Bake Well Being

Combine a pinch of positivity, a handful of hope and a sprinkle of sunshine and you will have the recipe for ‘Bake Well Being’!

Bake Well Being is a social project combining the importance of caring for your mental health with baking delicious treats to ‘raise awareness and provide mental health support by sharing the joy, benefits and skills of baking’. Ella, a wellness and resilience coach, is here to help us all whip up the positivity and empowerment we need in our lives, so we can talk, bake and eat cake together!

Ella began to write the recipe for this incredible social project with her ‘Wellbeing Bakers Club’, where she brought people together over the joy of food, by asking people to share their stories on why they bake, and the importance it brings to their lives, to make the baking community begin to rise again!

Bake Well Being aims to create connections through the art of baking, bring people together through food and bring awareness to the importance of our mental health. Through hosting webinars, workshops and 'bakealongs', Bake Well Being allows us to involve ourselves in the positive community of baking and the creative release it provides, whilst breaking the silence of talking about our mental health, to block the damaging stigmas.

The world today seems to be coated in a multitude of expectations and pressures, which, at times, can influence the strength of our mental health. Social media can be our best friend and our enemy in the same scroll! Over time, many of us have begun to believe the damaging stigma of being seen as ‘weak’ for reaching out for help regarding our mental health. It's time to realise how this is our strength- you would go to the doctors if you felt ill, so why do we not treat our mental health with the same care? Nobody should fear asking for support, and Bake Well Being is here as our tranquil retreat to help dismantle this damaging stigma. Our mental health will never be linear, just like our physical health, so why do we seem to ignore changes in our mental health at times? Our mental health is delicate and should be cared for- it is time for us to be responsible and active in looking after our mental health, whilst also recognising that without the bad days, we can’t appreciate the good. Instead, we need our personal coping mechanisms for those dark days and Bake Well Being provides us with the escape we need from these strict expectations, to help silence the mind whilst we bake delicious treats.

Conversations on our mental health should never be silenced- it's time for us to talk, share, encourage and educate.

If you ever need a positive celebration of life, then Bake Well Being is for you! Already this year Ella has run her ‘Saturday self- care Valentine’s drop in’ for Valentine's Day, ‘Daily Wellbeing Practice: Mindfulness in the kitchen’ to celebrate International Women’s Day and her 'children’s Easter cupcake workshop and pop- up' (to name a few!). Ella also ran her ‘Well- Being Bakers Club course’ between the 1st and 28th May to celebrate Mental Health Awareness month this year. Across 4 weeks, mental health and wellbeing resources were sent our digitally each week to develop awareness and education, as well as tutorials to bake along to and weekly personal development virtual workshops (I don’t know about you, but I am already looking forward to next year!). As well as this, Ella has begun her ‘Self-care Sunday’ series on Instagram, to allow Ella to show us all how we can all find our own methods for self-care, which we can escape to each week. Make sure to check out Bake Well Being’s Instagram page next Sunday!

Even when times have been tough for Ella (having to have a full-time job alongside Bake Well Being to be financially stable, or when nobody signs up for an online workshop), she still is able to find the silver lining by surrounding herself with positive people, as those around you should make you rise like a fluffy Victoria Sponge and not sink! For Ella, living life with a realistic and optimistic mindset, where she is grateful for the little things in life, allows her to be a strong advocate for mental health- hence why she created Bake Well Being. It's time we all took a glance at Ella’s positive recipe book for life and take a page for ourselves!

The future is full of flavour for Bake Well Being- with their ‘Children’s Summer Cupcake workshop’ in August, ‘Men’s Mental Health workshop’ in November and ‘Adult’s and children’s Christmas workshops’ in December, it is clear that Ella will continue to roll out more inspirational content, sprinkled with positivity, to get us all talking, baking and eating cake together!

I don’t know about you, but I believe the concept of self-care has begun to develop into the idea of running yourself a bath with a candle. And, yes, this can work for some people, but it’s time to realise the vast range of support and coping mechanisms that are available- something which works for you may not work for your neighbour! Self-care isn’t selfish, it’s necessary. Life is busy and we need time for ourselves. For Ella, she began to recognise the importance of hobbies (especially baking!) to boosting our self-esteem, sense of achievement and giving us the confidence to take on the world. Too many of us shy away from baking because we fear we won’t be the next Paul Hollywood or Mary Berry! However, Bake Well Being is here to teach us that we should never strive for perfection and that ANYONE can bake. Baking is a process and skill of developing mindfulness in the kitchen. Creative hobbies, such as baking and cooking, allow us to develop our own growth mindset and open our mind to new possibilities. Baking provides us with the ability to talk, share, think and learn new skills, all with the gift that you know you will produce something delicious at the end!

So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to pick up the wooden spoon and grab the sprinkles and start baking!

To add the final glaze on this treat, make sure to keep up to date with the inspirational work of Ella and ‘Bake Well Being’ on all their social media (@bakewellbeing)- you can even sign up for a workshop or to their seasonal newsletter!