Talking about mental health

All of us, at one time or another, will feel sad, lonely or overwhelmed, but not everyone will experience a mental illness. Whereas the term mental health refers to “a state of wellbeing in which every individual (...) can cope with the normal stresses of life, work productively and make a contribution to their community”, mental illness encompasses a range of disorders, from anxiety and depression to conditions like schizophrenia.¹

The key to protecting wellbeing is knowing when to ask for help, or to step back, or to try to change whatever it is in our life that is making us stressed, anxious or low, but during the pandemic some of the tools that we can use to manage our mental health were taken away. Unsurprisingly, covid saw a massive rise in the number of people reporting problems and there are millions waiting for specialist treatment.² Pandemic restrictions in the UK have lifted, but 2022 soon brought different horrors and reasons to feel helpless and scared by the world. If wellbeing means the ability to cope with the ‘normal’ stresses of life, the last two years have been anything but.