Whether you wear your green ribbon, or read the latest tweets (using #mentalhealth), you can help raise awreness during the month of May for mental health issues. National Mental Health Awareness Month is observed by public health and advocacy organizations focused on the wide spectrum of mental health needs and support. As a way to connect the dots, MIT's MindHandHeart Initiative compiled over 50 (but certainly not all) of MIT’s stress-relieving events into one #MentalHealthMay calendar. “We are focusing on stress-relief,” said Maryanne Kirkbride, the initiative’s executive administrator, “in part because May is a crowded and pressured time of year, with final exams and many end-of-year events. The MindHandHeart Initiative exists to support and enhance the many services already thriving and growing at MIT. We are helping to do the gardening for the thousand flowers already blooming here.”
May at MIT features meditation and mindfulness opportunities, wellness days, breakfasts during finals week, and expanded walk-in hours at Student Support Services (S3). In addition, Active Minds @MIT, the student-run chapter of a national mental health advocacy group, is offering a “Speak Your Mind” dinner and discussion with student speakers sharing stories of mental health at MIT, and Professor Daniel Jackson, the photographer behind the "Portraits of Resilience Project" published weekly in The Tech, serving as keynote speaker. The event takes place May 11 at 5 p.m. in the Student Center (Building W20), Room 407. The dinner is free and open to the MIT community, but RSVP is requested at the event page. While MIT celebrates a momentous move to Cambridge this month, as well as Commencement and other “great strides,” students, staff, and faculty are reaching out to support one another’s mental health and well-being, and that stride, too, will have lasting impacts.