Comedy For Coping is a new, exciting initiative that uses The Ceative Arts to build, maintain & sustain good mental health.
Using interactive games, workshops and tasks it teaches through play, and in so doing changes the tone around mental health to be one of optimism, hope and enjoyment.
The peer support element of the workshops create a supportive environment to use humour as a basis for connecting with other people and eradicating the isolation that people with mental health problems so commonly feel.
By celebrating good mental health it looks at the skills learnt in stand up comedy to give real-world tangible coping mechanisms that participants can use in their everyday lives.
This unique approach develops a hollistic attitude towards health by nurturing personal and professional skills to help participants in all aspects of their lives.
Why Comedy?
Comedy has the unique ability to reach people - whether you work in construction or consultancy, healthcare or hospitality, engineering or education everyone likes to laugh. It doesn't matter what your class, your age, your gender. In fact, we actually laugh before we can talk, so you could argue that it's even more powerful than words. After all, it doesn't matter what language you speak, everyone can enjoy physical comedy.
Similarly, everyone in the world has mental health. Just like physical health it's something that needs looking after throughout our lives. Even if you're lucky to have no history of mental health problems, it doesn't mean that can't happen in future. Equally, if you've historically struggled with your mental health, it can get better. The point is, that mental health is something we need to look after throughout our lives. You don't have to be unfit before you go to the gym, don't become unwell before you care about your mental health.
And it's much easier to care about something when you enjoy it. Humour is a great way of connecting, communicating and empowering people. It allows audiences to drop their guard, help remove awkwardness and explore ideas. That's because when people are laughing they have to be listening and when they're listening they can learn. This can be used to inform, educate and entertain a people.