Category: Wellbeing and self-care

It can be a daunting experience to volunteer for a cause for the first time, especially if you experience mental health problems. Anna tells us how volunteering at her local park run helped her to build confidence and brought a sense of connection and belonging into her life during recovery from an eating disorder.

Summer is typically a time for looser, more revealing clothing, but for someone who struggles with their body image — the way they think and feel about their appearance — summer may be a difficult time. For people who self-harm or who have scars from self-harm, it can be even more distressing.

The summer months are typically associated with rest and relaxation, but for people living with poor mental health, summer can be a difficult time. In this post, we’ll discuss how you can take care of yourself and your mental health this summer. 

Sometimes there are parts of our bodies that can make us feel particularly insecure or anxious. We spoke to Luke, who explained how having eczema as a teenager affected his body image and caused him to lack confidence. He tells us how the experience has now left him more empathetic towards other people, and the insecurities they might be facing with skin conditions.

When social media started to become popular, Prisha began to fixate on fitness creators and desired to change her body. She spoke to us about how it was the exposure to certain body type ideals online that influenced her behaviour of exercising in a regimented way to achieve a certain look, and it was once she took a step back that she realised what was online wasn’t always reality.

Daryl first started to experience negative feelings towards her body after her body underwent changes after a life transition. She tells us how she got back to a healthy mind set through treating her body with kindness and reminding herself that what you see on social media, isn’t always reality.

If news reports of rising temperatures, melting ice caps, or forest fires fill you with dread and anxiety, you aren’t alone. You might be experiencing ‘climate anxiety’, and while it is a relatively new term, it’s on the rise and particularly affects young people. 

In the past two years, thanks to numerous bank holidays, many workers in the United Kingdom have engaged in a practice that has shown dramatic benefits for our mental health, work-life balance, and overall wellbeing: a four-day workweek. 

Too often, people experiencing anxiety are dismissed as being ‘just’ sensitive or told that they are ‘just’ worrying. Em shares her experience of the debilitating effect that anxiety can have on someone’s life, affecting everything from daily tasks to participating in the hobbies you love. Em reminds us of the legitimacy of the experience of anxiety and to never dismiss someone’s journey with anxiety.

Anxiety can present itself in many different ways for us all, and we have different ways of coping with symptoms and managing our mental health. We spoke to Josh and Mellissa, who told us their unique experiences with anxiety and poor mental health, and how exercise and cycling helped them both to improve their mood and ease feelings of anxiety.

Health anxiety is a lesser spoken about condition that can have a severe impact on someone’s life. The anxiety that you’re going to get unwell or that you are unwell can cause daily life to consist of panic and fear. We spoke to Lillian about her experience with health anxiety and how she reached out for support.

There’s ways we can support our mental health all year round, but how can we use our current environment and the seasons to tailor how we look after our wellbeing? We’re exploring some tips on how we can use the arrival of spring to boost our mood and connect with the outdoors and others.

Christmas is the time of year when we’re expected to be our merriest and most joyful. There are friends and family to see, and a wealth of opportunities to have fun and let loose. For some of us, our reality during the festivities is far from this. It can be a stressful time of year with family duties, financial strain, pressure to keep to traditions and tricky logistics. It can also bring up some difficult emotional experiences, such as trauma and grief. So, how can we navigate these challenges and protect our mental health?

Although the wintertime can be a time for celebration, festivities, and socialising, for many people it can also induce feelings of loneliness, stress, and anxiety. With our physical environment also changing around us, with shorter days and less sunlight, we might need to take extra care to monitor our mental health over these colder months. 

Our Head of Programmes, Tom O’Connor, had the opportunity to visit our Building Bridges project, supporting Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) communities in Birmingham. The project exists to reduce mental health stigma and improve access to mental health support for these groups, who have traditionally been marginalised, so that they can live healthy and fulfilling lives.

Fundraiser, Luke Hamer tells us why putting his mental health first made him stronger – as part of our World Mental Health Day campaign encouraging people to make their mental health a priority.

Tying in with our World Mental Health Day campaign encouraging people to make their mental health a priority, our colleague Gemma tells us why looking after her mental health is integral to her quality of life. 

We are deeply saddened by the death of Her Majesty The Queen and offer our condolences to the Royal Family during this time of mourning.

Some of us look forward to the autumn, with the promise of cosy jumpers, hot drinks and spending more time indoors. For some people the upcoming weeks are less appealing, with fewer daylight hours and colder temperatures. As the seasons change, you may notice a shift in your mental health. We’ve put together some helpful guidance on how to manage the transition to autumn and avoid it negatively impacting mental health.

Lourdes Colclough is Rethink Mental Illness’ Head of Suicide Prevention. She talks to us about the part we play in suicide prevention and demonstrates the power of the community to change and save lives.

Heading off on annual leave should be an exciting moment in your work calendar. A moment of respite, when you can switch off and feel assured you’re leaving your work and pending actions in safe hands. However, often the weeks that bookmark this protected time are chaotic, with overtime and meeting-heavy days exacerbating stress levels and sometimes even leading us to question if it’s worth taking leave at all. In this piece, experts from Mental Health UK explore their top tips on what you and your colleagues can do to make time off truly relaxing and carefree.

During the pandemic, the number of us working from home skyrocketed. For some of us, this change became permanent and the new normal. Whether it’s a couple of days a week or every day, many of us are still working from home and experiencing the isolation that can come with it. Evie, 30, from rural Norfolk, shared her experience of loneliness with us, and what she has found helpful to keep more connected.

As the emergence of the Omicron variant and the latest Covid restrictions take their toll, ‘pandemic fatigue’ is on the rise, affecting people’s day-to-day lives. Here our Head of Workplace Mental Health at Mental Health UK, Charlotte Maxwell Davies, shares her insight on how to cope in the workplace, though you can apply these tips anywhere.

Mental Health UK issues statement of solidarity with English cricketer Azeem Rafiq.