Time to give your Mind a Hug at MindHug
In recent times, mental health and mental wellbeing have become a crucial aspect of our lives. As suggested by various studies about mental illness going on around the world, almost one out of four people either suffer from mental or neurological disorders. These mental disorders like anxiety, depression, stress, etc. bring changes in our mood, affects our thinking ability, and eventually our behavior. In addition, the National Institute of Medical Health states that 8 million people die each year due to mental illness. This shows us that attending to our mental health is pivotal to our mental wellbeing.
Mental health includes the emotional, psychological, and social well-being of an individual. It affects how we think, feel, and act. Good mental health means we enjoy life, be resilient, feel in control, be confident, feel good about ourselves, effectively cope up, manage, and express our emotions, etc.
MindHug is a Mental Wellbeing startup incubated at University College London(UCL), United Kingdom. The aim is to provide diversified therapies and activities for mental wellbeing and happiness from therapists around the world to our users.
During my Summer Internship 2020, I got to be a part of Mindhug and helped the team in developing and implementing various features of the web app. The web app consists of various therapies and activities like Music Therapy, Sound Baths, Art Therapy, Breathwork, Yoga, Mindfulness, and much more. It also consists of a Mood Diary which helps in monitoring lifestyle and wellbeing using data analytics. The platform developed, aims at providing people who suffer from mental illness as well as people who work towards having a Good Mental Health access to various therapies from renowned therapists globally. They also organize various workshops and events for the same.
The founders of the organization went through various research and found out that approximately 90% of the people don’t have access to these therapies as they are either unaware of a reliable platform or they often find these programs expensive. Some even fall prey to the stigma and bias sticking around mental health and thus never get the assistance they need. Hence the founders thought of designing a platform that bridges the gap between users and therapists along with providing people with choice, credibility, affordability, engagement, and overall mental wellbeing.
The platform is a blend of various technologies starting from the Backend that is made using Python and Flask, Frontend which is made and molded using Jinja2, JavaScript, Bootstrap, jQuery, HTML, CSS, Database which is made using PostgreSQL, Cloud Service being used was Google Cloud Platform, Cluster Management which was done using Kubernetes engine.
As a part of my journey in Mindhug, I got to work on various responsibilities and tasks which gave me a lot of opportunities to enhance and nurture my skills as an individual. Also, I became aware of mental wellbeing, factors that lead to such conditions, consequences, and most importantly how to tackle these. The best part of working in a startup is you are not just stuck to one task you can branch out and help the team whenever and where ever you can.
During the Mental Health Week, Mindhug organized various sessions for the people and I was thrilled to be part of one of the humour sessions. The therapist made us laugh our hearts out. This place made me believe in the quote:
“It's not the Team with the Best players that Win. It's the Players with the Best Team that Wins.”
I’ve completed 3 months at MindHug and I would like to thank Chitraj Singh, CEO, and the entire MindHug Team for giving me this wonderful opportunity to work with Mindhug and always being there, supporting and motivating me throughout my journey of being an intern at Mindhug and making it my virtual home. :)
