Hello All, 

My Favorite Bit Of Information From The Week:

Introduction: I began learning Spanish last year, and as I progressed I noticed a relief from my depression when I would practice my language skills. I discovered that, for me, learning a new language helps my mental health in three really strong ways… 
1. It increases my confidence. 
2. It makes me feel like the world is larger. When I am down the world feels very small and claustrophobic, and other cultures and languages open this feeling up and prove it wrong. 
3. Learning Spanish helps with my anxiety attacks. When my anxiety comes up, my logical side of the brain starts to shut down (or my prefrontal cortex) and my emotional side (my amygdala) takes over. Now, when I feel this start to happen, I turn on Duolingo, I spend five minutes with the app and I almost immediately feel better. It helps me calm down, and come back to whatever was causing me stress with more space and reasoning. 

Check out the bottom of this E-mail for language learning resources! 

Beautiful Article on Depression and Language Learning:https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jan/13/learning-language-depression-anxiety

Beginning Research on Language Learning and Schizophrenia: This is dense, but the information on Schizophrenia alone is fascinating: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4919257/

An Article on Why Language Learning Is Amazing:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/10126883/Why-learn- -foreign-language-Benefits-of-bilingualism.html
Note: We know that bi-lingual folks tend to have a later onset of Alzheimer’s and dementia than those who are monolingual- this is true even if you learn later in life! So it’s never too late to begin!

Update on my Show:

This week OUR WEBSITE IS OFFICIALLY UP AND RUNNING! Please check it out if you have a second!
www.onewomanhamlet.com
AND! An update Video for you to check out. 

Many, Many thanks: Margo Siwak and Joe Siwak for the design of the logo, and to Jillian Best and Bill Best for the Website creation and Design! I feel very blessed to have such beautiful humans in my life.

What will be there you may ask? 
– There is a spot for you to submit your own personal story, anonymous of course.- Old E-mails will be posted as blog posts, so if you are new or want to go back easily it is a good resource. We have up to week three added right now, and the other weeks will be added over the next few days. – Updates on the show- OUR NEW LOGO!

Thank You: Thank you VERY much to all who have donated thus far, making this project possible. 

Ways to Support: If you would like to donate to my show, share this project with a friend, or find out more about it please check out my gofundme here: https://www.gofundme.com/one-woman-hamlet

Resources

New Resources From Last Week:

Interested in learning a new language?  Here are some resources to get you started…
1. If Spanish is of interest to you, please reach out- we can practice together! 
2. I have been/am learning Spanish through Living Language, it works very well for my brain, and is very affordable for many languages on Amazon.
3. I practice with the Duolingo app (also accessible for many languages).
4. This podcast was recommended to me for Spanish by the amazing Courtney Abbott who is constantly inspiring my personal mental wellness, I just started it and cannot wait to continue! http://www.notesfromspain.com/about/
5. Lastly, there are many free community meet ups in most cities. I have never been quite brave enough to try it, but I am going to my first one end of the month, I am told they are lovely and very welcoming. Care to be brave with me? https://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Spanish-Language/

All my best and heart to you, 

-Kate