World Mental Health and World Homeless Day!
Today is an important day for us: it’s World Mental Health Day and World Homelessness Day!
As some of you might know, we started as a business that focused on raising awareness towards mental health. What we wanted to achieve shifted us towards a path that helps disadvantaged communities and vulnerable people. Nevertheless, we still always aim to promote positive mental health to our customers, the people that we work with and the vulnerable people we help.
The link between homelessness and mental health issues is stark with 80% of homeless people suffering from a mental health issue. It becomes difficult to imagine how someone vulnerable can look after themselves, move on and support themselves whilst suffering from a mental health issue.
In our technology-driven world, we could spend hours or even an entire day without physically needing to talk to one another. That’s why, taking the time off from our busy schedules to focus on improving ourselves and to help others is crucial for maintaining good mental health.
We have put together a few easy ways to better your mental health and simple ways to show kindness towards those around you.
Here are 3 things you should know about the power of kindness:
1) Witnessing acts of kindness stimulates the production of oxytocin. Oxytocin reduces blood pressure, improves mood and boosts self-esteem.
2) Kindness promotes gratitude, empathy and compassion which often leads to feeling interconnectedness with others. When we connect with others, we understand them more and it brings us closer together.
3) When you deliver an act of kindness, you begin to see yourself in a more positive light. It reminds you that no matter how bad things get, they can always get better.
So, we have one task for you today. Make a conscious effort to be kind to yourself and be kind to a stranger - help a homeless person today!
When we stop having such high expectations and start letting go of the biases and stereotypes that divide us, perhaps we will start to see that we are all the same in so many different ways. Most of us have come across a difficult obstacle at least once in our lives and some even more than others. Once we start paying attention to our needs and the needs of others, we begin to understand somewhere in our subconscious, the meaning of true compassion.
Start your random act of kindness today.