Top mental health blogs 2013

First off - a Happy New Year to all our readers! We've really enjoyed blogging through 2013, and are always thrilled when people comment and engage with the debate or give us more information or even disagree with us! So, please keep reading and telling us what you think.

Last year I posted the top blogs of 2012 according to The World of the Mentalists (TWIM) online mental health magazine. Well, TWIM has now changed its name to Mentally Wealthy, but the awards continue. There do seem to be some new categories though, and the first "vlog" or video blog  features too. As it proved a popular post last year, it seemed only right to start 2014 with links to some of the best blogs out there.

So, here is a list of the winners and their corresponding categories:

• Lived experience - 2 joint winners: My Crazy Bipolar Blog and My Travels with Depression
• Recovery - Happy Mental - Onwards and Upwards
• Campaigning - Fementalists
• Informative - Broken Light: A Photography Collective
• Carer - A Carer's Eyes
• Student/Academic - Psychodiagnosticator
• Helpful - Doc Ready
• Humour - 2 joint winners: Hyperbole and a Half and Therapy Tales
• Vlog - Jonny Benjamin
• Best new blog - Bipolar Nana
• Wildcard blog - BPD FFS Sue Sibbald

You can read more on Mentally Wealthy about why these particular blogs won. What do you think? Do you have favourite blogs you'd like to tell us about? Are you writing one of your own? Let us know.

As always, some of our favourite blogs are listed in the right hand column of this blog.

Happy reading!

Top mental health blogs 2012

All around me, in the office, down on the street outside the window, I can hear people greeting each other - "Happy New Year!"

So, whilst we're still in the mood, here's another of my New Year resolutions - to start reading more of other people's blogs! What better place to start than the best of the bunch as just judged by This Week in Mentalists, aka TWIM. This UK based website showcases a weekly selection of blogs from across the "Madosphere, our affectionate name for the mental health blogosphere." I like Madosphere - must keep that in mind... The selection is published each Saturday or Sunday on the The World of Mentalists website - an e-zine of news, commentary and blog digests in the arena of mental health.

Anyway, TWIM has just announced the 2012 TWIM Awards for the best blogs in the following categories:

• Mood disorder blog - Purple Persuasion.
• Psychosis blog - A Path With Heart.
• Eating disorder blog - Giant Fossilized Armadillo.
• Personality disorder blog -  Beauty from Pain.
• Anxiety, stress or trauma blog - Conversations with my  Head.
• Autistic spectrum disorder blog - Aspergers and the Alien.
• Psychiatry, psychology or psychotherapy blog - Mind Hacks.
• Nursing, social work, or professions allied to medicine blog - The Masked AMHP.
• Student or academic blog - World of Oid.
• Mental health not otherwise specified blog - MentalHealthCop.
• The Mental Health wildcard award - Chaos and Control.

If you have a favourite blog of your own, then please let us know and we can link to it from here.

New Year resolutions: food for thought

Well, I rounded off 2012 with a bag of crisps if you recall. I'm starting 2013 with some thoughts on food too. So many New Year resolutions seem to revolve around food - what we eat, how much, when.... This is a photograph of some food I randomly found in my kitchen this lunchtime. To be honest, I haven't eaten any of these things today (yet).  I had bread, cheese and picked onions for lunch actually, but the fact is that some of these items shout "healthy and good" whilst others yell "full of sugar and probably bad..."

As a student years ago I ate a lot of junk food. That Mars-a-day campaign must have made the company a fortune, because I stuck with it for almost the whole three years. I also drank a lot of cola drinks (and others more alcoholic, but that's probably another post....) And I'm convinced that my mental health at the time suffered as a consequence. One way or another I definitely eat a lot more healthily these days, and feel a whole lot better for it. It's just that at Christmas (and birthdays, and holidays, and weekends...) temptation can be just that little bit too much...

Anyway, there are plenty of useful links out there right now to get us started on eating more healthily if that is the way we want to go. 

• The Mental Health Foundation have a New Year Healthy Diet podcast which you can listen to on their site here.
• The BBC website has a diet and fitness plan to follow here.
• The Royal College of Psychiatrists' website has some excellent information on eating well here.

Finally, some people struggle with food addiction, compulsive or emotional eating, and I thought I would point anyone interested in the direction of a new Powys peer support group - Food for Thought - which meets early next week. You can find out more information and download a flyer on our website here. (And thank you for inspiring the title of this blog post!)

Happy New Year to you all, and we look forward to hearing your mental health food and diet-related views.