Mental Health Awareness

This year’s Mental Health Awareness Week is taking place from Monday 9th May, and I am keen to ask that your readers take part and get involved.

The Mental Health Foundation wanted to provide a focus for us all on achieving good mental health, which is just as relevant today – if not more so – than when Mental Health Awareness Week was founded 21 years ago.

Each year a different topic related to our mental health is put into the spotlight, which this year is loneliness.

I personally think that loneliness is something that we can all experience from time to time, and it can have a devastating effect on our mental health. Loneliness is often confused with being alone, but this isn’t always the case.

Many of us have experienced that feeling of being alone in a crowd but thankfully this feeling can often be temporary, as if loneliness is a place that we are passing through.

The Mental Health Foundation are encouraging us all to familiarise

ourselves with tactics to help us deal with loneliness which are available on the Mental Health Awareness Week website: mentalhealth.org.uk/lonely

And to show that loneliness can impact every one of us, we would ask you to share an #IveBeenThere post on social media which captures how you have been able to overcome these periods, whether that’s through dance, music, or connecting with friends and family. Good mental health has never been more important, and now it’s time to look after yours.

Dame Arlene Phillips Choreographer