Keep Fit Stay Sane is based on my experiences with depression. It is
about preventing depression by encouraging people to take 'emotional
exercise'. The theory, supported by professional counsellors and
psychiatrists that I have spoken to about the project, is that our
emotional health is similar to our physical health; it requires
exercise to stay healthy.
I am therefore creating an online emotional gym that contains a number
of 'emotional exercises'to improve 'emotional fitness', such as
meditation, mindfulness, values finding, identification of self-talk,
acceptance, story-telling and development of resilience. It will also
tie in with physical fitness monitoring apps (of which there are
plenty) as physical exercise is a major influence on emotional health.
The concepts of physical fitness and emotional fitness are very much
tied together.
I am working in conjunction with qualified, experienced counsellors
and mental health workers, including people manning the suicide help
lines, to find ways of adapting what works in practice to an online
application that can be used as preventative exercise.
However, this project is not about 'mental health' as that term has
been co-opted by a whole different industry, and has significant
stigma. The hope is that 'emotional fitness' will have less stigma and
people will therefore be prepared to engage in activities that improve
it without the usual 'I don't need that; I haven't got a mental health
problem' rejection.
This is very much an experiment, and will need to adapt to the
customer's usage and develop as it goes.