Keeping hold of my marbles (or should that be apples?)

By Dominic Campbell • Dec 2nd, 2008 • Category: Features

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In the week that the BBC announced that “community life in Britain has weakened substantially over the past 30 years” and that loneliness is at an all time high, I was only too happy to get involved with Andy Gibson’s quest to keep Britain’s brains flexed and fighting fit in the shape of his Mindapples project.

Andy explains the thinking behind Mindapples:

“Mindapples is a social movement to promote individual self-management of mental wellbeing. The original “5-a-day” campaign encouraged people to take care of their physical health through simple daily activities, and we want to do the same thing for mental health. We aim to create a stigma-free public debate about mental wellbeing, simply by asking everybody the question: “What’s your five-a-day?”

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Photo: Steel City

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So what are mine? Well in no particular order…

  1. Swimming (And plenty of it - 2.5km 3 times a week. Bliss!)
  2. Eating well (There’s nothing like good food)
  3. Catching up with friends and family (Any which way - in person, on the phone, text, email, Facebook - whatevs really!)
  4. Football (Specifically travelling up to watch my beloved Boro - although clearly this might be doing more harm than good!)
  5. Music (So much so I may be about to buy a waterproof stereo so that I can listen while swimming. Now if only I could eat and chat to family at the same time…)

And in terms of nominating five others to give their thoughts, I’d plump for Justin Kerr-Stevens, Dave Briggs, James Governor, Lee Bryant and Ben Matthews (there are others like @amandita and @mlyons but they’re not quite on the blogging tip just yet!).

But why not not have a go yourself and let’s all be fruit loops together?

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6 Responses »

  1. james governor on December 2nd, 2008 at 9:53 am:

    according to this i am unhappy and unhealthy. i am not lonely, and i live on a Hackney street that has a great community feel to it, though.

    What makes me happy? Spending time with my son, and riding my bike to work. thats about it. oh yeah - twitter makes me happy too. Its hard to feel lonely when you’re on a network like that.

    One concern about Mindapples as a meme is the US team “road apples” - http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/road-apples.html

  2. Dominic Campbell on December 2nd, 2008 at 11:25 am:

    Great comment thanks James! And definitely one for Andy to watch out for on the apples front…

  3. Ben 'mental sweat' Matthews on December 2nd, 2008 at 11:37 am:

    Thanks for tagging me in the meme, Dom. Pencilled down my thoughts here:

    http://puddingrelations.blogspot.com/2008/12/my-mental-health-five-day.html

  4. Tessy Britton on December 11th, 2008 at 5:05 pm:

    Great list Dominic! I think we should have a new game…. Guess my Mindapples. From following you on Twitter I would have guessed 4 out of the five… :) This is a lovely thing…
    :)
    Tessy

  5. Dominic Campbell on December 13th, 2008 at 6:36 pm:

    Ha! Great idea Tessy. Also shows how declaratively I live my life on Twitter as well that you could guess four of them :) (what was the one you couldn’t btw?)

  6. 5-A-Day « Mindapples on January 6th, 2009 at 10:40 am:

    [...] Dominic Campbell shared his 5-a-day - in no particular order… [...]

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