About Mental Health Awareness Week

Mental Health Awareness Week will run from the 16th to the 22nd of May 2016. It is a campaign run by the Mental Health Foundation and aims to raise awareness of mental health problems and reach out to those affected by psychological conditions.

This year’s campaign

This year, the theme of the campaign is relationships and the role they can play in helping you to overcome mental illness. It’s also important to understand that relationships can contribute to psychological issues. Relationships can be hugely positive, but they can also be very negative. If you have difficult relationships with friends, family members or a partner, this can have a very serious impact on your mental health. The aim of the campaign is to get people talking about mental health and encourage those affected by problems surrounding it to ask for help. There is a stigma attached to mental health disorders in today’s society and the Mental Health Foundation, alongside many other mental health charities, offer support and reassurance to those struggling with issues such as anxiety and depression.

One of the main aims of this year’s campaign is to encourage people to think carefully about the relationships they have with others. Could you devote more time to close friends and family members? Are you guilty of spending too much time scrolling through social media sites and caring about what others are up to, rather than focusing on your own life? Could investing quality time with your best friends and your family improve the quality of your life and boost your confidence? If you have questions or have been struggling with mental health problems, this campaign hopes to give you the confidence to seek help or even share some of your thoughts or worries with the people closest to you. It’s often better to share than to keep things bottled up to yourself. There’s no shame in admitting everything isn’t perfect and saying that you’d appreciate some help and support.

What’s happening during Mental Health Awareness Week?

Over the course of the next week, events will be taking place up and down the country to raise awareness of mental health disorders, educate people about mental health problems and reach out to those who are currently battling psychological illnesses. There are hundreds of independent events taking place, as well as those organised by mental health charities. Examples include coffee and cake mornings, workshops and therapy sessions, sponsored walks, crafts, concerts, motivational speeches and film premieres.