It may not seem like an obvious choice at first. However, keeping fish and shrimp can have a positive effect on your mental health. This article explores these benefits and how fish can improve your home or your study space.
Keeping fish or shrimp falls under ‘animal–assisted therapy’. In most cases either dogs or cats are used in this type of therapy. However, fish can have positive effects as well. The biggest advantages to fish (or any animal), is that they connect you with nature. A 2005 study showed that contact with nature can provide a population–wide strategy for the prevention of mental health issues.
So, what is it about fish specifically that can help us with our mental health? As well as connecting us with nature, fish live in water, and water has many therapeutic benefits. Many people find the sound and visual effect of running water very calming. In fact, you can achieve the same effect just sitting and looking at the water in the sea or a lake.
You can have all the benefits of fish and water by owning your own tank. Fish owners all state that overall the most stressful part of owning fish, is generally the initial set up. Yet, many owners agree that the benefits outweigh any of the initial stress. However, it is not always practical to own your own fish. If you are unable to own your own fish tank, then you can still gain all these benefits by visiting fish. Maybe you have a local fishpond or aquarium? Even just the occasional visit has been shown to greatly improve a person’s mental health.
Bex Harper Tutoring and Coaching pride itself in putting clients’ mental health first. I strongly believe in the therapeutic benefits of fish, shrimp and water snails, which is why there is an aquarium in the BHTC study and coaching space. These delightful, calming creatures are, therefore, incorporated into our sessions, wherever possible. For example, in coaching, the relaxing sound of water flowing can relax you enough to explore areas of your life in greater detail.
In terms of tutoring, often children can be nervous about coming to a tutor for the first session and it provides common ground and opportunities for conversation that isn’t exclusively focused on them. This can help calm tutees and make them feel relaxed. BHTC also allows clients to bring their own slippers to wear, if they want to really feel at home!
If you would like a calming environment to learn or to re-evaluate your life and achieve your big goals, then BHTC is for you! Drop me an email (hello@bexharper.com) to find out more!
Values drive our aims and goals in life. They help us to sort out what is important to us and where we need to direct our focus. Pick your top 5 values for living your life (and another 5 specifically for your business or career). See if, in your current situation, you are truly achieving the life you want with these values.
You can do this by writing down examples of how each of these 5 values appear in your life, at the moment. If they don’t feature in your life currently, write down one step you can take towards achieving this value in your life. The more values you are currently including in your life, the more true to yourself, your dreams and your moral compass you will be.
The aim is to get all 5! Our goals and values change, so it is useful to do this exercise every year.
Acceptance
Achievement
Acknowledgement
Adventure
Aesthetics
Appreciation
Authenticity
Balance
Beauty
Being active
Bliss
Caring
Career
Clarity
Comfort
Commitment
Compassion
Community
Co-operation
Confidence
Contentment
Courage
Creativity
Curiosity
Daring
Dedication
Detachment
Determination
Devotion
Diligence
Discipline
Discernment
Empathy
Empowerment
Energy
Enthusiasm
Excellence
Exciting
Fairness
Faith
Fame
Family
Financial independence
Flexibility
Forgiveness
Freedom
Friendship
Fun
Generosity
Gentleness
Goodwill
Grace
Gratitude
Growth
Happiness
Harmlessness
Harmony
Healing
Health
Honesty
Hope
Humility
Humour
Inclusiveness
Independence
Insight
Integrity
Influence
Intelligence
Intimacy
Introspection
Intellectual growth
Intuition
Joy
Justice
Kindness
Knowledge
Leadership
Learning
Love
Loyalty
Maturity
Money
Nurturing
Openness
Orderliness
Participation
Partnership
Passion
Patience
Peace
Performance
Prosperity
Purpose
Recognition
Relationships
Reliability
Respect
Responsibility
Reverence
Risk taking
Sacrifice
Serenity
Service
Sharing
Silence
Spontaneity
Strength
Status
Support
Success
Trust
Truth
Understanding
Unity