Mental health problems are something that can affect 1 in 4 people in the current day. Many people have mental health problems, some you may know about some you may not. Time to Talk Day is on the 6th of February, and it aims to help encourage people to speak out about their experiences to help reduce the stigma that surrounds mental health.
Many people are worried about speaking out, they may feel like they are going to be isolated, or made to feel ashamed, or even teased about it, but Time to Talk is here to help stop them feelings and get people’s stories out into the world.
Do you want to make someone comfortable enough to speak to you or speak out about their experiences? Some top tips to help this are:
- Ask questions and listen
- Think about the time & place
- Don’t try & fix it
- Treat them the same
- Be patient
(https://www.time-to-change.org.uk/time-talk-day/tips-talking-about-mental-health)
Sometimes, if you are a carer for someone with a mental health problem, you may think it will be hard to help support them, or you may be worried about the impact it will have on you. That’s a totally normal feeling to have, and the organisation MIND has a page with some FAQs and a video on how to help yourself, and those you care for:
So far, with all the help from this campaign attitudes towards mental health problems have slowly and surely been changing – since 2016/17 there has been an average of 3.1% improvement in attitudes amongst the adult population in regard to mental health. It may not sound like much, but that is equal to around 5 million people with changed attitudes since the campaign first began. Just one changed attitude makes a big difference, and this campaign is helping towards that greatly.
If you want to help in some way with Time to Talk Day, or even if you are just interested in finding out more, there may be an event happening near you, follow this link to see what events are happening around the UK: https://www.time-to-change.org.uk/get-involved/whats-going-on-near-you
Alternatively, they suggest sharing anything on social media with the hashtag #TimeToTalk, whether it’s a blog post, sharing your own story, or even just sharing their posts on social media – every little helps.