CalmCon 2022 Wrapped: How to Find Calm
Calm Collective recently held CalmCon, a 4-day hybrid mental health & well-being festival for Asia from 6 - 9 October 2022. The festival was held leading up to World Mental Health Day on 10 October, and included talks and workshops on numerous topics to help you achieve well-being at work, learn how to find calm by managing your mental health, and define what it means to thrive in your daily life.
This year, we engaged about 1100 individuals and featured 43 speakers of diverse backgrounds ranging from mental health professionals, business and government leaders, to people with lived experience. CalmCon also reached a total of 200+ communities and gained 60 event and community partners.
The programme was thoughtfully curated using feedback from last year’s CalmCon and our community who have spoken up about their interest to dive deeper into practical strategies on how to manage one’s own mental health struggles or how to start their mental health recovery journey. Having recognised the community’s needs, Calm Collective put together a track on “How to Find Calm” that shaped the third day of the festival.
Here are the highlights from Day 3 of the Virtual Well-being Festival
Understanding Mental Health
Despite the growing global interest around mental health, there are still many misconceptions held by the public. In our talk, “Unpacking Mental Health Myths,” we disproved the mental health myths like:
How our Asian Culture Affects Mental Health
We also dived into “Why Asians Don’t Go to Therapy,” where we discovered that cost and stigma are two of the most common barriers to seeking therapy, and how Asian values of self-preserverance continue to hold many Asians back from seeking help.
The intimate conversation between a therapist and someone who has attended therapy provided an insider perspective on what goes on in a therapy session. They also revealed the challenges of finding the right therapy-client relationship and discussed the positive benefits from attending therapy.
How Mental Health Affects our Mind, Body, and Relationships
In our talk, “Trauma and Mind-Body Connection,” we delved into how trauma impacts one’s mental health and shared scientifically-proven ways to heal from trauma.
An image of a brain scan showing the effects of trauma ft. Santiago Brand Ortiz (Clinical Director, MindLab Applied Neuroscience Singapore)
CalmCon also featured brave men sharing vulnerably about men’s emotional and mental health in “#ifeelyoubro: Men Talk About Feelings.” We also discussed the collective need for society to transform the upbringing of men to become more emotionally literate.
“Backstage at #ifeelyoubro: Men Talk About Feelings”
Finally, Day 3 of CalmCon Virtual Well-being Festival ended with a talk on, “Caregiving and Compassion Fatigue,” where we discussed the difficult reality of being a caregiver.
What’s next?
Connect with our community at Calm Circles, our peer support programme to support mental health & well-being. Sign up at www.calmcircles.co
Bring Calm Collective to your workplace: Learn more about our mental health & well-being programmes, and connect with us here.