Teachers Week

Monday was World Teachers Day, which is here to remind us of the importance of the work teachers do all over the world. Teachers are moulding the young minds of tomorrow - what work could be more important than that?

Teachers provide children with skill and knowledge. If you’re a regular Wakey viewer you’ll know that Skill and Knowledge are crucially important in maintaining good mental health. 

Skills

We can’t do the things we want to do until we have the skills to do so. Simple right? Skills only get better with practise. We practise skills when things are going well so that we can use them when things are hard. Think of everyday life like training and when things get hard - that's the big event that you've been training for. Then when things are hard you can think of it like a challenge you've been preparing for. 

Can we think of the brain like we think of the body? In terms of strength, muscles and skills? We think that's a useful - if not literal - way to think about health and wellbeing. For instance practising certain skills like mindfulness [https://www.wakey.life/post/mindfulness] or social skills are skills much like the skill of getting better at a sport. Bringing attention where you want it in mindfulness gets easier with time so it's also like a muscle that gets stronger with time. 

There are also lots of mental health benefits that come as a result of learning new skills and sharing them with others. You’ll remember from our meaning and purpose week that we need lots of different types of activities to maintain our physical and emotional health:

What kinds of activities make people feel good?

• Activities that are enjoyable

• Activities where we are learning new skills

• Activities that are aligned with our values (like spending time with our children or friends, volunteering etc.)

• Activities that give us connection to other people

• Activities where we are active and moving our bodies. 

Next week we'll be discussing how attending to positive experiences is a skill that can be trained - and with practise we get better at it.