Looking after your mental health and wellbeing

© Will Close Ash/NNPMRT.

A helping hand when you need it
A helping hand when you need it.

General guides

Togetherall

Through our partnership with Togetherall, mountain and cave rescue team members can register and access a wealth of resources online. It’s easy to register. Just click on the link, create an anonymous profile and start engaging straight away.

Once you’re in, you’ll find people to chat to online, 24/7, who understand whatever it is you’re going through. There’s a range of informative articles and resources, including NHS-approved clinical assessments. And you can sign up to easy-to-follow courses which you can complete in your own time, to improve your own sense of wellbeing. The site is managed throughout the day and night by medical professionals, there to offer support and guidance if you need it.

Mind

Offers advice and support ‘to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem’ and campaigns to ‘improve services, raise awareness and promote understanding’. Their services include a confidential information line and a legal line with information about mental health law. There is also a network of local Minds across England and Wales which offer specialised support to those who need it.

Visit Mind

Mental Health at Work

In an ever-changing world, Mental Health at Work provides a handy resource hub for organisations and their staff, all in one place. There’s a long list of handy ‘toolkits’ of topics and resources, gathered under easy-to-follow themes such as helping you cope with loneliness, creating workplaces that are positive for people with eating disorders, or juggling the demands of parenting and work.

Visit Mental Health at Work

NHS: Mental health and wellbeing

You’ll find a wealth of information about mental health and wellbeing on the NHS website, with sections about how you can get urgent help when you need it, including a mental health helpline (England only). There’s information about feelings, symptoms and behaviours, an A-Z of mental health conditions and tips, tools and guides for self-help plus the Five Steps to Mental Wellbeing.

Visit NHS (Mental Health)

Samaritans

There are a number of ways you can access support from Samaritans: by phone, by writing a letter Freepost to ‘Samaritan Letters’ or emailing jo@samaritans.org, or by visiting a branch. The number to call is 116 123 (they also have a Welsh language line (Llinell Cymraeg). Their self-help app will also help you keep track of how you’re feeling, and offers ideas about coping strategies and how to keep yourself safe in a crisis.

Visit Samaritans

Breathing Space

If you’re based in Scotland, Breathing Space offers and easily-accessible ‘first stop’ point of contact if you’re feeling down or overwhelmed by life. It’s free to call from landline and any mobile network and the phone number will not show up on your telephone bill. Their experienced operators will listen and offer information and direct you to the help you need. The service is available in the evenings only, Monday to Thursday (between 6.00pm and 2.00am), and over the weekend from 6.00pm Friday to 6.00am Monday morning. Call 0800 838587.

Visit Breathing Space

Shout

Shout provides urgent mental health support 24/7, and you can contact them for free from all major mobile networks in the UK — all you have to do is text the word ‘Shout’ to 85258. Trained Shout volunteers are on hand throughout the day and night, and messages will not appear on your phone bill. Once you are connected with a volunteer, the aim of the subsequent text conversation is to ‘help you reach a calm and safe place, with a plan of how to support yourself going forwards’ — and you may also be pointed towards further support services, if those are needed.

Visit Shout

Suicide awareness

Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM)

Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) was set up to ‘take a stand against suicide’. As their website says, ‘that means standing against feeling shit, standing up to stereotypes and standing together to show life is always worth living’. Their aim is to encourage people to get help when they need it prevent the 125+ lives lost to suicide every week in the UK — 75% male. They offer support for individuals and for the families and friends who believe their loved ones may be suffering, as well as those left behind by suicide.

Visit CALM

HelpGuide

Worth a visit if you ‘re looking for guidance and encouragement in getting motivated to take charge of your mental health and start feeling better about yourself and life in general. HelpGuide is dedicated to the memory of Morgan Leslie Segal, who died by suicide in 1996, aged just 29. Morgan grappled with a condition that began as low self-esteem and worsened into major depression. Following her death, her parents Robert and Jeanne Segal realised that the best way to honour their daughter’s memory was in helping others who were struggling as she had done, and thus HelpGuide was born.

Visit HelpGuide

Papyrus

Papyrus Prevention of Young Suicide is a UK charity ‘dedicated to the prevention of suicide and the promotion of positive mental health and emotional wellbeing in young people’.

Their suicide prevention HopelineUK (0800 068 4141) is a free and confidential call, text and email service, available from 9.00am to midnight, throughout the year, and staffed by trained suicide prevention advisers.

Visit Papyrus

Mens’ health

Movember

Movember is the ‘leading charity changing the face of men’s health’. Their story began in 2003, when two mates in Australia decided to bring back the moustache and create a campaign to raise awareness of men’s health and testicular cancer, charging ten dollars to ‘grow a Mo’. The idea took off (read more about it here), literally ‘changing the face of mens’ health’, and there are now millions of Mo Bros and Mo Sistas all over the world, raising awareness and funds for the cause.

There’s a wealth of information to be found here about prostate and testicular cancer (‘Know thy nuts‘), mental health and suicide prevention, and just generally ‘being a man’. For those on the outside looking in — maybe not able to get anywhere near close, let alone ‘in’ — there’s a useful guide to the ALEC model, learning how to strike up and navigate a conversation with a man who might be struggling (‘No more dead end conversations’).

Visit Movember

Mentell

Mentell provides circles for men aged 18+ to talk in a safe, confidential space, free from judgement or unsolicited advice. They run online and in person around seven basic principles: Safety, Confidentiality, Respect, No Judgement, No Commitment, No Advice and No Pressure.

Visit Mentell

To find out more about how you can help support and improve your mental health and wellbeing, head here.