There are many important things in the world to be grateful for: domestic violence, crimes, and deaths through wars are declining (even though it might not seem like it), people are less poor, more educated and they live longer – all great news, right? Some research though, shows there is, indeed, something we need to focus our efforts and resources on:
Mental health problems are on the rise!
The WHO organization says depression alone will overtake cancer as the global disease burden #1 by 2030. And our teens are taking the biggest hit: young girls are self-harming 68% more than just three years ago, boys are struggling with depression and anxiety along with the omnipresent ADHD.
It’s Time to Put Emotional Fitness on The Curriculum
I often worry about the younger generation and all the pollution they have to take care of. The seas, the air, the digital landscape: nothing is easy about navigating those issues, and we still don’t teach resilience, mental strength and emotional strategies at schools – right where they SHOULD be taught.
Emotional fitness is your best armor against all of life’s challenges. When you’re emotionally fit, there’s nothing that can throw you off course because you’ve cultivated the inner-strength to block difficulties from infiltrating your mission and affecting your purpose.
Some projects show that mindfulness instead of detention lower depression, anxiety and violence in schools, raising grades and having students report higher life satisfaction.
A few days ago, my team and I offered the world a so-called ‘Checkpoint Challenge’ for the crowdfunding campaign of our Emotional Fitness Game, eQuoo:
We said that if we can raise 50% of our funding goal, £10,000, by the time we are on day 15 (halfway), we would organize an Emotional Fitness Bootcamp Day for a secondary school in London during Mental Health Awareness Week… AND WE DID!
After thanking our generous and supportive donors we are now planning a day full of fun positive psychology games, psycho-education, Q&A and more.
Our goal is to help the teens in that school to become more emotionally resilient, learn to deal with difficult emotions and a thing or two about managing digital consumption and interactions with the bullies.