In this video blog we will be taking a brief look at how alcohol affects your mental health.
To learn more about the negative affects of alcohol you can read our full blog post here
If you feel you drink too much and need support then please visit the NHS website.
The post Video Blog #11 – How Alcohol Affects Your Mental Health appeared first on A2B Assessments DSA Needs Assessment Centre.
As it doesn’t look like we will be able to visit a cinema anytime soon due to the Coronavirus outbreak, we thought we would compile a list of 10 of our favourite movies to portray disabilities on the big screen. Get the popcorn and tissues ready…
The Theory of Everything is a compelling movie. It dramatises the life of the late popular theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking as set out in the Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, written by his ex-wife Jane Hawking.
The movie gives us a close look into the personal life of the genius, chronicling his relationship with his then wife, his struggles with ALS and their divorce. This critically acclaimed tale thrilled audiences all over the world with its touching portrayal of the blooming of bittersweet love and its eventual demise.
You may know this movie by the alternate title, Rory O’Shea Was Here. It follows two young men with disabilities as they revolt against the way they were being treated in a home for the disabled and chronicles their quest for independence.
The movie is driven by a stellar performance by a young James McAvoy, who gives it the gravity and nuance that it required.
One of the most critically acclaimed movies of all time, My Left Foot stars Daniel Day-Lewis in a thrilling performance that earned him an Oscar.
It tells the tale of an Irish cerebral palsy victim Christy Brown, who overcame all the challenges thrown in his path by his illness. Christy rises to become a well-known painter, author and fundraiser.
One of the groundbreaking features of My Left Foot was its portrayal of a disabled character as an individual who did not have to fit into the likeable mold, previously forced upon disabled people in Hollywood.
This movie stars Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal in a modern love story which features a pharmaceutical rep that falls in love with a woman who has Parkinson’s.
As flawed as the movie may be in its execution of its various plot points, it excels in the overall story it tries to tell; the tale of two hearts who find love despite all odds.
You’ve probably seen Forrest Gump before, and you need to see it again. This movie follows Forrest, as played by Tom Hanks, through his struggles, triumphs and defeats.
Although it is never actually states specifically what Forrest’s disability is, supporting character Lieutenant Dan lost both of his legs in Vietnam and Jenny, Forrest’s love interest contracts HIV/AIDS.
Another stellar movie driven by powerful characters and a superb plot, Rain Man follows fast-talking car salesman, Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) as he tracks down his father’s estate to the institution caring for his older brother Raymond (Dustin Hoffman).
In an Oscar winning performance, Hoffman’s portrayal of an individual with autism awed Hollywood when the movie was released and has contributed to Rain Man’s seeming ubiquitous nature in pop culture references to this day.
This movie features a prep school student, wealth and a blind Colonel with his own agenda. Featuring a great performance from Al Pacino, a visually impaired man who is sick of living and wants to have one last adventure before he commits suicide.
A wealthy paraplegic in need of a caregiver hires a destitute Parolee to help tend to his day to day needs.
The ensuing tale features reconciliation, love, regret, and the overwhelming passion to live every second of life like it was the very last.
The titular character, Gilbert Grape struggles between his love for his paramour Becky, and his responsibilities towards his mentally-challenged brother Arnie and Bonnie, his morbidly obese mother.
Ray follows the life of Ray Charles as he loses first his brother, then his sense of sight. Instilled with words of encouragement from his mother, he is inspired to overcome adversity and make his mark on the world as a Pianist.
We hope you enjoyed our list of 10 disability aware movies to binge in lockdown 
The post 10 Disability Aware Movies To Binge In Lockdown appeared first on A2B Assessments DSA Needs Assessment Centre.
This year’s focus is kindness in reaction to the COVID-19 outbreak, which is is having a negative impact on people’s mental wellbeing.
The Mental Health Foundation has led a study into kindness and the results show that about 66% of people feel that being on the receiving end of acts of kindness positively affects their emotional well-being.
The study also found that 66% of people who commit random acts of kindness feel a positive impact on their own mental health. While 48% of the individuals studied said being kind to themselves positively affected their mental wellbeing.
You might be surprised to hear that being kind to others actually has numerous benefits to your own health:
Being kind produces the hormone Oxytocin which in turn causes the release of the chemical nitric oxide. This lowers blood pressure and is the same thing that helps keep your heart healthy after exercise.
Oxidative stress is one of the key factors that plays a role in ageing and when you introduce more Oxytocin throughout your body the levels of Oxidative stress get significantly reduced.
Being kind also produces the chemical serotonin, this is responsible for an overall improvement in your mood, which can also reduces stress, anxiety and feelings of low mood.
To learn more about Mental Health Awareness Week watch the video below:
To learn more about Mental Health Awareness week visit the Mental Health Foundation.
To learn more about the disabled students allowance.
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Evernote is widely regarded as one of the best productivity tools in the entire world. Not only is it efficient and dependable, it’s also one of the top note-taking tools to offer cloud support, file organisation and many other great features. If you like taking notes, writing ideas down or storing important files locally/in the cloud, then Evernote might be right app for you.
One of Evernote’s advantages is both a desktop and mobile app that stores it’s date in the cloud. This means whenever you write a note on mobile, it transfers to desktop and the other way around.
You can also create a variety of note types and even use different fonts for convenience. To make things better, you are also allowed to attach documents and clip full pages if you want.
Another key feature for Evernote is the fact that you can search and find your notes with ease. Just searching a keyword will bring up all of your notes where it is included. If you want to better organise your notes, you can create your own tags and notebooks.
A great feature for students comes in the form of a web clipper. Using it you can save pages, articles and web pages to your account. This way you get to do research on a topic and then have it all in a single place. It definitely beats bookmarks and coupled with the above mentioned search function you can pull up all of your research on a topic in seconds.
Evernote even have support for handwriting, so if you prefer to write notes by hand, Evernote’s machine learning system can recognise what you wrote. It can identify 11 handwritten and 28 typewritten languages. Results can differ based on how complex your handwriting is, but this can definitely make a huge difference.
With Evernote you can also scan documents and add everything in your account. Having all those documents ready to go in a single place is very convenient, and it can go well beyond your school life. Students will like this feature because they can take a picture of every important page in a book and have the content available as they see fit.
It’s also important to note that Evernote also offers lots of integrations with popular tools. For example, it offers Gmail integration, Outlook, SalesForce, Google Drive, Slack and Microsoft Teams integrations.
If you want to take advantage of all these features, all you need is to download Evernote for free from https://evernote.com/. This is by far one of the top tools you can use to manage your documents and content. Give it a try
Learn more about the DSA assessment process.
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