The research tested Mental Health Australia’s ‘Ten Tips’, asking Australians whether they were things they did ‘regularly’, ‘sometimes’, ‘hardly ever’ or ‘never’.

• The scale was deliberately non-specific because the nature of the activities tested is varied – a person might not ‘seek out advice or support when they’re feeling stressed or down’ regularly for example because they seldom feel stressed or down, whereas ‘getting a good night’s sleep’ is something everyone could potentially do every day (assuming they had the time).
• Responses do need to be viewed in this context, and in analysing the results we should pay most attention to things Australians seem to be doing less often than we might expect they would.
• In this context, the fact that only 30% of Australians say they regularly make a conscious choice to have time periods away from electronic devices is interesting, as is the fact that 18% say they hardly ever or never get a good night’s sleep.

  The survey shows good numbers of Australians claiming to do several of these activities regularly.

• 65% say they regularly keep their consumption of alcohol, cigarettes and drugs as low as possible.
• 58% say they regularly make an effort to eat healthily
• 51% regularly make time to socialise with their family and/or friends
• 47% say they regularly get a good night’s sleep.