Why Young Minds? by Jacob Gledhill

Young Minds is a charity that looks to improve the emotional wellbeing and mental health of children and young people. As a group, we decided to raise money for Young Minds for many reasons, the first of which I think was relatability - pretty much everyone either knows someone who has suffered/is suffering with mental health problems or is a sufferer themselves, so we know just how much mental health problems can affect someone's life.



Mental health is a very complex area, and the extremely challenging mental health issues that people can find themselves facing can often be very hard to understand for those of us fortunate enough to not have had to face them personally. Fortunately, society's views on mental health seem to be slowly changing from ignorance to acceptance, and recently the Prime Minister herself spoke about a new approach to mental health support (click), but there is still a long way to go.  Therefore, anything that we can do to raise awareness around the issues surrounding mental health can only be a good thing, as the more we are all educated on it the easier it becomes for people to open up about the issues they are facing, which is one of the major steps towards dealing with the issue at hand.



Another reason is that Young Minds works specifically with children and young people. Growing up can be difficult at the best of times, but it must be extremely hard to deal with everything coming your way if you have to do this while suffering with a mental health problem. Also, mental health problems can be particularly hard to spot in children and young people, as any changes noticed by parents, teachers or friends may sometimes be hard to differentiate from the 'expected' changes that happen when you enter your teenage years. It's therefore really important that children and young people (and their families) are given the support they need to help them deal with everything they are facing.

To find out more about Young Minds, visit their website here. To donate, visit our fundraising page here.

The Wheels are in Motion... by Helen Holmes

As many of you may know, in two weeks time I – along with 9 friends – will be spending a day cycling, running and rowing the distance from Land’s End to John O’Groats, a distance of over 60 miles each. As many of you may also know, I am not the most sporty of individuals. In fact, I have even been called an indolent sloth and a languid idler (thanks Dad). So what happened when I began training for this big event? Read on to find out more...

It was the period between Christmas and New Year, where you are into triple-figure mince pie consumption and have a lurking sense of unease that you should probably be doing something other than eating and playing Articulate, that it hit me. You probably can’t just turn up and cycle 60 miles with no preparation. You definitely can’t if, like me, you count banana bread as one of your five a day and think a cross-trainer is a type of shoe. So I gritted my teeth, “borrowed” my sister’s gym pass, and set off for the bright lights of Sutton.

Is there anything more intimidating than walking into the main gym room to be confronted by banks of machines with sweating people draped over them, clearly clocking up their twentieth mile of the day and looking at you, the newbie, in utter disdain. I knew rationally that nobody was paying me any attention, yet inside I felt sure that everyone in that room knew that, just two days ago, I’d eaten a Cadbury Snowball for breakfast out of an egg-cup, using chocolate fingers as the soldiers. But, heroically, I strode past them all and settled myself on an exercise bike. I was here for the long haul.

For the first five minutes or so, I was pleasantly surprised. Why was I worried? I was a natural! Legs pumping like pistons, I was unstoppable. Until, after seven minutes, I stopped. It turns out cycling is either really boring or really painful, or sometimes, just for a bit of variety, both. And it really makes your bum hurt (even when, like me, you have been blessed with plenty of natural padding). I needed a break.

However, having doused myself at the water fountain, and with the dulcet tones of Little Mix to spur me on, I re-entered the fray, and 50 minutes later emerged victorious, with a whole nine miles to my name. OK, it wasn’t quite 60. But I was on my way.

On Wednesday 25th of January, we will be cycling, running, walking and rowing a total of 603 miles to raise money for Young Minds. Young Minds is a charity committed to supporting children and young people across the UK in improving their emotional well-being and mental health. All donations welcome! Or click to find out more about YoungMinds.

Full Cycle by Anna Bazley

‘Everyone knows that exercise is good for your body - but did you know that it's important for your mental health, too?’ runs the headline on the Young Minds page on Exercise and Mental Wellbeing. In training for the Land’s End to John O’Groats cycle we might be pushing ourselves slightly beyond the 30 minutes of moderate exercise recommended by the page but I’m definitely feeling the mental health benefits. I’m happier, more productive and have more energy having spent the time cycling or running.

Unfortunately my relationship to exercise hasn’t always been this typical and straightforward. Throughout the last year of school and all three years of University I struggled with the eating disorder bulimia, at different levels of severity. The toll on my mental and physical health became a main contributing factor to a breakdown the day before the first of my final exams. I suspended from university for a year.

As well as binge eating and purging through vomiting, my bulimia ALSO manifested itself, as it does in 90% of sufferers, in a compulsion to exercise. Originally exercising as a way to combat the bulimic urges, recommended by my GP, exercise quickly became both an addiction and a compulsion. Despite being on a challenging degree course that demanded a lot of academic work with a large time commitment, trips to the gym would take priority. If an unavoidable commitment meant I had to miss one of my designated five gym sessions a week I would get stressed and angry and respond by restricting food and purging.

I’m happy to be able to say that taking a year out of university was the best thing that ever happened to me, as I was able to seek treatment for the eating disordered behaviours. In the very first session with my therapist, though we discussed the amount and frequency of exercise I did, she focussed on the feelings around exercise that I experienced. Did I feel stressed when I missed exercise? Did I prioritize exercise above other things? Did I desperately find ways to exercise, exercising at illogical times? As I admitted the answer to all these questions was a definite yes (turns out squeezing a gym session into the one hour lunch break from a physically demanding waitressing job, instead of eating, doesn’t make a lot of sense). Having determined that a facet of my bulimia was definitely a compulsion to exercise, she incorporated this into treatment. Having made progress on eating and purging issues, I was asked to decrease the amount of times I exercised a week to less than half my normal amount. Whilst the thought made me stressed and anxious, and with a million (valid) messages on the importance and benefit of exercise, I managed to complete the requirements of the therapy and was officially discharged in May last year. I returned to university, I completed my final exams and took up a job on the Civil Service Fast Stream. Besides the big stuff, I can enjoy food again without obsessing over every calorie, exercise self-control over what I’m eating and enjoy exercise as a way to relax and improve my health, rather than viewing it as a punishment.

Whilst I was able to get recognition of my issue and access the help I needed, it wasn’t easy. A huge part of eating disorders in secrecy and deception and I was able to hide the signs from parents, friends and housemates, even ones I had confided in previously. The only times I felt able to seek help were when things were improving, leading me to downplay the seriousness of the issue and not receive the treatment I needed. I was uninformed about the help available and ways to break the cycle. That’s why I’m incredibly excited to be able to support Young Minds in the FUND challenge, an organization that does valuable work in educating, campaigning and supporting young people’s mental health. If you’d like to sponsor us and help raise money for this important cause, please visit our donation page linked on the right.