The 2025 Theme Day focuses on creative ways to incorporate Wellbeing into the Festival of Archaeology.
Movement, Mindfulness and Museums at home are the outputs for the Day along with the release of a new Young Archaeologists’ Club resource pack and the announcement of the Marsh Community Archaeology Award winners.
Movement
Movement and wellbeing are closely related and regular activity is important for maintaining muscle strength, stamina and body function. Once people start moving they get a stronger body, a sharper mind and overall sense of well-being.
As many professionals and communities take part in fieldwork, whether it be geophysics, fieldwalking, metal detecting or excavating, warming up the body before starting helps increase circulation to the joints, and enables muscles to contract and relax more easily making it easier to perform tasks and reducing the risk of injuries.
Bouygues UK are a construction company who have been rolling out their morning warm up exercises on their sites. The team takes 10 minutes at the start of every day – in work clothes at a suitable area on site to do their routine and they have given us their presentation to share with you. Not only does this help you achieve two of the 5 ways to wellbeing by connecting with colleagues and getting active, it also helps improve performance for the day. They The NHS have a set of warm up exercises you can do on site along with a basic warm up video which is a bit more strenuous (always read the safety information before starting with your group). Or why not ask a local physiotherapist or fitness instructor for a series of stretches and exercises for your group?
The British Heart Foundation have also got an amazing chair warm up set of exercises and for a more active seated warm up, Fife Health and Social Care Partnership have created a workout.
Mindfulness
Chris Jeavons is an ESRC-funded Post Graduate Researcher at the University of Leicester's School of Museum Studies whose research centres on the use of museum objects in teaching the practices, attitudes, and concepts of mindfulness. He aims to develop a museum object-based mindfulness programme as a novel and engaging way to communicate key stress management techniques to university students towards improving psychological well-being in this population.
Listen to Chris, lead us in a mindfulness practice as he invites us to spend time observing and contemplating an object from the Mindful Museum of You, helping you relax, unwind and gain an appreciation for the material that surrounds us in our own lives.
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Museum at Home – What’s Not to Treasure?
Not everything is about “shiny bling”. Our own personal collections of special items we treasure help with our wellbeing and bringing delight.
As part of the Festival of Archaeology 2025 we're shining a spotlight on the collections of 8 people - from ancient hazelnuts to military artefacts, seaglass, mini figures, and more! You can find out more about each collection directly from it's collector below, and discover how collecting can help support our wellbeing.