It’s mental health awareness week and we know that some are struggling more than ever with their frame of mind whilst in lockdown. That’s why we want to help you focus on the positive!

Whilst our hearts are with those whose lives have been turned upside down due to the current climate, we want to focus our minds on the incredible positives that have come out of lockdown and there’s a lot of them! – We’re listing just 16:

1. Families have been brought closer together, spending quality time together they would not have made time for otherwise.
2. There’s a sense of solidarity – people are hosting social distancing street parties and then there’s the ever so heart-warming weekly clap for the NHS.
3. People are starting to support small businesses – let’s hope this continues.
4. Selflessness and kindness to become sustainable – often there is a wave of this shown in a given time or situation but it is often short-lived. But what if people are changed by this experience and are less like sharks and more like fish, moving away from their own self-interest and more towards that extra thought for others?
5. People are doing incredible things and pushing themselves out of their comfort zones to raise money and help others. Take Captain Thomas Moore, for example, or most recently Joshua Patterson running 6 marathons in 5 days around his garden patio.
6. People are waking up. They are becoming more conscious and less wasteful. They want to start looking after the planet & recycle more.
7. Less labelling and segregation, we are all people and are all one in the same.
8. Studies show kids will be more resilient in life.
9. People are getting time to simply be. Instead of pushing everything to one side and just existing, people have time to recollect, they have time to pursue hobbies, and do tasks they’ve forever put off doing, like doing up the garden, repainting the hallway and all the satisfaction and accomplishment that comes with it. Many of us humans tend to just live for the weekends, and even then you sacrifice something… whether it’s managing to relax and see friends and family, you sacrifice on your housework, life admin and vice versa, but what if you could do it all? People are learning there are more important things than working 9-5 and just living for the weekends and are reassessing career changes.
10. People want to better their health.
11. We are seeing true innovations. From car companies creating respirators to beer companies making sanitiser, everyone is chipping in.
12. Up to 100,000 premature deaths caused by air pollution in China could be avoided if the country’s economic slowdown continues at its current rate over the next year, researchers say.
13. Workers who don’t normally get noticed are getting the recognition they deserve.
14. People’s creativity is inspiring. If it’s not the funny memes of people keeping entrained in lockdown it’s the countless Tik Toks. I love seeing people’s hilarious creativity and confidence in putting themselves out there!
15. More bonding with friends. Work and life can get in the way of seeing friends, you are now having the chance to reconnect virtually.
16. Areas of China have placed a permanent ban on trade in and consumption of wildlife.

What other positives have you noticed? Comment below.