Department of Liberal Arts Humanities and Social sciences in collaboration with Pink Freud Club organized mental health day awareness programme on account of World mental health day on 10^th of October as a campus wide event to spread awareness about mental health and wellbeing with the Global Theme of “Mental Health is a Universal Human Right”.

Event names: Gratitude corner, Proud corner, postmaster, memory box, stand-up comedy competition. 

GRATITUDE CORNER:

A gratitude corner was a designated space or area where students across the campus of MAHE Bengaluru were able to celebrate and express their gratefulness for a multitude of aspects in their lives. A gratitude allowed individuals to be able to boost self-esteem, increase resilience and contributed to the overall well-being and mental fortitude of the individuals involved.

The corner was set up within the Manipal Institute of Technology building, close by to the canteen where large swathes of people were seen moving throughout the ground floor corridor, laughing and interacting with their friends. The atmosphere was one of joy and amiability, and individuals who wanted to express gratitude within their lives could grab sticky notes from a counter situated right next to the board.

The students expressed a multitude of things they were grateful for, some being funny and some being heartfelt and loving. Some were grateful for chicken biryani, or for aloo paratha or other food related answers, some being grateful for popular contemporary musicians such as Playboi Carti, Taylor Swift or Kanye West, while a great amount of people was grateful for the love their parents had given them. These people could be seen reflecting and contemplating at some points, or laughing as they discussed what absurd answer they planned to write for everyone to view. Teachers were also participating within the activity as one teacher wrote about how grateful they are for their job in Manipal, while others wrote about their interests in cars or simply how grateful they are to be alive. The culture of destigmatizing mental health is thriving at MAHE Bengaluru. The corner serves as more than just a fun activity, but its also a reminder about for us to pause and look around, count our blessings and live life a little happier.

‘MEMORY BOX’ AND ‘POSTMASTER’:

It would be apt to state that the activities on ‘Memory Box’ and ‘Postmaster’ as a part of Mental Health Day Celebration, was a triumphant endeavor.

‘Memory Box’ entailed the writing down of thoughts and events participants wanted to dispose of or forget, for which they wrote them down on a piece of paper and put them in a box. These pieces of paper were kept confidential and discarded. It is noteworthy that a participant, after putting her thoughts into the box, smiled and said “Thank you for this, I feel relieved. I needed this”.

‘Postmaster’ was a creative and admirable event that encouraged participants to write letters, either anonymously or otherwise, to anyone on campus to share happy messages and spread positivity. This was indeed a corner where many cued up to pen down their lovely thoughts for their peers, fellow classmates, best friends as well and professors. The attendees included a diverse range of students and faculty from Manipal Institute of Technology, Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Department of Liberal Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences among many others. Notable faculty such as Ms. Monika Punia from Manipal Law School, as well as Dr Arjuna S R from the Department of Liberal Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, partook as well. It can be said that the events truly achieved their purpose and indeed brought relief and joy to all.

PROUD CORNER:

The vibrant yellow chart stuck on the wall seemed to attract many students from around the university. Students from different courses, colleges came with smiles and excitement running through their veins to write on the charts what they were proud of. Many students of MIT, DLHS, DOC, TAPMI & SMI were surrounding the area to write on the chart. Three volunteers stood there handing people colorful sketches to write. This productive day ended with giggles and warm smiles from participants who filled the whole chart with colorful sketches and funny or meaningful words.

BRAIN GAMES

One of the highlight events of the day was the Brain Games. Brain Games included two very fun-filled and exciting games- Maze Learning and Habit Interference. Maze Learning is intended to measure a person’s insight learning and trial and error learning. Srimayee, a second-year psychology student and a volunteer for Maze Learning says, “For a few people insight learning works better while for others the trial-and-error method works better. Maze Learning is to check how a person does on both the aspects, that is, insight learning and trial-and-error learning.” Habit Interference game, on the other hand, is to test how long it takes for a person to form a habit and how long it takes for the same person to break the habit. A large number of students showed interest in taking part in the games.

STAND UP COMEDY COMPETITION

With a wide array of fun activities one of the events was an entertaining Stand-Up Comedy Competition. We know the world-famous quote "Laughter is the best medicine" and DLHS came up with the idea for the Stand-Up Comedy Competition with the idea of spreading joy and laughter to the students and enabling them with "laughing [their] way to wellness". The Stand-Up Comedy Competition was judged by the cheerful teacher of DLHS Dr. Pradeep Thomas. He exchanged friendly banter with the volunteers of the event before the sets from the students began. With the prospect of winning an Amazon gift voucher of 1000 and 500 for first prize and second prize respectively, the students were buzzing with excitement. The lucky winners were Mr. Anirudh Nishtala from MIT for first place and Ms. Charvi Dhiran from DLHS for second place. Dr. Pradeep called upon Ms Varsha faculty of DLHS in presenting the vouchers to the winners. With that, the Stand-Up Comedy Competition for the event of Mental Health Day organized by DLHS came to a delightful end, with teachers and students alike leaving with beaming smiles and glowing faces.