In honor of mental health awareness month, Pinterest hosted "Pinterest Havens: A Whole Mood." It's a pop-up event in New York City focused on mental well-being and overall wellness, ranging from talks on the topic to sound baths to interactive activities to let go of your anger. While it may have been temporary, the hope is that it can get the conversation started about an important topic. 

Between Bells

Resetting Your Mental Health Mindset With Pinterest

if you're feeling anxious and overwhelmed, you're not alone, but not everyone is ready to reach out for help explain Pinterest's head of philanthropy and social impact aerial Simon. I think there's a dawning realization among so many of us that emotional well being and mental health is as important as physical health, but we're in very different places as a society about talking about them and that's why Pinterest wants to give people a safe space to discuss those issues To date, it has spent over $6 million dollars on mental health initiatives. Pinterest entire mission is about bringing people inspiration to live a life they love. And one of the first things that we realizes that to live a life you love, you have to have a self, you love the Pinterest havens. A whole mood activation was a Pinterest board brought to life, whether it was experiencing a sound bath, listening to others discussed these topics or planting your intentions, everything was done in the name of normalizing, Taking care of your mind. According to the National Institute of Mental Health one in five americans has been diagnosed with a mental health disorder and people like fashion designer Kenneth cole are intent on breaking stigmas around mental health and it's a pandemic beyond anything that we understand. I've also come to believe that it's, it's in fact probably the oldest pandemic known to mankind and at the same time, maybe the newest as it's been exacerbated because of Covid cole who partnered with Pinterest havens is taking his experience from working to bring awareness to the AIDS crisis in the 19 eighties and part of that is making sure people feel more comfortable talking about these problems, stigma can be overwhelming. It's debilitating. It's paralyzing. So how do you make it easy? How do you make it accessible comfortable? It can be hard for certain groups, especially men, to open up and this is something that's societally infused and we need to understand it, learn about it and get comfortable and this isn't going to change in a day. Sometimes taking care of your mental health could be as simple as getting acupressure on your ear to relieve tension or an activity to let go of your anger. So this is the red station behind me and it's all about frustration and anger and how you can get rid of it. So what you can do in this activity is pick up a sharpie and write something that's frustrating you right now and then you can replace it with something beautiful like a rose. But there's plenty of additional stressors these days, from living with the pandemic to dealing with navigating social media. Several studies have linked longer use of social media with depression and lower self esteem, but platforms can be used to find common ground with others Pinterest searches for emotional awareness are up 22 times compared to last year. Users looking for quotes about struggling mentally are up nine times and self soothing searches have gone up three X and sunday reset searches and online trend of tactics to help people find ways to combat the beginning of week. Anxieties are up 700%. We're curating an environment and that environment should be one that is nourishing rather than toxic for people. Use the platform and sometimes you just need to take things offline and share a. T in your experiences with someone else for cheddar news. I'm Michelle Castillo.