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HEALTH WARNING
We are no longer updating our Covid-19 hub regularly. That includes this page. Click here for the latest.
The five ways to wellbeing
There is good evidence that five specific things can make a big difference to someone’s sense of wellbeing. They’re called the Five Ways To Wellbeing.
The Five Ways are valuable in their own right. They'll improve your health and wellbeing. But it is also likely that if you're feeling good about yourself, you will find it easier to make the other changes in your life that will improve your physical and mental health and wellbeing.
The Five Ways to Wellbeing are:
Connect
Feeling close to, and valued by, other people. Some ideas to help feel more connected:
- Talk to someone rather than texting or emailing
- Talk to someone new
- Ask someone something about themselves that you don’t know
- Offer someone a lift or suggest you travel together
- Contact someone you have not spoken to for over a year
- Join a club or group
Be Active
Taking part in regular physical activity
- Take stairs, not the lift
- Get off the train or bus a stop earlier or park the car further away
- Do stretching exercises
- Do an activity (eg. cycling or swimming) that you have not tried for a while
- Combine being active with connecting: sport, walking, gardening
Take Notice
Being aware of what is taking place in the present.
- Look up at the sky rather than down at the pavement
- Take a different route on a familiar journey
- Go somewhere new for lunch
- Spend time in parks, forests and at the seaside
Learn
Continuing to learn throughout life
- Sign up for a class
- Read a book
- Do some puzzles
- Research something you are curious about (eg. your family tree)
- Take up a language or a musical instrument
- Learn some practical skills (eg. how to fix your bike)
Give
Participating in social and community life.
- Volunteer for a charity or community group
- Visit an elderly relative or neighbour
- Do someone a favour
- Smile and say thanks
If you want an easy way to remember the five ways, try CAN DO: C(onnect), A(ctive), N(otice) and D(iscover) and O(ffer). Works for me.
But how do I use them?
Dozens of ways but if you want a simple place to start, try the CAN DO Challenge and/or you can our Man MOT For the Mind manual. Full of good ideas and useful tools to monitor your progress.
The Five Ways were developed by the New Economics Foundation.
Date published
19/05/20
Date of last review
19/05/20
Date of next review
19/05/23
References
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The Men’s Health Forum need your support It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking. In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to. It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for. We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing. Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.
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