World Mental Health Day 2020: Everything You Need To Know

What is World Mental Health Day?

Mental health problems can affect anybody on any day of the year, but annually on the 10th of October, we come together across the globe to show solidarity and support as well as recognising the importance of checking in with our own wellbeing too. 

World Mental Health Day is an international day for the promotion of education, awareness and advocacy for all forms of support regarding mental health and wellbeing.  The day was set up by the World Federation for Mental Health to support and celebrate programmes of awareness in the sector and our lives. 

The day was established in 1992 and each year the organisation has been successfully raising awareness of, and destigmatising mental health in education, workplaces and society.

What was World Mental Health Day 2020 about?

This year’s theme, set by the World Federation for Mental Health, is ‘mental health for all’. A particularly poignant theme, as the world is experiencing the unprecedented impact of the current global health emergency due to COVID-19, that has also impacted on the mental health of millions of people. We know that the levels of anxiety, fear, isolation, social distancing and restrictions, uncertainty and emotional distress experienced have become widespread as the world struggles to bring the virus under control and to find solutions.

It’s for this reason that World Mental Health Day 2020 holds such an important role: as our daily lives have changed considerably, it’s time to check in with our mental health and that of our friends’, families’ and colleagues’ too. 

Key learnings from World Mental Health Day 2020

The months of lockdown, separation and loss have had a huge impact on our mental health and without our usual methods of connection, we’ve all had to relearn what it means to support one another. We’ve taken an in-depth look into 

• Mental health and staying connected – keeping connected, making plans you can stick to, how to listen when you talk and knowing when to switch on or off
• Mental health and social media – how to cleanse our feeds, positively be a part of the online community, time management and mood awareness
• Mental health and diet – how our eating habits can help our wellbeing, good-mood food and managing your diet alongside mental health medication 
• Mental health and nature – the importance of nature in our everyday lives and making time to reconnect when we can 

Looking after our mental health beyond World Mental Health Day

As important as the 10th of October is as a time to check-in with others and re-centre ourselves, all of these actions and tools are just as important, and effective, for the rest of the year. Here are some more useful resources for whenever you need them:

• Mental Health Foundation’s selection of wellbeing podcasts
• This ‘family pack’ from Teen Mental Health
• Mind’s resource page for helping someone else
• Centre for Mental Health share UK hotline and crisis numbers to have

We’d love to hear from you if you have any other tips or resources to share by commenting below.