Thursday 4th February was Time to Talk day as part of Time to Change Mental health scheme. Time to Talk Day encourages everyone to be more open about mental health – to talk, to listen, to change lives. A small conversation about mental health has the power to make a big difference.
We know that the more conversations we have, the more we can help to reduce some of the isolation felt, particularly over these difficult times in lockdown and the pandemic. So as our way to join in, North Yorkshire Youth held a Chat n Chill session on zoom for young people to attend to meet people, have an informal chat but also to learn about mindfulness and take part in some mindfulness exercises.
The session was a success and young people asked if we could continue them and the sessions now run weekly, every Thursday 6-7pm for everyone aged 11 to 19 years.
At least once a month we are also joined by Matt from Darlington MIND who is great fun and always brings some fun mindfulness activities to try. In addition we chat about various topics in relation to well-being, self-care and mindfulness. We have done body scan and breathing exercises, looked at ‘responding and reacting’, stress relief and what it means to be your ‘authentic self’ among lots of other mindfulness activities.
Following on from this last week and again this week we will be joined by Nicole from Inner-Balance who is running sessions with the young people who attend on ‘Showing up for yourself’ and some meditation exercises.
We all need a safe, calm place to chat n chill…so why not join us, just email jayne@nyy.org.uk for the zoom link.