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23.01.2022 Intrusive thoughts, upsetting thoughts, or overthinking, all of these things can take up our brain space at times. It can be normal if it happens sometimes, but when it starts to overcome us it can be a warning sign of a bigger mental health issue. When anxiety gets overwhelming, a useful psychologal technique is to focus on your 5 senses. You can use your 5 senses to redirect your thoughts and focus on something outside of your own brain. ... Even if you're not anxious, you can use these techniques to focus yourself and practice mindfulness on a day to day basis. Give these check lists a go and let us know if it makes your day a little more mindful. Much love, AMSA Mental Health

21.01.2022 ANXIETY SPOTLIGHT 1 in 3 medical students report experiencing pathological anxiety at some point in their studies. Recognising the signs in yourself and your friends is integral in managing anxiety. ... Don’t forget to check in on your friends and ask them if #theyareok, pay attention to their behaviour changes, and take time to take care of yourself, and the people around you. Thanks again for supporting AMSA Mental Health and don't forget to follow us on Instagram @amsamentalhealth

17.01.2022 MENTAL HEALTH X HEALTHY COMMUNITIES: NUTRITION Good nutrition is particularly important for not only your physical health, but also your mental health. When you are struggling with your mental health, sometimes it can seem a bit too hard to make yourself a proper meal or think about a balanced diet. As medical students it can be very easy to overeat, under eat and eat without considering the nutrition in your food. Consider having some healthy basics on hand that you can add... to dishes that make it more flavorful and encourage you to eat a well-balanced diet. AMSA Healthy Communities have prepared some quick information about how to make the most of your diet and how to make it benefit your mental health! Stay healthy, eat well, you're all doing amazing, Much love, AMSA Mental Health

17.01.2022 HUMANS OF MEDICINE Trigger Warning: Suicide, Death, Sexual Assault. Fourth year is an exciting and challenging time for undergraduate medical students. It was our transition from classroom studies to clinical learning. ...Continue reading

15.01.2022 AWARENESS & EDUCATION: BIPOLAR DISORDER 1 in 50 adult Australians experience bipolar disorder. Mental illness is something that can be hard to communicate to your friends and family about, especially if it's something they are not familiar with. ... It is important to be able to discuss your triggers, warning signs and emotional state with people who are close to you, and the more they know about it, the more helpful they can be. Breaking down stigma starts with education and acceptance.

13.01.2022 Healthy Communities X Mental Health At the start of the month Healthy Communities ran their step competition to encourage regular physical activity on a daily basis. Regular physical activity not only boosts your mood but it is great for your physical health as well. ... You can use as much as a 10 minute walk to recentre, be mindful and get outdoors. Walking may not be for you, but there are other activities you can do to get outside like going for a bike ride, swim or hike. Don't forget to take time for yourself, switch off and go outside. Much love, AMSA Mental Health

13.01.2022 Hello everyone and welcome to AMSA Mental Health's BLUE MONTH campaign. Over the next month we will be sharing our Humans of Medicine stories segment (it's not too late for submissions go to: https://forms.gle/xEPyr76Z3Rhp6KPU7) as well as Mental Health resources, collaborations and a variety of other important news. Please follow us on FB and Instagram and convince your friends to check us out because we can promise you that it will be both an informative and eye-opening ...experience for medical students all around Australia. Thanks again for being involved and supporting AMSA Mental Health, and we hope we can give back to you what you have given to us.

12.01.2022 QAMSA X AMSA MENTAL HEALTH Humans of Medicine No Time for Sadness... It took her only a second to assess me, and find me wanting. Fake, she sneered at me, on the very day that Donald Trump won the US Presidency in 2016. I cannot describe to you the agony of being harassed out of a public restroom, or of being screamed at on the street by strangers I walk past. I have no words to describe the terror that just going outside can bring, wondering if someone might again take exception to my very existence. And, as I have discovered over the years, there is no pill strong enough to relieve the hopelessness that crushes down every time someone misgenders me. Still though, I’m a medical student, and this is no time for sadness. There are minimum attendance requirements I need to meet; patient histories to take, cannulas to place, operations to observe, and in the hustle of the day I come a distant second. The toll exerts itself later, when I’m home alone and the quiet night closes in, when I cry and cry but still can’t get to sleep. Sometimes, I imagine, my friends wonder, when I don’t turn up for class the next day. Sometimes still, when times are really tough, they find me curled up in a corner at uni, rocking back and forth and trying to summon the courage to go see another patient. No one deserves to be made to feel this way. And yet, overwhelmingly, trans people do. Recent studies show that trans people over 18 are 11 times more likely to attempt suicide compared to the general population, a figure so unimaginably high I can think of no apt descriptor to apply to it. We live in a society that ruthlessly oppresses its most vulnerable. When faced with a problem of this magnitude, raising awareness, although a good place to start, is simply not enough. Nothing less than widespread, systematic change can end this mental health epidemic amongst the trans population. For us as medical students, the task starts within our own institutions. By loudly advocating for an increasingly trans inclusive curriculum in our medical schools, and by taking a stand wherever and whenever we see transphobia play out, whether in class or on placement on the wards, we can ensure that each future generation of doctors to graduate will be the most informed yet. We must not cease in our advocacy until the health outcomes of trans patients match those of others, and I cannot say how long or difficult the road may be. Still though, we are strong, and we must begin. Hailey Bonner

12.01.2022 Sleepy Sunday! Everyone needs a good nights sleep. There are some common things that can keep us awake and environmental factors can be a major cause. Last year our Activ8 team shared some great resources for sleep hygiene. ... Take some time this week to focus on your sleep habits. If you're practising good sleep hygiene and your sleep is still not improving, keep an eye out for red-flag signs of sleep disorders. Take our sleep challenge and tick all the boxes in day 1 for 5 days, and tell us if you see an improvement! Happy Snoozing!

05.01.2022 AMSA MENTAL HEALTH X HEALTHY COMMUNITIES: Thank you to Healthy Communities for running the Step Competition. AMSA Mental Health is here to remind you that walking has many benefits for your mental health and wellbeing. You can even double up walking and meditation for some serious mindfulness action. ... Check out our resources on mindful walking, and thank you again for supporting our Blue Month campaign! AMSA Healthy Communities <3

05.01.2022 QAMSA X AMSA MENTAL HEALTH On trans mental health, visibility and advocacy in the healthcare system. Here’s an experience that’s stayed with me. Back during my first year on the wards, when I was still presenting as my assigned gender my grasp on my clinical skills and my gender identity equally tenuous I was asked by my supervising consultant to cannulate a patient. Before I set off to do so, she pulled me aside. This patient is transgender and uses she/her pronouns, ...Continue reading

03.01.2022 Happy Sunday ~ A great way to practice mindfulness and improve your day is to do gratitude journaling. An important aspect of this is writing down things that you are thankful for. It could be as simple as someone smiling at you on the street, or larger such as someone helping you move house. ... You could write a list of the people, items, themes or events that have made you say thank you, or made you be thankful for your life at the time. If you are feeling hopeless, you can reflect and read what you are thankful for, and be comforted in some measure by these things that have previously given you joy. Tag a friend you want to say thank you to, and then write their name in your gratitude journal. Have a great week! We are thankful for all of you. Much love, AMSA Mental Health

03.01.2022 HUMANS OF MEDICINE I’m not sure how long I’ve had anxiety, I was somehow both completely under its control yet totally oblivious to it. One day, sometime early in my degree, I visited my GP. They were understandably surprised and concerned by the blood pressure that popped up, leading to a workup for secondary hypertension. This workup involved questions about anxiety. When asked, I dismissed them with a resounding no, brushing off any possibility of anxiety. I was an extrove...rt. I thrived under pressure in SWOTVAC and exams. I cared about big picture things like global health, but never enough to keep me awake. I couldn't be anxious. It took a 24-hr ambulatory BP, a renal ultrasound, an aortic MRI, and a fair while longer before I did some introspection about my mental health. Turns out, it isn't normal to be outside a tutorial room deciding whether it would be better to just give it a miss, rather than walk in a few minutes late. It isn't normal to worry "What if the tutor calls me out & I get embarrassed?" On the occasions this did happen I would feel like shit. By the time the tute was done I’d be fine and over it, but the positive feedback cycle was ramping up steadily and silently in the back of my mind. Anxiety has never stopped me doing what I want to do, despite how appealing it has been to stay quiet, to miss that tute, to leave that party early. Anxiety just meant that persevering with those things sometimes came along with a fair chunk of internal distress. I don’t know how long I had been blindly pushing through the anguish, but it definitely wasn’t sustainable. I’m still not sure when, how, or why it had started; it could have been going for 3 months, 6 months, a year, or my entire life. There was no crisis point, no catalyst. I sat down one day and realised that this wasn’t normal, wasn’t functional, was getting worse, and I needed help. By no means have I found a silver bullet, but I have covered some incredible ground since. What help has meant is that I’m the same person as always, but I get to enjoy being that person a little bit more. I wanted to find a picture that summed things up. This was taken a few hours after the first GP appointment where I brought up my anxiety. I think the fact that I voluntarily ended up in front of a microphone sums things up perfectly. Liam Virtue, Year 4/5 UTAS MBBS