Five Ways: Keep Learning

Learning is great for our wellbeing as it gives us a sense of achievement and opens doors for us. What with busy lives though, learning something new often gets pushed to the bottom of our priorities. With many of us spending more time at home, no longer stuck in offices or travelling to work, we may find we have more time on our hands than usual. This could be a great chance to get your teeth into learning something new.

What is Learning?

Learning can be defined as ‘gaining knowledge or skills through study, experience, or being taught’. That means there are lots of different ways to learn, and it’s not something that only happens when we go on a course or take a class! Learning can also come from doing.

Other definitions of learning talk about it as a process of change - it’s not just about absorbing information - something in us transforms as a result of learning.

Ways to Learn

Take a Course

The good news if you do want to take a class or course is that we can do this from the comfort of our homes! Modern technology puts all sorts of learning opportunities at our fingertips. Everything from smartphone apps to ‘MOOC’ (massive open online courses) to video tutorials are available on pretty much any topic these days. For the more academic amongst us, there is also the option of working towards qualifications through the Open University. The world is our oyster!

Get Creative

Since we can learn by doing as well as by studying, arts & crafts are a great way to learn. Grab some paints, papercraft or other supplies and put your creativity to the test. You’ll learn new skills just by the act of doing it, and will end up with something lovely (or perhaps comical!) at the end of it.

New Ways of Being

We’re all having to adapt  to changing times - and this is testing our ability to adapt and learn new skills. For example, many of us are working at home or facing occasions when we have to home-school the kids. Check out this article on working well at home this one of positive home-schooling practices for some top tips.

Be Curious

Think about all the things your friends and family know, that you don’t. What can you learn from them? Ask them lots of questions you wouldn’t usually and see what they can find out. Set up a quiz with your friends or family where you all set questions on a favourite topic. This would be a great way to get some social interaction whilst learning something new. Take a look at our blog post on Connecting for more ideas.

Learn About Yourself

If you’re working from home, this might feel a very lonely time. However, being alone also gives you an amazing opportunity to get to know yourself better. Tune into your own thoughts and feelings, and allow yourself to fully experience these. See our blog on another of the Five Ways, Take Notice, for more.

This is also a time to learn to be kind to ourselves. With that in mind, why not give this self-compassion meditation practice a try?

Top Tips:

• Check out FutureLearn for loads of free courses on a huge range of topics.
• Download DuoLingo to learn a new language in bite-sized chunks.
• Try YouTube for tutorials to learn to play a musical instrument.
• Reconnect with any arts and crafts you enjoyed as a child.
• Get learning together as a family and maybe add an element of fun competition.
• Simply grab any non-fiction book and see what you can learn.
• Try something new: whatever it is you’ll learn something simply from the fact that it's new!

How are you taking care of your wellbeing?

Join the Five Ways Challenge today to receive tips, ideas and inspiration to take care of your wellbeing. Get in touch or register with us to access free advice and coaching to LiveWell.

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