sofia says, "Thank you for listening and reassuring me, I feel so much better for getting that off my mind." Jun here he is saying, "I'm rubbish at everything.

My math's test score was so low and I can't even get onto the school football team." Izzy says, "My math test score was low too, but it was a hard test.

Also, you are excellent at football.

You just had a bad day.

You should definitely try out again." And Jun again says, "Thank you for believing in me.

I really appreciate it." So we can see from these two examples of Sofia and Jun opening up to their friends about what they're struggling with, they're releasing a bit of the load from that stress bucket and their friends are being excellent listeners and they're offering them support.

Help and support is always available.

Dr.

Elsie says here, "No one should have to struggle or suffer with their mental health alone.

If you are worried about your own or someone else's mental health, you should speak to a trusted adult.

And there are lots of places and people that can provide mental health support.

Now let's pause here and let's check our understanding.

True or false? Ignoring our feelings or bottling them up makes it easier to cope with stress.

I want you to pause the video and think about your answer.

Really well done If you said false.

And this is false because keeping feelings to ourselves might seem like a good idea at the time, but it can cause us to feel more stressed, anxious, and physically unwell too.

And now we're gonna put our learning into practise.

So what I want for you to do is to write one paragraph to explain the bucket analogy.

And I want you to think about the following while you're writing your paragraph.

One, is what the book it represents.

Next is how the bucket gets heavier, and three, how the bucket gets lighter and what we can do to make it lighter.

So I want you to pause the video here and write down those paragraphs and then we're gonna go through what you might have written together in a moment.

Okay, so you were asked to write one paragraph to explain the bucket analogy.

You might have said, the bucket represents our capacity to cope with stress.

Each time that we feel stressed, the bucket fills up with more water, becoming heavier to carry and harder to cope with.

Talking about our feelings helps to let some of the water out, making it lighter to carry and easier to cope with.

You might have also mentioned in your answer about some people might have larger buckets and other people might have smaller buckets.

But if you mentioned any of those things in your answer, a big well done to you.

And now let's end with a summary of what we've learned together today.

So we all have mental health and it's important to look after our minds as well as our bodies.

Mental health varies from one person to another, as does the type of support that we need.

Good mental health is the ability to cope with normal day-to-day stress.

Talking to others about our feelings can help our stress to feel lighter and easier to cope with.

No one should struggle or suffer with their mental health.

There are lots of places and people that can provide mental health support.

Now, if any of the topics that we've covered in today's lesson affect you in any way or you have any concerns, here are some places that you can go to to access support.

First, we have NHS Live Well, which offers advice about healthy living, exercise, quitting smoking and drinking less alcohol.

And then we have the NHS website, which provides advice about health and prevention, including how to access services.

And I want to say a big well done for all of your fantastic work today, and I look forward to seeing you in another RSHE lesson soon.