Today is #WorldMentalHealthDay. At 10am Read Manchester are encouraging people to #Take10ToRead – asking the people of the UK to stop and read for 10 minutes.
Research has shown that reading can be an effective way of helping people take care of their mental health and wellbeing – and it only takes 10 minutes a day to see the benefits. Find out more on their website at: https://literacytrust.org.uk/communities/take-10/.
#MentalHealthAwareness #ReadMCR
Here are some ways you could get involved!
- Book group – Create a book group so colleagues can share a love of reading and have the chance to try different types of books. Group meetings could be hosted inperson or virtually and are a great way of regularly getting together socially as colleagues. Groups could be themed by different genres such as crime, romance, literary fiction, sci-fi or fantasy.
- Library space – Set up a shelf or space in your office for books to be donated and swapped to encourage colleagues to discover new books. You could suggest that staff leave a short review on a post-it-note in the book to spark conversations between colleagues.
- Book recommendations – Create a notice board in your office or a virtual space for colleagues to share book recommendations with each other.
- Book corner- Set up a comfortable book corner within your organisation where people of all ages can read whilst waiting or on a break. You could provide a small library of books for people to take away and bring back.
- Book swap – Organise a book swap event at your organisation. Encourage colleagues and visitors to bring in books they no longer read and set up a time and place to swap them. You could make it a coffee morning event with refreshments and comfortable places to sit and read.
