Guardian Exercise Rehabilitation Becomes Signatory to Equally Well

We are thrilled to announce that we have recently committed to becoming a supporter of Equally Well, joining them in their mission to ‘make the physical health of people living with mental illness a priority’.

Equally Well is the brainchild of the National Mental Health Commission in Australia, with the Equally Well National Consensus Statement being launched in July 2017. The statement was developed after extensive interviews, workshops, and consultative processes, and took both Australian and international research into account. Now, over 90 companies have signed up to Equally Well; a notable gamut of organisations that we are very proud to join.

As many of our own clients and partners can attest, we at Guardian Exercise Rehabilitation have a passion for championing the therapeutic benefits of exercise for mental illness. A sobering statistic that has only deepened our passion for this field is that individuals with severe mental illness are, on average, dying 15-20 years earlier than those without mental illness, and mainly at the hands of preventable physical health comorbidities1.  Exercise has long been known to be rehabilitative, reparative, and even preventative when it comes to mental health conditions; this is robustly documented in both research and practice.

In 2018, The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended that lifestyle interventions should in fact be considered first-line strategies for physical health management in adults with severe mental illness2. Exercise has a far-reaching capacity to improve psychological symptoms, mood, alertness, concentration, and sleep patterns. Exercise can also contribute to overall enhanced quality-of-life through facilitating social interaction and providing meaningful use of time, purposeful activity, and empowerment. And this is of course not even touching on the many physical health benefits of exercise and movement.

We greatly look forward to seeing our shared vision with Equally Well come to fruition; that of improving the quality of life and physical health of those living with mental illness.

References:

  1. Firth, J., Siddiqi, N., Koyanagi, A., Siskind, D., Rosenbaum, S., Galletly, C., … & Chatterton, M. L. (2019). The Lancet Psychiatry Commission: a blueprint for protecting physical health in people with mental illness. The Lancet Psychiatry6(8), 675-712.
  2. https://www.who.int/mental_health/evidence/guidelines_physical_health_and_severe_mental_disorders/en/

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