TAP teams up with Thank You Day and Music for Dementia
Over the past two years, 15 million people have taken part in Thank You Day. This year it takes place on 2nd July and is an opportunity to say thank you to everyone who makes our communities great places to live in and to get connected with the people we live alongside all year round.
We often take people's kindness for granted, so Thank You Day gives us the opportunity to connect with our community and to build and strengthen our relationships with others.
After yet another tough year, our neighbours and communities matter now more than ever. So, this year we're also making a special effort to include people we don't normally see and meet.
Gratitude is good for our mental health; it enables us to focus on the positive things in our lives, helps us to live in the current moment, it helps to ease stress, anxiety and depression.
Gratitude and music have a lot in common, they both act as time markers, create memories, evoke positive emotions. When we share music or gratitude we create a strong bond with others, building a strong sense of community.
Music and gratitude engage several different parts of the brain, including the part that deals with memory and emotion. Even when we are suffering from very serious mental health issues such as dementia, parts of the undamaged parts of the brain can still be reached.
Connections to the ones we love can be opened up. Through these flashback feelings people are brought together and taken back to special moments in the past.
These special moments also help us to build resilience, to strengthen our minds and prepare us for the future with confidence that we can overcome any challenges that may come our way!
Recent studies have shown that social care professionals are one of the most overlooked sectors of society when it comes to gratitude. When our loved ones are seriously ill, either mentally or physically, we are at a point of crisis, we are 100% focused on their wellbeing and often forget to express gratitude to the very people who are administering the care and making their lives as comfortable as possible.
Music for Dementia has teamed up with Thank You Day - with the support of TAP - to help take away the stigma of serious mental illness, and to help spread gratitude to those very deserving social care superheroes.
Legendary singer Tony Christie is championing the campaign:
"I've been stopped so many times by people on the street, or in the supermarket, saying thank you for what you did, by talking about your dementia, my husband or wife or whoever is living with dementia, they're not ashamed of it anymore and they've come out, it's helped a lot of people."
You can hear Tony Christie being interviewed on TAP Radio here: https://soundcloud.com/thankandpraise/gratitude-with-attitude-episode-8