Leeds Wellbeing Week 2019 – What to expect

Leeds Wellbeing Week is a yearly wellbeing festival, and the next edition is 13-18 May 2019, during Mental Health Awareness Week. The goal of the festival is to inspire Leeds' people to experience wellbeing in many ways, at various times and in various locations.

Because WELLBEING IS EASY.

You don’t need to have a green smoothie in the morning and do 30 minutes yoga or run every day to feel well. For you, what might work is to go for a walk with the dog in one of the great parks in Leeds every day and have a weekly cuppa and good conversation with a good friend in one of Leeds’ great cafes. For someone else, it might be going to a concert once a month (music soothes the mind indeed!) and have a 5 minutes quiet time before bed. Or cooking, gardening, playing with the kids…

WELLBEING IS DIFFERENT FOR EACH AND EVERYONE OF US. So, no need to put extra pressure on yourself because you are not doing what Instagram urges you to do. Try to find out what works for YOU: what makes you smile, what makes you feel good, what contributes to making you happy.

And it’s not about big overnight changes, it’s about giving something a try, trying to implement it in your life and see if it works for you. If this new thing gives the above 3 things to you - smile, feeling good, happiness – stick to it! If it doesn’t, fair enough, at least you would have tried! I myself tried Thai Boxing last year. A friend of mine and me went to this intro session of Thai Boxing in Leeds. We told everyone about it, that we would make it a weekly thing, etc. And. We. Suffered. It was so hard! But so much fun at the same time! We (very) quickly realised that it was not for us. And we do talk about it with laughter still! Thai boxing is not part of my wellbeing strategy (maybe yours?), but by trying it, I created long-lasting memory.

Leeds Wellbeing Week has many things in store for you to try new things and see if it might work for your OWN wellbeing.

For this year’s edition, the focus has been put on wellbeing EVERYWHERE and for EVERYONE. And there are 3 main aspects:

1. Wellbeing at work, because we all spend a lot of time working, so we need to make sure that we feel good at work ourselves and within our teams and organisation. For this, 4 main events have been created:

• 'Find Happiness in Your Workplace', Tuesday 14 May, 5pm, Wizu Workspace, with FREE massage and healthy food buffet, to get inspired to build your own wellbeing techniques and find tips and testimonials to be a wellbeing champion at work!

• 'Resilience at Work', Monday 13 May, 1:30pm, Garbutt + Elliott, to know more about Resilience and how you can implement it in the workplace and with your colleagues.

• 'Communicating with less conflict', Tuesday 14 May, 11:30am, Wizu Workspace, to define non-violence communication and get you to experience it with very practical exercises

• 'How to help you and your team thrive', Thursday 16 May, Wizu Workspace, to understand the power of healthy habits for you and your team.

We'd love to see you there and support you, not only in your individual wellbeing strategies, but also in the health and wellbeing strategy of your workplace!

2. Wellbeing in the community: Leeds Wellbeing Week has also been created to promote health and wellbeing initiatives happening in Leeds regularly to support the communities. For this edition, Space2 Leeds and Your Space (powered by Touchstone Leeds) shared the events they run regularly as part of Leeds Wellbeing Week. You can then experience:

• FREE Gardening, Mon 13 May, 1pm at The Old Fire Station (Gipton)

• Community Yoga (£5 and concessions), Mon 13 May, 5:30pm at The Old Fire Station too (LS9)

• FREE Knitting and crafting workshop, Tue 14 May, 9:30am at The Old Fire Station

• FREE Walking and Running, Wed 15 May, 4pm, Beeston Park

These are all events you can do in Leeds with them, and for FREE! Give it a try during Leeds Wellbeing Week, you might even like it, and go every week afterwards!

3. Wellbeing as a family: For this edition, Leeds Wellbeing Week wanted to make sure that parents and kids also have their share of wellbeing activities. Because it can be hard to find options that are ‘kids friendly’ and to try new things as a family. As well as to talk about the challenges we might face as parents (all of us1). Three sessions have been specifically designed for families:

• Free mental health and wellbeing workshop for parents (kids welcome) at HEART - Headingley on Wed 15 May (1:30pm), to get you to experience mindfulness, set intentions and share about your own journey in a safe and supportive environment.

• FREE Family painting workshop at The Tetley on Saturday 18 May (11am) to get you to paint as a family, supported by an artist, in a beautiful environment.

• FREE Juggling for Wellbeing workshop at Leeds Kirkgate Market on Tuesday 14 May (3pm), to get you to juggle, try something new, have fun, feel great!

We want you to take care of yourselves, as well as have fun together as families! We're SO looking forward to meeting you there with or without your little ones!

And of course many other wellbeing activities are available during Leeds Wellbeing Week, that you might want to try!

> All the events can be browsed here: http://bit.ly/leedsww19 <