Hello You - the Shropshire podcast from Jim Hawkins
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Hello You 87: Exercise and mental health at Oswestry's Soma Space
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Hello You 87: Exercise and mental health at Oswestry's Soma Space

'It's a reliable tool for proving yourself wrong'

If, like me, you’ve ever sought help with your mental health, you’ve probably been told that exercise and physical activity can boost your mood and aid your recovery.

The problem is, when your mental health’s not great, often the last thing you feel like doing is any exercise or physical activity.

Jo Hazell-Watkins and Kevin Braddock learned how helpful fitness and strength training can be when people’s mental health isn’t great, from their own personal experiences. They also realised that people who could really benefit from being more active were often finding it hard to access the support they need in a way that suited them.

That led them to set up The Soma Space, in Oswestry’s Memorial Hall. In the short time they’ve been operating, they’ve attracted national press attention as well as building a community of people around their approach.

In this episode of Hello You the Shropshire podcast, you can hear Jo and Kevin’s stories, and find out what the Soma Space has to offer.

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What did we do before?

A question raised a couple of weeks back by Hello You family member Georgy: How did we spread the word about local events, needs or campaigns around our neighbours, before Facebook and Nextdoor? I’ve been trying to remember, and I really can’t!

And would those methods still work now?

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Hello You Too

I asked last week how you’d feel about having two episodes of Hello You the Shropshire podcast a week, rather than just the one.

Everyone who got in touch about this said they’d really like a second weekly episode.

So, I’m going to move towards that over the next few weeks. I’ll have an episode for you every Wednesday, as well as every Friday. And, of course, there’ll still be the Hello You Sunday Supplement on Sunday mornings, too.

I need to find out if it’s sustainable, if I have the time and mental energy to maintain the two-episodes schedule, but I really hope that it’ll take off.

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Thank you for being there

Take care of yourself. Take care of the people around you. And tell those people from me, they’d better be taking care of you, too!

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