Emotional Barometer
Maggie Dent, ‘The Queen of Common Sense’, shares her insights on tackling life’s inevitable ups and downs with mental fitness. 5 simple steps to help you to think more clearly after things don’t go your way.
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Emotions are a normal part of life. Whilst positive emotions are pleasant to handle, we can feel overwhelmed by some of our negative, or more challenging emotions from time to time. That’s when we need to use our emotional muscles to help us handle these feelings in a helpful way. When you build your emotional muscles, you’ll feel more capable of managing your emotions and building your mental fitness.
Healthy relationships and feeling socially connected to others are integral to our mental fitness. Our relationships can be a rich source of pleasure, and help us to feel understood and valued. Our social connections can also help us cope with adversity by providing helpful guidance and encouragement when we really need it.
We can all find it challenging to cope with our emotions from time to time. Sometimes we face persistent difficulties, or a challenge we have not faced before, and this can test our capacity to cope. So learning to be vulnerable and share our worries with someone else can help us to cope, and recover from adversity. In time, positive experiences with help-seeking can improve our resilience and decrease any sense of stigma with seeking help.
It’s important to remember that your Mental Fitness Check-in score does not substitute for a clinical evaluation or treatment plan from a registered health professional. High or low scores do not necessarily correlate with the absence or presence of mental ill health. `Higher scores may indicate areas of current strength, and lower scores may indicate opportunities to improve your mental fitness.
Our mental fitness check aims to help you understand your mental fitness areas of strength and areas where you may be able to make mental fitness gains.
We understand it can feel overwhelming to seek support, but you are never alone in this journey. There are always people ready to listen and helpful resources available. You can find support options here.
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We can all build our mental fitness. The tools and resources below are a great place to start, where you can give your mental fitness a boost in less than 5 minutes a day. Consider the areas of your mental fitness that might benefit most from some attention.
Maggie Dent, ‘The Queen of Common Sense’, shares her insights on tackling life’s inevitable ups and downs with mental fitness. 5 simple steps to help you to think more clearly after things don’t go your way.
Gold medal winning netballer Bianca Chatfield shares a tried and tested strategy for managing feelings of overwhelm and loneliness.
Gus Worland’s now famous, yet super simple exercise that will light up someone’s heart and make their day.
Being vulnerable is one of the bravest things we can do. Neale Whitaker unpacks how to silence your inner critic and the power of being vulnerable.
Not great at being kind to yourself? Kath Koschel shares 3 awesome exercises to turn this around.
When you’re having one of ‘those days’, 7 x World Surf Champion Layne Beachley shares 5-10 mood boosters to get you back on track.
Hugh Mackay’s wisdom-filled narration means this calming meditation will soon become your Mental Fitness go-to. (This one's a smidge over 5 mins, but trust us, it's worth it!)
Gus Worland, Gotcha4Life Founder shares the story behind the name Gotcha4Life, and some advice to help make catching-up with your mates a regular part of your routine.
Gus Worland’s now famous, yet super simple exercise that will light up someone’s heart and make their day.
Being vulnerable is one of the bravest things we can do. Neale Whitaker unpacks how to silence your inner critic and the power of being vulnerable.
Clinical Psychologist Dr Jodie Lowinger shares a powerful story about lightening the weight of our worries and the importance of ‘putting the glass down’.
When you’re having one of ‘those days’, 7 x World Surf Champion Layne Beachley shares 5-10 mood boosters to get you back on track.
Hugh Mackay’s wisdom-filled narration means this calming meditation will soon become your Mental Fitness go-to. (This one's a smidge over 5 mins, but trust us, it's worth it!)
Gus Worland, Gotcha4Life Founder shares the story behind the name Gotcha4Life, and some advice to help make catching-up with your mates a regular part of your routine.
The Mental Fitness Check-in is anonymous. We don’t ask for your contact details to complete the questionnaire.
We record how many people complete the questionnaire. We record the responses for each question and the results. This helps us review the results and improve the questionnaire over time.
If you choose to have your results emailed to you, we will do so according to our Privacy policy to ensure the protection of your data. You can view our Privacy Policy here.
The Gotcha4Life Mental Fitness Check-in was developed in collaboration with our trusted partner, Brendan McNicholas, Registered Psychologist, Dalugo Psychology Consultancy. We thank Brendan for his support in the development of the Mental Fitness Check-in. Building mental fitness is about promoting adaptive functioning and resilience. Our questionnaire provides an evidenced-based framework to understand key habits and traits that can help people keep track of, and build their mental fitness.
The Mental Fitness Check-in comprises 9 questions, and for each question, users are asked to indicate the extent to which they agree with a statement over the previous four-week period. All answers are recorded along a five-point scale (where 0 = none of the time and 4 = all of the time).
After completing the questionnaire, scores are totalled to provide both an overall score, and scores for each mental fitness protective factor. Although the Mental Fitness Check-in may not capture all elements of mental fitness, higher scores appear to indicate areas of current strength, and lower scores may indicate opportunities to improve an individual’s mental fitness.
Sign up for free to receive mental fitness resources direct to your inbox or phone, as well as special event invites and updates.
A conversation with someone you’re worried about can make all the difference and help them feel they’re not alone.
The Mental Fitness Gym would not be possible without our donors and partners, the team at Science Fiction, and our media partners at Nine and UnLtd.
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We acknowledge and pay respect to the traditional custodians of the lands on which we work, live, and play.
The Mental Fitness Gym would not be possible without our donors and partners, the team at Science Fiction, and our media partners at Nine and UnLtd.
The information in our Mental Fitness Gym is not intended as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Gotcha4Life does not provide counselling or crisis support services. You can connect with mental health professionals for confidential 1-on-1 support and advice by calling Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636 at any time or visit beyondblue.org.au. If someone you care about is experiencing emotional distress, please contact Lifeline who are there to listen and support you, 24 hours a day on 13 11 14. If someone’s life is in danger, call 000.
We’ll let you know as soon as it’s available!
You can also find a copy of your results under my gym profile
Our mental fitness check-in takes around 3 minutes and will give you a better understanding of your mental fitness strengths, and tools that might help you become more mentally fit.