A campaign to help people whose mental health suffers during the dark winter nights has been launched by a Berkshire-based charity.<\/p>\n
Sport in Mind helps people improve their mental health by taking part in physical activity.<\/p>\n
To mark the start of its Soles of the Season campaign, trainers and a Christmas tree were placed on the centre spot at Reading FC’s stadium.<\/p>\n
The charity said more than half the people it sees experience a downturn in their mental health in the winter.<\/p>\n
It said it was important to provide “accessible, uplifting support” during the winter months.<\/p>\n
In a recent study of Sport in Mind participants, 55% said that darker evenings negatively impact their mental health.<\/p>\n
While 67% reported shorter days reduced their motivation and ability to be physically active.<\/p>\n
Chief executive Neil Harris said: “Christmas can be a good amazing time for some people but for a lot of people it creates a lot of anxiety.<\/p>\n
“A lot of people feel quite lonely and quite isolated so it’s really important to reach out to people and connect with them.”<\/p>\n
The Soles of the Season campaign also encourages workplaces to support the charity by setting up a Christmas tree with trainer laces and tree tags for messages to be tied to the tree.<\/p>\n
It is also asking people to decorate their trainers with seasonal touches like tinsel, glitter and baubles.<\/p>\n
Since 2010, Sport in Mind’s partnership with the NHS has enabled it to help more than 31,000 people struggling with mental health challenges.<\/p>\n
It offers sport-based activities to promote physical activity in boosting people’s mood and improving mental health.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the launch of the festive campaign, Reading striker Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan said: “We’re very lucky that we have maybe a group of 30 players that we can speak to on a daily basis. <\/p>\n
“A lot of people don’t have that type of relationship, so it’s important that they have someone to speak to and organisations like this to make it possible for them.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A campaign to help people whose mental health suffers during the dark winter nights has been launched by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":{"0":"post-328870","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}