Feeling anxious? You’re not alone!

The ALLIANCE marked Mental Health Awareness Week and European Mental Health Week with various activities to promote positive mental health.

Mental Health Awareness Week’s theme this year was anxiety. Anxiety is an emotion we all feel, in different ways. Symptoms of anxiety include heart palpitations, shaking, sweating, feeling nauseous. Lots of different things can lead to feeling anxious, including relationships, work stress, and living with a long term condition. Focusing on anxiety for this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week has helped to increase awareness and understanding of anxiety, by providing information on ways people can prevent and reduce symptoms, as well as signpost to support.

The Scotland Reducing Gambling Harm programme marked Mental Health Awareness Week by hosting a roundtable discussion on the link between gambling harms and mental health. This event brought together people with lived experience, policy makers, and those who work in gambling harms and mental health. We really enjoyed the opportunity to discuss where we are now, where we would like to be in the future, and how to get there as a collaborative. As people with a mental health diagnosis are twice as likely to participate in harmful gambling activities, this was an important opportunity to reflect on the intersections between both issues.

The Living Well programme also hosted a “Living Well and Anxiety” webinar session with Living Well partner organisation Versus Arthritis, who shared key tips on how to manage anxiety related to living with a long term condition. This session covered different self management approaches for managing anxiety, which included using effective communication, problem solving, setting personal goals, and positive distraction.

There are lots of different things we can all do to relax when we are feeling anxious, and different things which help to alleviate stress and the likelihood of experiencing anxiety include:

• Having a good night’s sleep
• Keeping active
• Getting some fresh air
• Getting creative
• Eating a healthy diet
• Learn something new

ALLIANCE staff also marked Mental Health Awareness Week with a coffee morning to talk about our own mental health and what we do to prevent feelings of anxiety. We shared homemade cakes, hot drinks and used the time to colour in and share self care tips, as well as things we took for granted before COVID-19 that are now priorities in our day to day life (for example, getting outside for a nice walk)! We also talked through the challenges we face from time to time, and the best ways to support colleagues to open up about their mental health. This coffee morning was organised by the ALLIANCE’s internal Stigma Working Group, thanks to everyone who could make it!

There has been lots going on at the ALLIANCE to mark Mental Health Awareness Week and we look forward to thinking about different ways to prioritise mental health and wellbeing throughout our work!

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