Tune in to your mental health: Discover our wellbeing resources
October is National Mental Health Month, and this year the theme is ‘Tune in’ – it’s all about paying attention to your wellbeing and connecting with others around you.
We know that many students struggle with their mental health and wellbeing, especially as exams approach and with all the other challenges and stresses in our day to day lives. This Mental Health Month we want to encourage our community to take the time to reflect, look after ourselves and support each other. One great place to start is by checking out these helpful resources – you can find them in the library collection and in our library displays at each campus.
The resilience project: finding happiness through gratitude, empathy & mindfulness
Hugh Van Cuylenburg
Hugh van Cuylenburg was a primary school teacher volunteering in northern India when he had a life-changing realisation: despite the poverty and privations the children he taught faced, they appeared to be the happiest kids he had ever come across. By contrast, back in Australia Hugh knew that all too many children struggled with depression, social anxieties and mental illness. How was it that young people he knew at home, who had food, shelter, friends and a lovely family, struggled with their mental health, while these impoverished kids seemed so contented and resilient? He set about finding the answer and in time came to recognise the key traits and behaviours these children possessed were gratitude, empathy and mindfulness.
The pleasures of leisure
Robert Dessaix
In today’s crazily busy world the importance of making time for leisure is more vital than ever. In a world where time is money, what is the value of walking without purpose, socialising without networking, nesting when we could be on our laptops? Robert Dessaix shows how taking leisure seriously gives us back our freedom – to enjoy life, to revel in it, in fact; to deepen our sense of who we are as human beings. He explains how we can reclaim our right to ‘rest well’, and to loaf, groom, nest and play, as he looks at leisure from many angles – reading, walking, travelling, learning languages, taking siestas and simply doing nothing.
How to live like your cat
Stephane Garner
Do cats worry about their pension? Nope. Do cats take on work they don’t want to do? As if! Do cats rush around hectically when they’d rather be licking their paws and looking out of the window? Please. Cats are free. They are calm, observant, wise, elegant, charismatic and proud. In fact, cats have found nothing less than the secret of how we should all live, whatever species we are! And in this book, Stéphane Garnier will show you what he’s learned over fifteen years of closely observing his cat, and teach you all the ways in which you too can apply the secrets of cats to your own life at work, at home and with your friends.
Zen: The art of simple living
Shunmyō Masuno
Drawing on centuries of wisdom, renowned Zen Buddhist priest Shunmyo Masuno applies the essence of Zen to modern life in clear, practical, easily adopted lessons – one a day for 100 days. In Zen The Art of Simple Living, you will learn to find happiness not by seeking out extraordinary experiences but by making small changes – to what you do, how you think, how you interact with others and how you appreciate the present moment. With each task, you will open yourself up to a renewed sense of peace and inner calm.
How I became a tree
Sumana Roy
“I was tired of speed. I wanted to live to tree time.” So writes Sumana Roy at the start of “How I Became a Tree”, her captivating, adventurous, and self-reflective vision of what it means to be human in the natural world. Drawn to trees’ wisdom, their nonviolent way of being, their ability to cope with loneliness and pain, Roy movingly explores the lessons that writers, painters, photographers, scientists, and spiritual figures have gleaned through their engagement with trees. Her stunning meditations on forests, plant life, time, self, and the exhaustion of being human evoke the spacious, relaxed rhythms of the trees themselves.
The art of the wasted day
Patricia Hampl
The Art of the Wasted Day is a picaresque travelogue of leisure written from a lifelong enchantment with solitude. Patricia Hampl visits the homes of historic exemplars of ease who made repose a goal, even an art form. The Art of the Wasted Day is a compelling celebration of the purpose and appeal of letting go.
Notes on a nervous planet
Matt Haig
The world is messing with our minds. Rates of stress and anxiety are rising. A fast, nervous planet is creating fast and nervous lives. We are more connected, yet feel more alone. And we are encouraged to worry about everything from world politics to our body mass index. How can we stay sane on a planet that makes us mad? How do we stay human in a technological world? How do we feel happy when we are encouraged to be anxious?
Connect: building exceptional relationships with family, friends, and colleagues
David L. Bradford
A transformative guide to building more fulfilling relationships with colleagues, friends, partners, and family, based on the perennially popular Interpersonal Dynamics (“Touchy Feely”) course at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. The ability to create strong relationships with others is crucial to living a fulfilled life and becoming a more effective manager and leader. Yet many of us find ourselves struggling to build solid connections at work, with friends and at home, or unable to handle challenges that inevitably arise when we grow closer to others. But the truth is that the process of building and sustaining these relationships can be described, learned, and applied.
Burnout: the secret to unlocking the stress cycle
Emily Nagoski
This groundbreaking book explains why women experience burnout differently than men–and provides a simple, science-based plan to help women minimize stress, manage emotions, and live a more joyful life. The gap between what it’s really like to be a woman and what people expect women to be is a primary cause of burnout, because we exhaust ourselves trying to close the space between the two.
Your turn: how to be an adult
Julie Lythcott-Haims
In the twentieth century, psychologists came up with five markers of adulthood: finish your education, get a job, leave home, marry, and have children. Every generation since has been held to those same markers, but living in that sequence is no longer valid. Lythcott-Haims offers practical strategies for living a more authentic adulthood. Being an adult is not about any particular checklist; it is, instead, a process, one you can get progressively better at over time – becoming more comfortable with uncertainty and gaining the knowhow to keep going.
Happiness: a history
Darrin M McMahon
Darrin M. McMahon’s sweeping new book, chronicling the evolution of happiness over two thousand years of Western culture and thought, argues that our modern belief in happiness — that happiness is a natural right — is a relatively recent development. “Happiness” draws on numerous sources, including art and architecture, poetry and scripture, music and theology, literature and myth to offer a sweeping intellectual history of man’s most elusive yet coveted goal.
More resources
- Check out this article about apps to help with mental health, stress and anxiety
- Download the DeakinWELLBEING app
- Check out the Deakin Mind Matters page
- Need extra help? Access professional support – Deakin offers a range of health and wellbeing services to support you during your time at uni.
- For urgent support outside of business hours, contact Lifeline (13 11 14) or SuicideLine (1300 651 251) straight away. They’re available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.