Good mental health should be core aim of responses to crisis
LAST Saturday, October 10, was World Mental Health Day. This year, this important day had even more significance due to the pandemic. For many of us, our mental health has been affected during the months of lockdown and restrictions we have experienced in 2020.
People’s mental health has also been affected when restrictions are lifted and life returns to some normality, whether it be returning to work or school or shopping or travelling.
The Covid crisis affects people’s mental health in many different ways and has many consequences.
A recent survey by the Mental Health Foundation found some people are resorting to potentially harmful ways of coping, including increased alcohol consumption, substance misuse, and over-eating, putting their mental and physical health at greater risk.
According to Public Health England one in six drinkers are now at higher risk, up from one in nine before lockdown. This increase in high-risk drinking is affecting all sections of society and could see even more children growing up, and suffering, in a household with parental addiction and not getting the help they deserve.
I know from personal experience the devastating impact alcohol abuse has on lives and families. Not only the person grappling with addiction needs support, but their families and children too. But despite this increasing need for support, local authority spending on substance misuse services has faced a real terms cut of over 12 per cent since 2016.
This has seen services scaled back and too many people with addiction failed. This is why on World Mental Health Day I urged Ministers to bring forward a much-needed addiction strategy.
We all know people in Leicester have been subject to more, and longer, restrictions than any place in England. Last week the city reached the unenviable milestone of 100 days subject to additional restrictions, including over two months of restrictions on people’s social contacts.
Earlier this week these social contact restrictions were relaxed in Leicester, but they will continue to have an effect on our mental health.
The Mental Health Foundation has suggested different ways to cope with the stress of the pandemic. These include exercising, spending time in nature, finding time to relax, doing an enjoyable hobby and maintaining contact with friends and family, especially when you cannot physically meet up with people.
All of us will not have the time to do all these activities, but even if we can try one on a regular basis the benefits will hopefully still be felt. And just as we can all influence our own mental health we can also influence others’ mental health.
So as the pandemic continues to affect all aspects of our life, and will continue to do so for many months to come, I ask you to be aware of your own mental health and of how your actions and words affects the mental health of those around you.
Good mental health for all is a theme not only for World Mental Health Day, but for all of us at all times, and it should be a core aim of the governments’ responses to the pandemic.