Today’s blog will feature the best content I’ve found from the week, including the blogs, videos and social posts that have provided me inspiration personally, and what I think will be helpful to my audience.
Mental Health Awareness Week 2021 Roundup
We’ve reached the end of Mental Health Awareness Week 2021!
It was a truly amazing week as always, and I’d like to thank everyone who has got involved in raising awareness and sharing their own story with nature.
Today’s blog will feature some of what the fantastic mental health community has created across the blogs and news.
For a limited time, my submissions form will remain open, so please share your blogs so I can add them into this blog post or just leave a comment below.
Blogs
AMJ Comms
This blog from Ben Jones talks personally about why we need to open up the conversation about mental health and suggests some ways that awareness can be turned into meaningful action.
Fiona McBride
Sharing the importance of talking this blog helps list some resources and encourages others to reach out. With tips for both those reaching out and those listening, it’s important to speak up if we’re struggling.
LEAPS
This blog by Aimee Wilson has a few sections starting with children and nature with some recommendations of places to go from National Trust and English Heritage along with a personal story and experience with therapy.
Samaritans
In this blog post, the Samaritans have gone through some practical ideas on connecting with nature and how to make that experience a positive one.
The Photographer’s Way
This blog from Emma Lord shares a personal account of nature and suggests some ways to help yourself connect with it too, including some ways to bring nature to you if it’s difficult for you to access.
Unwanted Life
This blog shares a personal experience with nature during the pandemic without a garden. There is also plenty of resources linked to, along with some ideas of how nature can benefit your own mental health.
Wellbean Blog
This blog from Hannah shares a personal story about the calming impact of nature along with sharing how you can get involved yourself. Connecting with nature and experiencing those mental health benefits should be something we maintain after MHAW has ended.
News
BBC
This tool is a good way if you would recognise if someone were struggling. With Mental Health Awareness Week, we encourage others to reach out, which helps guide responses into more positive ones.
Thanks to Mental Health First Aid England, Chi Chi Izundu and Dominic Bailey for producing this.
Grazia Daily
This personal story from Natasha Devon is a moving read and looks at the experience of recovery from mental illness and the effects of that journey. With a lot of focus during MHAW on mental wellbeing, we cannot lose sight of the need to provide professional help to those with mental illness.
Metro
The Metro has had an MHAW takeover where celebrity mental health advocates have been taking over to bring content that shares their thoughts.
You can see the list of articles in the series here.
ScaffMag
This article talks openly about the need for speaking up and accessing support that’s out there. The first step of recovery (and one of the hardest) is admitting there’s something you need help for.
Another article on their site is worth a read, too – 49% of UK tradespeople experiencing mental health problems due to work-related issues.
Sunday Post
This article about kayaker Nick Ray shares a personal account of what it’s like to connect with nature and the benefits that it can do. This shares specific moments in nature, and the emotions conveyed were definitely relatable.
Organisations
Anxiety UK
Anxiety UK has produced a lovely free booklet you can download which shares some experiences with nature along with top tips on how to connect yourself.
Mental Health Foundation
As the hosts of Mental Health Awareness Week the MHF have produced a number of assets and resources for people to spread awareness. Here are two guides:
Top Tips on Connecting With Nature
Mental Health Minute
Featuring The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Anne Marie, David Beckham and other celebrity guests the Mental Health Minute broadcast across radio stations in the UK at 11 am on Friday.
The space to talk about our mental health should always exist.
— Jake Symons (@jakeswrites) May 14, 2021
Continue the conversation after #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek has ended by checking in with your mates and speaking up if you're not okay.
Listen to this year's #MentalHealthMinute below: https://t.co/bbajRio0bl
Premier Leauge
PL Primary Stars roped in Roman Kemp and Dr Alex George to provide wellbeing tips and also have a range of resources to help young people.
Also giving Man Utd, my club, a mention here for distributing 5k balls & copies of United Minds: Be positive. Be curious. Be united to children living in deprived areas of Greater Manchester.
Reed
This blog shares some practical tips on how to make the process easier, along with linking to Reed’s other resources to help that search. If you want to put your best self forward, it’s important to look after yourself.
SimplyHealth
SimplyHealth has teamed up with the Mental Health Foundation to create a free ebook. This illustrates some of the research and benefits that nature provides and suggests some ways of connecting with nature and improving your mental wellbeing.
Special Mentions
While the blogs below have not been written specifically for Mental Health Awareness Week, I wanted to give special mention to them for being valuable resources that you can use.
BBC
The BBC has released a 30-day BodyPositive challenge which contains a list of various suggestions and videos to help get active and be positive.
YoungMinds have also spoken about a self-soothe box on Bitesize, and this is a lovely way of having positive things if you’re going through a difficult time.
Department for Education
This blog on DFE includes plenty of helpful mental health helplines and resources to turn to for parents and carers, and young people themselves.
Pigletish
Anneli has released a huge list of mental health resources online. Grouped by mental illness, if you’re struggling to know what’s out there (or haven’t found anything useful yet), it’s definitely something to check out.
My Content
This is always the biggest event in the mental health calendar for me, and it was a pleasure to be involved as always.
Following our usual schedule, we released a blog a day Monday-Friday and also went live for Mental Monday: Mental Health Live!
Blogs
- Preview: How to Get Involved In Mental Health Awareness Week
- Day 1 Blog – An Introduction
- Day 2 Blog – My Experience With Nature
- Day 3 Blog – Mental Health Foundation’s Research
- Day 4 Blog – How to Take Action
Mental Monday
Related:
Mental Health Awareness Week 2020 Roundup (Theme: Kindness)
Mental Health Awareness Week 2019 Roundup (Theme: Body Image)
By Jake Symons
Jake Symons is an entrepreneur and passionate mental health advocate determined to share his story to help others. Alongside writing on this blog he hosts Mental Monday: Mental Health Live a biweekly intimate and unscripted conversation about mental health.