Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body

The project was co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

"Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body" was an Erasmus+ Youth Exchange about physical and mental wellbeing. The main activity happened between 9-17 August 2022 in Alsótold, Hungary. 29 people (mainly aged 18-25) came together from Spain, Ukraine, Greece, Lithuania and Hungary to take part in a non-formal educational experience.

Before the project, we articulated the following thoughts:

The issues of building up a healthy lifestyle are built around the shocking lack of self-care and maintaining a healthy, sustainable lifestyle among young people. Often people don’t think in the long-term, and tend to fall for bad habits and therefore waste the precious time of their life. We, young people taking part in the project, abuse social media more, we don’t read as many books as before, and our attention is easily distracted. We care less about what food we take in, we don’t do sports regularly and don’t do stress-relief activities that could improve the quality of our life.

Therefore, we came together to exchange ideas and best practices that address these topics.

We took part in activities, workshops, reflections, and evaluations and also implemented sessions by ourselves. We had the chance to improve in many different ways during the project by living in an intercultural environment.

Daily blog

Day 1

"The morning started with a delicious breakfast, and then we played fun games to introduce ourselves and learn people's names in an entertaining way. Do you know that feeling that you already know people from before as if they were your friends? I felt that! Everyone is very outgoing and friendly. It was so great to start to know each other in this way. 

Having gained back our energy thanks to the coffee break, the whole group went for a walk. While we could enjoy the beautiful surroundings of the town, we were talking about interesting topics and get to each other more deeply. We were also able to eat seasonal fruits from the trees before having a delicious, traditional lunch. 

In the afternoon, an engaging challenge stumbled upon us - a collaborative task, consisting of 31 physical, logical and creative exercises, ranging from rewriting a popular song to drawing and making paper airplanes that fly at least 15 metres. Right after the announcement of the task, I started feeling a little bit anxious, as I was in charge of rewriting a popular song but all the worries quickly faded away as a couple of participants came to join me. We had an astonishing amount of fun while rewriting Macarena into a song about hunger and Kinder Buenos. 

Later, we were able to choose a group, a family, that all consist of about 5-6 people and have specific duties for each day, one of which is writing a blog about the previous day, which we're writing at the current moment.

In the evening, I went for a walk around Alsótold. I wanted to test my night-time impressions and compare them with daytime ones. That day had almost a full moon and an almost completely cloudless sky. The constellations could be clearly observed as if the stars shone. It was pleasant and cozy.. 

I was very curious to wander through the various crooked streets to the end of our beautiful village and go beyond it. The smell of hay and horses made the experience very authentic while several tractors and hay harvesters drove past. Personally, I find it very interesting how the Carpathians (continuation of the Alps) looks like in different countries (Ukraine, Poland, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, etc.) and realize different approaches and concepts to their landscape representation."

Day 2

"Our daily activities started with workshops where we discussed habit building. Developing positive habits and getting rid of the ones that negatively affect our lives is a procedure which as we learnt may take some time. That's why we all made a commitment and promised to stick to it. It was really nice to work together with the rest of the group and get to know each other on a deeper level. 

Later on during the day, we all explored the meanings of different types of competences and what a Youthpass is. We engaged in interactive activities, like role-playing, language and logic games. The evening activities concluded with "Moving time" where there were both lighter and heavier exercises for everyone to enjoy.

To finish off the day, Lithuania, Greece and Hungary organized a series of events to present their culture through folk dances, quizzes, traditional food and drinks. The Cultural Night came to an end after a celebration with music, dancing and games (aka party 😛). Everyone enjoyed themselves to the fullest."

Day 3

"Today we were happy. At the beginning of the day, a couple of the people practised their habit building for example with stretching, and reading. The breakfast was delicious again. 

After being molecules for 2 minutes we divided into groups and shared our experiences and knowledge about nutrition and diets. People follow different kind of diets in the project so we had a lot to talk about and for many of us this workshop was really eye opening and provided us with information, that will help us in the future to develop a suitable diet for us. Also a lot of cultural aspects were shared connected to eating habits. 

Because of all the intensive discussions (and Aldas’ explanations) we had to take a break to taste this protein rich bean soup and expertly made potatos and carrots. Would recommend this food. The lack of meat disturbed a lot of people therefore a debate was organised during the afternoon. It was a challenge for most of us: debating, public speaking, arguing. Suddenly we felt anxious and uncomfortable speaking in front of our friends, but we managed to present well structured arguments about the question that are impactful on our daily basis: like the neccesity of animal products and food supplements. 

As a finish of the activities we played table tennis, badminton, rumba and musical chairs. The night was the best night in our lives thanks to the Spanish people. Ukraine also did a really emotional and informative presentation/game that help us understand their history and some fun facts about this great nation. Thank you for this amazing day."

Day 4

"On Saturday, breakfast time started at 08:30 am as usual. Then, from 09:30 to 10:00 we spent time with our family group talking about the activities we were responsible for.

At 10:00 we started in the activity room with a workshop where we had to search a cosy space for ourselves and sit there for half an hour. During this time we were being asked by Ábris to think about different aspects of our life (such as our goals, past experiences, what we hope next for our future and more) and write them in our notebooks. We spent a lot of time on our own thinking about ourselves and finding out new things!

Then, we did a similar activity, but we started by creating two circles, each one of us sitting in front of another person. We had 15 seconds to look at each other eyes to connect. Afterwards, we wrote down our thoughts, feelings and impressions of the person on their notebook. In that way they could take the notes with them and read it at the end. We did it in rotation so everyone had to face everyone. We had the chance to look deeper and feel closer to each other.

We had lunch earlier than usual: mushroom soup, roasted vegetables with cheese for vegetarians/vegans and meat with vegetables instead of pasta.

Around 13:00 we started walking/hiking from Toldi Haz to Holloko through the forest. The hike was long and adventurous and but we still made it to the castle, where we enjoyed some snacks and some very much needed water. Thankfully, we were at the village early enough to go catch the bus and get back to Toldi Haz.

After we arrived, we gathered at the activity room for some streching.

At 18:30 we had pasta with tomato sauce and mushrooms for dinner. The rest of the evening was free for us. We did play multiple board and party games while some of us rested earlier."

-the sunnies

"The morning started like any other, what the participants did not know is that day would be about sex. During the morning we held different workshops, the first dealt with the different types of relationships, how to start one, how to make it sustainable over time and when to end it. In the second workshop we talked about sex, what we consider it to be, different practices and stories, ending the morning talking about why protection in sex is attractive. ‌

After the second workshop, our task was to create a digital piece of content regarding our project and health in general. We formed groups, mostly consisting of three or more people, and starting brainstorming to find creative and fun ideas. The result was a very broad range of content, that included Kahoot presentations, video interviews and a comic. Afterwards, we split into two groups. One of them learnt various dances, while the other did yoga. 

At night we all gathered in the acivity room and watched the digital content we had made earlier. The presentations were pretty interactive and so not only did we enjoy it but also gathered useful information about our physical and mental health. 

Our last responsibility for the day was to make the schedule for the next day ourselves, from us for us. The rest of the night we enjoyed being in groups talking and playing board games."

Day 6

"On the 6th day of the project all programs were self-initiated by the participants. The weather was perfect for having breakfast outside, so this is what most of us did. 

In the morning we had two programs with which we could start the day. One of them was a special walk where half of the people were blindfolded and led by their pairs who supported and guided that through the village without any verbal communication. During the walk we focused on embracing all of our senses except for seeing our surroundings. We had to touch different surfaces, smell different incenses and flowers and we had to listen to the sounds of nature as well. It was an amazing and complex experience, which also helped the group to form an even stronger bond and build trust on an unexpected level. 

For the people who prefered to have an alternative to the previously mentioned walk was an option. The other program included elements of yoga, pilates and stretching. It was a slowly built up exercise session that was also a perfect way to start the day. 

After this we had a short coffee break to refresh ourselves. 

In the following workshop we learned in an interactive way about Basic Life Support and S.O.S. Plan that can be used in the case of panic attacks and anxiety.  

Then we had lunch and a longer break before starting the afternoon workshop, which revolved around us sharing our experiences related to mental health. It was a really emotional experience, but we managed to create a safe space where everyone felt respected, valued and understood."

Day 7

"We also felt pretty great today even though we knew that today we have to say goodbye to each other. During the morning we created very creative drawings about each day to remember what we were doing. So many activities that gave us new horizons, experiences and fun. Having our upside-downs during the week, but knowing that we have a lot of supportive, open-hearted people around us, made this week just simply unforgettable. 

We evaluated the whole project together and everybody could have shared what they liked or did not. Most of us was pretty satisfied with the week, only minor issues came up for discussion. 

After our last delicious lunch together the official youthpass ceremony took place. This unrepeatable event started with a positive gossipping about each other, and then we gave the certificates to each person by trying to describe them without mentioning their name or nationality. As a closure of the ceremony everybody got a paper on his back, where we could write all the little things that connected us to that person. 

To raise the mood of this day, we had a bonfire at night, where we all sang together our favorite songs. Hearing the sentences such as “Let’s goooo”, “Bogi, Bogi the teacher”, “Wait a minute? Who are you?”, “Nincs patak”, and so on, will always remind us to this miraculous week that we spent all together."

Digital content