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How to be a Madvocate

Back in the day, mental health advocates represented the “mentally ill”. But today, we have a new definition of ‘mental health’, one that includes us ALL. Whether we are mentally well, ill or just plain mental - each and every one of us has a mind in need of care!

So, what do we call this new breed of mental health advocate? MADvocates! (See what I did there 😉)

As Madvocates, we stand up for our wellbeing and other people’s. We are the lifeblood of How Mental ;), the biggest movement of people and organisations around the world on a mission to make wellbeing the global priority. #TheMentalMovement ✊🌍❤️🧠

Ready to Madvocate?! *Virtual Hug* There are the 3 ways to do it:

1. Start with YOU! 🥰

Are you taking care of yourself? If you’re not making wellbeing your priority, how can you expect to make it anyone else’s?! Taking care of our mind is a continuous process and we’ve got some super simple ways for you to do it.

a) Follow us on socials 😍

Whether you prefer Insta, Linkedin, TikTok or anything in between - make sure your feed has got some mental goodness flowing through it every single day so you NEVER forget to take care of your mental health. Remember, these platforms all have their algorithms, so I recommend you set them up so that you get a notification every time we post!

b) Sign up for Mental e-Mails 💌

Wanna stay off socials? Want something more? I feel you! Sign up to our newsletter to get “Your Mental Moment” - an email filled with mental goodness direct to your inbox. This is THE best way to stay in touch with the Mental Movement, get additional Mental Tips and exclusive updates from me. Sign up on the homepage 😇

c) Create your Mental Toolkit using 'Discover' on howmental.com 💪

Our Discover page brings together everything you need from across the mental health sector - so you’re not wasting time and effort getting lost scrolling through Google. We've got:

Tools: Everything you need from therapy to meditations apps - go get ‘emmmm!

Knowledge: Mental stories including the science-y stuff and people’s lived experiences so you can discover what might work for you.

And Community: This leads me onto the next thing you can do to help yourself…

d) Join our Mental Events 📅

We run all sorts of events that help, including Live chats with crazy, beautiful, knowledgeable people from across the mental health sector.

However, our cornerstone event is the Weekly Mental Check-in - a space for us all to reflect on where we’re at and what we can do to help ourselves going forward, check it out here!

e) Get yo’self some Mental Merch! 👕

Sometimes, we just need a reminder to prioritise our mind…not in our phone screens but IRL [we do phone screensavers too] ! Our Mental Merch goes the extra mile to help. Whether it’s a simple tee with the How Mental wink ;) or a journal that gives you the space to think - we’ve got your back (literally as well as metaphorically when it comes to the t-shirts haha!).

Not only that, using your Mental Merch out in the big wide world starts Mental Conversations. It opens people up to know they’re not alone. ☺️ So, not only are you helping yourself, you’re helping other people too, speaking of which let’s move onto the second thing you can do as a Madvocate…

f) Track your wellbeing with How Are We 📲

How can we know what we need if we don't even know how we're feeling?! We've developed an app that makes it suuuper easy to check-in with ourselves and track our wellbeing over time as part of a community of Madvocates! Best part is, we can see how EVERYONE is feeling so nobody every has to feel alone again. Check it out here!

2. Support OTHERS! 👫

We’re not living on this planet alone, other people make this place our HOME! But taking care of them isn’t always easy, especially when we’re never taught to do it. So, let’s see how we can help you madvocate (yep, it’s a verb now too) with the people you love…

a) Share How Mental’s Content 📣

Look, we’re doing our best to curate and create the BEST mental health and wellbeing content out there. Give it a share! Send a link to an article on our site. Tag someone in a post on our socials. The more you know about them, the more you can help by choosing something that will really resonate!

Or, go broader - give our content a share on your socials! Put it in your stories. You NEVER know what someone might be going through. It might not look like much, but just putting it out there could change someone’s life for the better. 🥰

b) Madvocate in your bio! ✊

Let everyone know you believe wellbeing is the priority, no matter when they land on your profile! Tell the world you’re a #Madvocate and tag @howmental so they know where to go for support. ;)

c) Story highlight that 'ish 😎

Story highlights not only help you let everyone know you’re a Madvocate 24/7/365 (and 366 days on leap years ;) ) but also give you the space to go into detail on WHY you care about mental health.

I’ve always found that being vulnerable enough to share my mental journey, including my experiences of depression, anxiety and suicidal tendencies, helps the people around me to open up more than ever before. To know they’re not alone and there’s nothing to be ashamed of... So, to help you do that, we’ve created a lil Story Highlights PACK you can download. It’s even got an example from me and some add-ons so you can go as wide or as deep as you like!

d) Do you have a website? Pop something on there! 🧑💻

The web can be a scary place…and people are always going through something. We’ve created a cute lil How Mental badge that you can put on your website to direct people to support.

Our aim is to have these EVERYWHERE so that no matter where you are, you’re never too far from a helping hand. So, download them from this pack *here* and make sure when someone clicks it, it links through to www.howmental.com!

e) Email signatures…yes, really! 😝

We all interact with people via email every single day. Well, not all of us, but most of us! So, instead of just saying “I hope you’re well”, show people you MEAN it by adding a lil link to How Mental so they know where to go if they ever need support. Here are a couple of examples of ways to do it.

f) Gift some Merch 😘

It’s not always easy for us to help ourselves. So, why not get someone you love a gift that inspires and enables them to take care of their mental health? Get them a tee so they know they’re part of the community! A journal so they can set their mind free. Some stickers ‘cause their laptop still has a teeeeny tiny bit of space free. ;)

g) Bring 'em down to an event 🙌

Similarly, they may not feel like coming to an event by themselves. Hold their hand! Let them know we ALL have a mind in need of care. Let them know there’s a community out here just waiting for them to show up so we can give them all our love. Being there, LIVE, connecting with other people on this mental journey through life…that’s what it’s all about. ✨

Wanna take Madvocacy to the next level? Time to share the final step…

3. Help THE WORLD! 🌍

Taking care of ourselves, then the people we love makes sense. But what if we want to do more? It’s time to tap into the GLOBAL community. How?

a) Share your story with How Mental ✍️

The way we make progress as a species is by listening to our ancestors and learning from their stories.

YOU CAN BE AN ANCESTOR!! Sound wrong? OK. Well, what I’m trying to say is, people can learn from YOU! Your story has value, why not share it?

Get in touch with us via this Contact Form or email hello@howmental.com to tell us a bit about you and we’ll let you know how best to get involved.

b) Connect us with potential collaborators 🥳

Whether it’s just a tag on socials or, ideally, an email introducing us to the right person to make action HAPPEN - connecting the dots is super important to supporting more people and creating a mentally healthy society. So, we’d be beyond happy to meet anyone you think we could do a mental collab with!

That includes your school, uni, workplace, a creator, an influencer, your local cafe or any organisation you think genuinely cares (or should care!) about mental health and wellbeing. 👌

We’ve even got a short presentation we can send you about HM to help you explain it to non-madvocates (normalcates? We’ll work on that one…)

c) Campaign with us! 🤩

We love to create campaigns that spread awareness and genuinely help people take care of their mental health! They could be your followers, students, employees or patients - no matter who they are, let's do something FUN to engage everyone.

Connect with us to help you make the most of the love and care you want to share with the world. Email hello@howmental.com with any initial thoughts or feelings you have about it or, if you don’t have a clue but you just want to do something, let’s go from there...

Soooooo, that’s everything I can think of atm :P

Got any more ideas? Let us know! And always be honest about how much you can reeeeally dedicate to Madvocacy. YES, we all want to help the planet. But remember, that starts with you, and that alone is ALWAYS enough!

I love you beyond words, beyond this screen and beyond reality (whatever that means). ❤️❤️❤️

George, Founder of How Mental

Post by
George Taktak