Tackling anxiety this Mental Health Awareness Week

Partner organisations across BSW have been marking Mental Health Awareness week this week

Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) was started 21 years ago by The Mental Health Foundation and is an annual opportunity for the whole of the UK to focus on achieving good mental health – it is now one of the biggest awareness weeks both across the UK and globally.

The theme of this year’s Awareness Week is anxiety – a normal emotion in us all, but something which can sometimes get out of control and become a mental health problem.

Lots of things can lead to feelings of anxiety, including exam pressures, relationships, starting a new job (or losing one) or other big life events. We can also get anxious when it comes to things to do with money and not being able to meet our basic needs, like heating our home or buying food.

Anxiety is one of the most common mental health problems we can face. In a recent mental health survey we carried out around stress, anxiety and hopelessness over personal finances, a quarter of adults said they felt so anxious that it stopped them from doing the things they want to do some or all of the time. Six in ten adults feel this way, at least some of the time. On a positive note, anxiety can be made easier to manage.

Focusing on anxiety for this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week will increase people’s awareness and understanding of anxiety by providing information on the things that can help prevent it from becoming a problem.

The BSW Together ICS’s recently published Integrated Care Strategy sets out plans to improve the health and wellbeing of everyone living and working in BSW including those affected by mental health issues. You can read more about this here: https://bswtogether.org.uk/about-us/our-integrated-care-strategy/