By Public Relations staff

May 24, 2012—On May 16, bloggers from around the world came together to blog about mental health as part of APA’s third annual Mental Health Blog Party. The party — a virtual event where bloggers wrote on a particular topic to promote a specific cause — generated more than 120 blog posts from throughout the United States and abroad in one of the many events held by APA in support of Mental Health Month.

Mental health professionals and the general public shared experiences and stories about mental health through blog posts in an effort to educate others about the importance of mental health and to decrease stigma related to mental illness.

Hosted by APA’s Mind/Body Health public education campaign blog, Your Mind, Your Body, the blog party featured posts on a wide range of topics, including depression, postpartum depression, breast cancer, bipolar disorder, suicide, autism, anxiety and stress. Many blogs promoted the benefits of psychologists as part of recovery. The diverse field of bloggers included psychologists, mental health advocates and nonprofit organizations, but also included bloggers who normally write about topics such as running, gardening or literature. A round up of all the blog party posts can be found at Your Mind, Your Body.

Some participating blogs included:

• Semi Urban Homesteading — A Journey Through Mental Illness Toward Wholeness

• The Pink Underbelly — Blog Party, APA Style

• ChildPsychMom — Got a brain? Then you’ve got mental health

• Panic about Anxiety (PsychCentral Blog) — Video: Why do I blog about my own mental health

• Running on the Rhode — Blogging for Mental Health. Yes, it relates to running

• BeePea.com — Bipolar Motherhood: What it Means to be “Mom Enough”

• Raisin Questions — What do fish cakes have to do with mental health?

The May 16 blog party generated the most page views in the history of the Your Mind, Your Body blog, and Twitter tweets and retweets had a potential reach of more than 2.3 million impressions.

Your Mind, Your Body was established in 2009 to promote APA’s mind-body health public education campaign and to inform the public about psychological practice and research. Blog authors are APA member psychologists and APA staff who write regularly on topics related to their professional expertise.

Members with an interest in writing for Your Mind, Your Body as a guest blogger can contact Angel Brownawell for more information.