University life is full of opportunities that you must take advantage of. But none of these should come at the expense of your health and wellbeing. UJS continuously advocates for mental health awareness, driven by policy, through workshops, collaborations and campaigns. UJS is here to help you work towards a healthier, happier university environment both physically and digitally.
If you need further support, or want to see the support options available to you, click here.
University Mental Health Day 2023
Together with University Jewish Chaplaincy and Jami, we have created FND prompt cards, to promote discussion around mental health and wellbeing. Take a look at the document below, and use it with your JSoc!
Mental Health Awareness Shabbat 2023
Mental Health Awareness Shabbat was marked in Jewish communities across the world. UJS and Jami hosted a webinar focusing on emoathy fatigue in exam season. Click here to watch the webinar.
Mental Health Awareness Week 2022
The theme of MHAW 2022 was loneliness and isolation. UJS teamed up with Jami to discuss student loneliness, and how we can work together to combat it! Click here to watch the webinar.
University Mental Health Day 2022
UJS are proud to join the University Mental Health Day initiative. We invite all students to watch our livestream titled: Faith and Mental Health. Click here to watch the recording of the event!
World Mental Health Day 2021
On World Mental Health Day, we launched a project that puts you, our students, at the centre. We want to spotlight your experiences and create a virtual community where we can all support one another. We know that there have been many long-lasting consequences of the pandemic and want to give you a space to address them. Whether lockdown made you feel a bit low, you lost someone close to you or it exacerbated an existing mental health problem, tell us about it. Write, draw, talk about your feelings so together we can create an open conversation about our mental health.
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UJS Mental Health Day Podcast Our sabbatical officers got together to talk openly about their mental health during the pandemic. |
My Mental Health
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A blog by Nina Before the beginning of the pandemic, I was fortunate enough to have never experienced real mental difficulty. Of course, I experienced anxiety and low moods from time to time, but it never seriously impacted my daily functioning. When lockdown hit, I was nervous about being fenced in but excited about the opportunity to spend time with my family and catch up on some Netflix shows. The reality of lockdown was, for me, quite pleasant. I got into a great routine of morning walks, afternoon naps and baking and I enjoyed the relative peace and solitude. Read the full blog here |
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My lockdown mental health journey was tumultuous to say the least. The isolation from being stuck inside for such long stretches of time took its toll on me and I had to find outlets for the mixes of pain and emotion I was feeling. I was lucky enough to have discovered this through my artwork. What started as a playful experiment, an exercise in improving my artistic abilities whilst learning how to grow a social media account, became a positive outlook for expressing myself at such a difficult time, without words. Learning to create mandalas like this one taught me to redirect a lot of the pain I had felt in a therapeutic manner and left me with something beautiful to show for it. For this I am very grateful. |
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Before Covid, I was a busy and sociable person and never struggled with any form of anxiety or stress. When we went into lockdown, I found it difficult to be on my own and not have activities to do was incredibly difficult. I had decided to move into my boyfriend’s family home for lockdown, and at the beginning that was hard as it wasn’t my own space for me to fully be comfortable in. I was incredibly fortunate that where they live, they have lots of open space and I took advantage of the walking trails and being in the countryside. However there still was a part of it that I found incredibly difficult, which was learning to be comfortable in my own company. The way I tried to cope with it was to take up activities which kept me busy and distracted. For me this was ‘paint by numbers’ which allowed me to switch off and take space for myself. Additionally, working from home was incredibly difficult and the painting allowed me to switch off from staring at a screen all day. Having gone through the lockdowns, I know really appreciate the importance of taking time out for myself, personal space and ensuring that I am taking care of myself both physically and mentally. Going back to normality has made it more difficult to find the balance, though I will try at least an hour everyday to be time to myself, to process and decompress from the day. |