Just to remind folks that we will be meeting on the 2nd and last Monday of the Month at St Aidan Church 7 to 8:30pm and the last Thursday of the Month 9:30 to 11am. The Thursday Morning meeting does not have any specific venue, so for the first meeting, which will be in recognition of the "Let's Talk About Mental Health for 5 minutes" will be on 29th January at JT's Cafe, which is in the Hesters Way Community Centre, just down from the St Aidan Church building. Out next meeting at St Aidan is 26th Jan this is when Imogen will be joining us again, so if you want to catch up or want to hear how Imogen has successfully managed to overcome her mental health issues, please come along.
Unfortunately, due to illness, we were unable to get the Winter Walk organised over the Christmas and new year break. However we are hoping to get a walk sorted soon so watch out for information on this.
As our meetings have now changed I have put a list of the 2015 dates that you can download of our Web Site. So get them written in your diary!
It was good meeting on Monday. Some of the topics we talked about were how we managed over the Christmas holidays, the coping strategies we used to help us through, how we were all feeling now! We also discussed the difficulties of sleeping and issues around low self esteem and confidence. I think difficulties with sleep is such a nuisance. I have nights where I just can't get off and end up getting up and doing some thing like reading or sawing. Trouble with this though is the next day I tend to start falling asleep at my desk! I've tried all the best practices, having a well ventilated bedroom with a good temperature, not getting too much light before going to bed, hot drink etc, but nothing seems to work, so I've given up and I just use the time productively. If I'm tired the next day, then I work through it. We have some "Sleeping" best practices info at group if anyone would like to give it a go.
I anyone would like to take it up the task for January is to think about what you do to lift your spirits. I can then put these useful idea's on our Group Notice Board. I have started this off, I love dancing and my Zumba classes really help to lift my mood, so I've have put this on our board and on the Web Site
Hope the coming weeks are kind to you all !
Ruth D