Here is Emma's story about how physical wellness can affect the mental side of things and vice versa....

Here is Lucy's experience with mental health...

Good morning and happy Thursday. Today we will be sending out some more of your Mental Health emails. We are so touched and honoured with the responses we have had - because SMASH is just as much about you guys as it is about us! You know our stories well... but now lets read one of the inspiring stories from our SMASH community:

'Not every day is happy but I love the days that are, and accept the ones that aren't' - We love this ending to Julia's email. Her story is here...

Here is Alex's story. She has said she is happy to chat with anyone who feels they are experiencing similar feelings so if you would like to reach out with her, please email back to SMASH and we will put you in touch...

Good morning all, and welcome to day 2 of mental health week. This is Sam and I wanted to share with you a little more of my mental health story since going through the worst of it!

We want to embrace the belief that the more we talk openly and freely about our mental health and wellbeing, the more help people receive and the less 'taboo' the subject becomes. With this in mind, let me start the week off with my own experience...

We are sending the weekend email out earlier than normal because next week you will be getting a daily dose of SMASH emails  As it is World Mental Health Awareness Day on Wednesday, and SMASH is all about physical and mental wellbeing, throughout the week we will be sharing personal stories regarding mental health and our perspective on this vast subject.

Sam here, wishing you a very happy weekend!! I can't believe it's already been a week since the marathon.... and I must say I am only just starting to feel like myself again! There is a weird combination of feeling amazing and also feeling slightly lost - I have all this spare time in which I would usually be running!  

September has well and truly arrived and in the fitness industry we call this time of year 'The 2nd New Year'. At this time we have a similar buzz in gyms to that which we find in January and February - members setting themselves new goals, re-discovering motivation and setting a routine they can keep to by building habits.

It seems that summer is coming to an end… We tend to get that “back to school” feeling at this time of the year bringing with it the push we need to make changes, let go of the things that are no longer serving us and to try new things.

We hope you have had a great bank holiday weekend? And if it wasn't great then we hope it was at least OK? In this technology charged world, where we are bombarded with happy faces on social media, it can look like everyone is having the best time - every day of the year!

In past emails we have touched on the importance of telling those closest to you how important they are and the impact they have had on your life. It's not always easy for us to talk about our feelings which is why we often say a good way for most to do this is to write it it down for the other person to read. …

What an amazing Saturday we had running the Pride 10k race in Victoria Park! It's now 15 months since I ran my first race and on Saturday I scored another personal best! Since that first race last year I have shaved off 6 minutes from my time and my next goal is to try and get under 45 minutes  As happy as I am with my time, and as much as I could use this email to talk about the importance of goal setting or challenging yourself or taking yourself out of your comfort zone (all very important!), I want to use the opportunity to talk about Pride again

You may have noticed the SMASH team were missing from Friday lunchtime SMASH... It just so happens that both of us were called to important friendship duties... Sam being a bridesmaid to two of her best friends and Ash driving to Germany with one of his!

Positive Affirmations is our focus for this month but what exactly does using positive affirmations mean, and why is it good for us?

We are back from our holiday and we had a great time! We rested our bodies, relaxed our minds and also did some fitness training​. Mostly though, we laughed A LOT! It's so important to have friends who share your sense of humour, friends who you can be completely yourself around, and this is what we had on this break. We laughed so much every day - the best kind of holiday