Nurul Praharso

Support My Challenge for Mental Health Research

Did you know that 1 in 5 Australians experience symptoms of mental illness each year?

In fact, every day in Australia, 9 people will die by suicide.

Mental illness can be debilitating and can have a devastating impact on not only those living with it, but those around them. 

This month, I’ll be taking part in One Foot Forward to help reduce the impact of mental illness and suicide.

I suffer from a number of autoimmune conditions, and in June 2024, I was diagnosed with long COVID, which has greatly affected my physical capacity even more. I am lucky to be under the care of great doctors and have an excellent exercise physiologist, however, it has been hard for me to accept being back to the protocol I was on when I first started working with my EP. Some days I push myself to do what I was capable of doing in 2023, however, this always leads me to feel worse the next day. This month, I will be doing my exercise prescription set by my exercise physiologist, to raise funds for Black Dog Institute, so that they can put ground-breaking new mental health treatment, education, and digital services into the hands of the people who need them most. To normalise lowering standards and demonstrate that nothing catastrophic will happen when I do, I have set the bar really low with my fundraising goals.  

Together, we can create better mental health for all Australians.