Just Breathe… The mental health Breathe Café at Lu-Ma in Wimbledon is the first of its kind nationwide. Darling caught up with CEO of Shawmind, mental health charity, Peter Wingrove to find out more.
Shawmind launched the Breathe Café programme to give people suffering with anxiety, stress and other mental health challenges the space to ‘just breathe’. These Cafes are not therapy sessions or clinics but offer the general public an opportunity to learn more about mental health topics. The first Breathe Café was launched in July at Lu-Ma, 43 Worple Road, Wimbledon and features not only a library of free-to-read mental health and wellbeing books and memoirs, but also access to 1-to-1 conversations with Shawmind volunteers. Breathe Cafes encourage people to get out of their current environment, to go out and connect with others, especially important after the isolation enforced on us all by COVID-19.
The Breathe Cafe at Lu-Ma Cafe in Wimbledon. Photo by Vicki Sharp at Lu-Ma Cafe
Long-term health conditions can be managed but often not cured. Understandably, an individual’s primary concern is relief from symptoms, but this is not always possible. Those who suffer with long-term conditions can experience continuous and frequent pain, fatigue and weakness. In turn, this can impact on mood, anxiety levels, self-esteem, relationships, occupations, activity levels and lifestyles.
Research consistently demonstrates that people with long-term conditions are two to three times more likely to experience mental health problems than the general population, particularly anxiety and depression.
In most instances, individuals managing long-term conditions are advised to monitor their diet and lifestyle choices – having a balanced diet, good activity levels and a healthy sleep pattern can reduce the impact of long- term conditions on our mental health. Whilst living with a long-term condition can make it difficult to continue with these activities, withdrawal and isolation have a negative impact on one’s mindset which can severely diminish quality of life.
There are treatments for mental health issues are available, like cognitive- based therapy – CBT, which teaches one skills to enhance the quality of your life despite living with a long-term condition. A key area is developing the skills to manage one’s emotions associated with your condition, and stress management.
Gordon and Maria Jessiman, owners of Lu-Ma Cafe which is hosting the first ‘Breathe Cafe’ and Peter Wingrove from charity Shawmind. Photo Vicki Sharp
But sometimes all the diets, exercise and therapies are not enough… when you are struggling with something that may be the biggest battle of your life, you may just need a space to take your mind off what you are going through for a while, to “recharge” yourself to face another day.
We hope that this article has been helpful and informative about mental health and the launch of The Breathe Café.
You may also enjoy reading more about mental health here.
