Every year the World Health Organisation recognises World Mental Health Day. This year’s theme set by the World Federation for Mental Health is Mental Health for all.
So what is mental health?
Mental health is everyone’s business. We all have times when we feel down or stressed or frightened. Most of the time those feelings pass. But sometimes they develop into a more serious problem and that could happen to any one of us. In fact, as found by the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) (2014), 1 in 6 people in the past week would have experienced a common mental health problem.
If you’re in good mental health, you can:
- make the most of your potential
- cope with life
- play a full part in your family, workplace, community and among friends
Some people call mental health ‘emotional health’ or ‘wellbeing’ and it’s just as important as good physical health.
- Five steps to better mental health
- Today is a great opportunity to remember the importance of taking care of your own mental health as well as the others around you. In most cases you can make simple steps to take care of your mental health such as taking time to:
Connect – while Covid-19 has made it challenging to connect with one another how we once would have, continuing to connect with people remains important. Whether you connect virtually, socially distanced or with those in your social bubble, make sure you make time for those around you.
Be active – you don’t have to go to the gym or take up extreme fitness (unless you want to of course). Being active is all about making sure you move more and enjoy whatever you choose to do. Why not take a walk, go cycling, play a game of football with friends or try an indoor workout?
Keep learning – learning new skills can give you a sense of achievement and a new confidence. We recommend Carnival UK’s own ‘The Cove’ and ‘Good Practice’ as well as external free sites ‘Alison’ and ‘LinkedIn’ (free months trial available now).
Give to others – even the smallest act can count whether it’s a smile, a thank you or a kind word. With many people continuing to shield from Covid-19 there are more opportunities than ever to lend a helping hand and do something to make a big difference to someone else’s day. Alternatively, find out how you could support our charity partners.
Be mindful – be more aware of the present moment, including your thoughts and feelings, your body and the world around you. To help you get started have a read of The Mental Health Foundations mindfulness guide.
- Supporting your colleagues
- If you think your colleague could benefit from support;
Look – Are they displaying any signs of stress such as; avoiding others, irritability, anxiety, not eating, not sleeping, body pain, nausea or exhaustion.
Listen – Sometimes when we’re experiencing challenging times we find it hard to communicate this as we don’t want to burden others. However, talking about our problems quite often puts a stop to them getting worse – a problem shared is a problem halved! If you think a colleague is struggling, ask them “Are you OK?” Be kind, empathetic and non judgemental, a listening ear can go a long way.
Link – Whilst we actively encourage everyone to support one another we by no means expect you to have all the answers to everyone’s problems. Instead we encourage you to; connect with others and recommend people who might be able to help, access information and resources available and encourage others to use these too and have time & patience – take a short walk with them, arrange a call or a chat over a coffee and demonstrate your support.
- Self check-in
- It’s important to be kind and compassionate to ourselves too. We’ve produced a useful end of shift checklist which can be used daily to stay on top of your wellbeing needs as well as those around you.
Acknowledge – choose one thing that was difficult about your day and let it go
Success – consider three things that went well
Improve – what could you do differently and improve on tomorrow?
Support – are you OK? Could you take the time to support anyone else more?
- Employee Assistance Programme
- For those times when you may need extra support, our Employee Assistance Programme provider is at hand 24 hours, seven days a week for support, guidance and information.
- Mental health training
- At Carnival UK we’re proud to Champion mental health by encouraging open and honest conversations and giving everyone the skills and training they need to support one another.
Since May many of you have attended Mental Health First Aid England’s (MHFA) Mental Health Awareness course and we’re pleased to announce in the coming months we’ll be launching our own Carnival UK session. This will replace MHFA England’s course and we’re currently working to secure recognition from an outside body such as MIND or The Mental Health Foundation. To give you a taster of what to expect from the awareness session, watch the short video below, produced by our Learning Team, for the course.
In addition, across the fleet over 135 of you have attended Mental Health Awareness sessions, over 260 of you have watched the Managing Pressure Webinar on GLADIS and many have gone on to become Mental Health First Aiders.
Our mental health first aiders are your colleagues who’ve been trained to be your point of contact if you or someone you know experiences a mental health issue or emotional distress. For full details of who your Mental Health champions are and how to contact them click here.
Useful Resources:
- Sources of support including EAP, MIND and Samaritans
- Finding calm in a stressful world
- How to manage and reduce stress
- Mindfulness
- Coping with fear and anxiety
- MHF looking after your mental health guide
- Supporting your mental health at work
- Exercise for mental health
- A guide to meditation
- Maintaining a healthy mind in times of uncertainty
- Action for Happiness – 30 day challenge
- Meaningful calendar – 31 day challenge
- Podcasts (Resilience, Managing Anxiety, Positive Mindset and Uncertainty)
- Looking after your mental health
Today we’ll be joining millions of people around the world to recognise World Mental Health day, find out how you can get involved here.