Your mental health

Mental health is important to us all. Being mentally healthy can mean:

• Being happy
• Being able to enjoy work and relationships
• Coping in difficult and stressful situations 

Mental health affects all aspects of our lives - how we think, feel and behave. It affects our capacity to communicate with others, to form meaningful relationships and to survive adversity.

Good mental health is not just the absence of mental illness.

Five ways to improve your wellbeing

Evidence suggests that there are five ways to improve your wellbeing:

1. Connect with other people
2. Get active 
3. Learn new skills
4. Give to others
5. Have awareness of the moment 

Read the NHS's 5 steps to mental wellbeing to find out more.

Feeling low and depressed

We all feel sad, low or depressed sometimes. These feelings usually pass in time.

If feeling low starts to interfere with your life and does not go away after a couple of weeks, or if these feelings come back on a regular basis, it could be a sign that you are depressed in the medical sense of the term.

Mild depression can make you feel low or sad - it should not stop you from doing everyday activities.

Severe depression (clinical depression) can be life-threatening. It can make you feel that life is not worth living.

There are some other specific forms of depression:

• Seasonal affective disorder (SAD)
• Postnatal depression
• Bipolar disorder

Mood Manager video

The Mood Manager video was produced for adults with a diagnosis of depression and is designed to help you manage your condition.  

The video uses a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy approach and is available to watch online in the following languages: English, Bengali, Polish, Somali, Tamil and Urdu. 

The video will help you to: 

• Understand depression 
• Understand the medication you have been prescribed 
• Improve your physical and mental health 
• Find out about support services in Richmond

Find additional information in the Mood Manager booklet. 

Feeling stressed and anxious 

We can feel stressed and anxious when: 

• We feel we have too much to do 
• We have too much on our minds 
• People make unreasonable demands on us at home and at work
• We have money problems 

Experiencing too much stress for too long can lead to a diagnosis of depression or anxiety, or more severe mental health problems. 

The NHS can help us to understand what stress is and reduce our levels of stress and anxiety. 

Find out more information from the NHS about: 

• Generalised anxiety disorder 
• Panic disorders 
• Phobias 
• Social anxiety disorder 
• Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) 
• Post traumatic stress disorder 

Help available in Richmond 

If you are worried about depression, stress or anxiety, there are a number of local services and support groups available in Richmond that can help.