{"id":204,"date":"2023-10-06T13:40:50","date_gmt":"2023-10-06T12:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.tees.ac.uk\/vibelondon\/?p=204"},"modified":"2023-10-06T13:40:50","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T12:40:50","slug":"why-its-important-to-look-after-your-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.tees.ac.uk\/vibelondon\/2023\/10\/06\/why-its-important-to-look-after-your-mental-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Why it\u2019s important to look after your mental health"},"content":{"rendered":"

My name is Oli and I have depression and anxiety, but don\u2019t worry, this blog isn\u2019t going to be all doom and gloom. I\u2019m going to try, try being the keyword, talk through my own experiences at University where I didn\u2019t look after my mental health and explain why it\u2019s so important to look after yours.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Oli Welham<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

University was a big change for me. Moving from a small village to a big city, leaving my friends from college behind and for the first time being away from my family. I was so desperate to make friends and fit in that I kind of forgot who I was. I was going out every night to house parties or club nights when really, I was much happier with a quiet film night or \u201cKaraoke Thursdays\u201d. I was burning the candle at both ends trying to fit in and keep on top of my work and deadlines. The biggest hit was the missed sleep and bad, overindulging diet making me tired and irritable and underperforming in my assignments. Already the stress of this lifestyle was having negative effects in nearly every aspect of my life.<\/p>\n

In my second year, I knew something had to change so I stopped trying to fit in and started being the un-edited version of myself. I stopped going out all the time, although Karaoke Thursdays stayed obviously, and got involved in a society through the Students\u2019 Union. I was loving life, getting involved in many activities with people who shared the same interests as me. Only I over-corrected, I focused too much on this and still forgot to look after myself. I stopped going out, instead spending every night in my room eating. Not only was this lonely and isolating, it was very expensive leading to all sorts of money worries. Once again, this added stress built up and after two years of not looking after my mental health, I reached a crisis point. It was only then that I confided in close friends about what was going on in my head. I didn\u2019t speak to a professional, but I should have.<\/p>\n

My third year was very much a year of healing. I found a balance and allowed myself to not be okay \u2013 in a healthy way. I was open about my experiences and found a good life balance, but once again never spoke to a professional. It was another year before I spoke to a counsellor and began my journey to recovery.<\/p>\n

This all sounds bleak, but honestly, University was the best years of my life and forged me into the man I am today. I just wish that instead of burying my head in the sand and just coping, I\u2019d walked into student support and asked for the support on offer. If I had, then maybe I wouldn\u2019t have coped, I\u2019d have thrived.<\/p>\n

If you need to reach out, then please head to\u00a0tees.ac.uk\/london\/support<\/a>. The team are here to help.<\/p>\n

By Oli.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My name is Oli and I have depression and anxiety, but don\u2019t worry, this blog isn\u2019t going to be all doom and gloom. I\u2019m going to try, try being the keyword, talk through my own experiences at University where I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23134,"featured_media":206,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.tees.ac.uk\/vibelondon\/files\/2023\/10\/Money-saving-tips-1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tees.ac.uk\/vibelondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tees.ac.uk\/vibelondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tees.ac.uk\/vibelondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tees.ac.uk\/vibelondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tees.ac.uk\/vibelondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tees.ac.uk\/vibelondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tees.ac.uk\/vibelondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions\/207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tees.ac.uk\/vibelondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tees.ac.uk\/vibelondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tees.ac.uk\/vibelondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tees.ac.uk\/vibelondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}