Healthy Mayo Messages

Someone says something that really cuts. A friend pulls away. A manager puts you down. And quietly, maybe without even realising it, you start to carry it. You replay that moment, turn it over and then you hold on to it. But resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. To find out more tune into Teresa from Mental Health Ireland.

There's a bird I saw this week, not rare, not grand, it was just a starling, but its little body moved quickly, ebulant and sleek. That phrase stayed with me, because what is a starling really? A bird so often overlooked, yet shimmering with iridescence, greens, purple, bronze feathers, slicked down like wet ink. To find out more tune into Teresa from Mental Health Ireland.

Have you ever felt a hunger that wasn't for food? A loneliness that no crowd could fill? If you have, you're not alone. John Moriarty called that a soul-deep ache. A longing for meaning in a world that had forgotten how to dream. We are not primarily rational creatures, he said. We are mythological ones. To find out more tune into Teresa from Mental Health Ireland.

In Ireland, sunny days can feel like gold dust, brief and brilliant, but the benefits of sunlight are more than poetic, they're physiological. Sunlight triggers the body's production of vitamin D, which is essential not just for bone health, but for our mood and immune system too.

The sociologist Ray Oldenburg described the importance of what he called the “third place” — not home and not work, but the shared spaces where community naturally happens. Libraries. Cafés. Sports clubs. Parks. Community centres. Places where people can simply meet, talk and feel part of something larger than themselves. This is Teresa from Mental Health Ireland reminding you that your mental health is just as important as your physical health.

Psychologists speak about something called “co-regulation” — the calming effect safe human connection has on the nervous system. A warm voice, eye contact, humour, understanding. These are not small things. They are part of how human beings regulate stress.This is Teresa from Mental Health Ireland reminding you that your mental health is just as important as your physical health.

In ancient Ireland, the hearth fire meant far more than warmth. It represented safety, gathering, identity and belonging. A home without a fire was considered abandoned long before it stood empty. Loneliness today can feel something like that — not always dramatic, but a quiet cooling of human connection.This is Teresa from Mental Health Ireland reminding you that your mental health is just as important as your physical health.

Carl Gustav Jung once wrote: “Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself.” It is a remarkable insight because it reframes loneliness completely. A person can sit in a crowded office, a busy café, even a family home, and still feel unseen if the deeper parts of themselves remain hidden. This is Teresa from Mental Health Ireland reminding you that your mental health is just as important as your physical health.