As a university undergraduate taking psychology, there haven’t been many opportunities for our volunteer, Claire to go out in the field and interact with people with mental health conditions. In the field of psychology, a Masters degree is required before one can be out in the field. However, she’s been doing a great job in helping Calm Collective run our monthly community event, Calm Circles. If you’ve participated in our event, you might have met her while she’s facilitating group discussions. In this article, she shares candidly about her experience and what she has learnt from being a Calm Circles facilitator.

What was meant to be a relaxing year-end trip to Thailand turned out to be an unexpected hiking and health retreat. Our volunteer writer, Will takes us with him on a trip to the highlands of Thailand, shares how the trip became a transformative experience and the lessons that he has since brought into his daily life.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had unprecedented repercussions on the well-being and mental health of healthcare workers. Healthcare workers have been increasingly overworked while striving towards continued delivery of quality care. Working under these circumstances for prolonged periods with minimal recovery time is a risk factor for burnout. 

Men are not excluded from the wrath of insecurity, and more often than not, they find it difficult to voice them out. In episode 8 of Calm Conversations, Egan speaks to Sabrina and Sean Low (Ordinary Folk) about various male insecurities, from sexual dysfunction to hair loss, and how not talking about these things affect men's mental health.

Coupled with the funding for therapy and sometimes medication, the accumulated cost for mental healthcare could be costly and hard to bear for some. So how can we save on long-term mental healthcare costs?

As human beings, it is inevitable to feel a sense of inadequacy. When we are going through difficult times, we may notice we tend to be more critical of ourselves versus how we would treat other people in similar situations.

In this article, Karen shares with us her discovery with mindful self-compassion and how it provided her emotional strength to deal with a toxic work environment that was putting her down.