What is Mental Health Awareness Week?

green text reading May Mental Health Awareness month

It’s a seven-day period organised by The Mental Health Foundation that is intended to raise awareness about how your own mental health can be affected, and to highlight the prevalence of mental health issues across society.

It’s also intended to start conversations about mental health issues and to de-stigmatise the issue as a whole.

For 2023 it runs from the 15^th to 21^st May.

What does the data say?

A recent survey carried out by the Mental Health Foundation indicated that the UK population was “experiencing widespread levels of stress, anxiety and hopelessness in response to financial concerns”, which is probably not overly surprising given the current cost of living crisis.

That survey was carried out in November 2022 and took in the responses of 3000 adults in the UK, which indicated that:

29 % of respondents experience stress;
34% of respondents experience anxiety; and
10% of respondents said they felt hopeless because of financial worries.

However, despite that handy reminder of how common mental health issues can be, the causes of stress are perhaps the most important part of the survey, as they included:

Unable to maintain their standard of living (71%)
Unable to heat their home (66%)
Unable to pay household bills (61%)
Worried about being able to afford food (50% generally, 67% in younger adults)

Other common causes of stress included work (either commitments or risk of losing a job), health (of the respondent or a family member) and existing debts.

These points are important because they are things that pretty much any individual can experience or worry about at any given time, even more so currently in the UK due to the ongoing economic situation.

A woman in a facemask sits on some steps, her head is in her hands and a box sits beside her

Who experiences mental health issues?

Anyone can have problems with their mental health, just as anyone can have problems with their physical health, yet mental health is much less discussed, is often seen as a taboo subject, and, if it is a long-term illness, is frequently filed away with other invisible disabilities in an effort for society at large to pretend that it doesn’t exist.

Which is unfair, really, especially when you look at research by organisations such as the NHS, which shows that around 1 in 6 adults meet the criteria for a common mental disorder.

Or, as paraphrased by the Priory Group, around 1 in 6 people “experience symptoms for common mental health problems… in any given week in the UK.”

Now, granted, that NHS survey is from 2014, reported in 2016, and those numbers will have changed since then, but I cannot believe that those numbers will have decreased considering everything that’s happened since then.

You know… Brexit, Covid, the cost of living crisis to name just three.

Interestingly, according to the government, a new survey of this extent is planned for sometime in 2023, so it will be interesting to see how the numbers have changed over these eventful years when the next report comes out.

A cardboard cut-out of a head surrounded by scrunched up paper in various colours that forms the shape of a speech bubble. Inside the head is an outline of a brain in which are the words Mental Health.

So why don’t people do anything about mental health issues?

A whole heap of reasons, right at the top of which are things like the current increased stress on the NHS and reduced funding for social care systems by the Government (as a general entity, not just the current incumbents of Westminster).

Going back to that NHS survey, despite around 43% of adults thinking that they have had or currently have a diagnosable mental health condition at some point in their life, 61% of adults with mental health problems don’t access treatment.

Some of that is lack of access to care, via the NHS or other systems, some of it is down to stigma, and some of it is down to old fashioned things like “I don’t want to be a bother”, or “everyone goes through this”, or “it’ll go away eventually”.

And I mean, even if it does eventually go away like something such as a cold would, firstly you don’t deserve to feel miserable all that time, and secondly, even for a cold you’d reach for the painkillers or the hot lemon, right? So why not look for things to help you when you’re having mental health problems?

And a lot of people do go through mental health issues, it’s true, but here’s an idea: everyone is deserving of help when they’ve got a problem.

scrabble tiles spelling out Mental Health Matters

What can we do about it?

Well, first of all, to pinch a phrase from an old advert, it’s good to talk.

Whether that’s to a professional or to a friend or to a loved one, talking through something can reduce anxiety and give you a new perspective, even if it doesn’t immediately bring about a solution just the knowledge that you’re not alone really does help.

For example, ITV have been running their Britain Get Talking campaign for a little while now in conjunction with Mind and Young Minds charities, which has definitely helped raise awareness of mental health issues for a lot of people.

For some folks, talking to their GP is also a good place to start. Potential issues around even getting an appointment aside, they have access to professional resources that many people don’t, can refer you direct to other services within the NHS, and can provide concise lists of resources that can be tailored by them to your specific needs.

There are multiple charities out there that offer access to resources to help with your mental health – some of these are free of charge but may require self-study, others are paid-for services such as counselling.

You can also access private professional, paid-for therapy and counselling services if that’s something that you think will help you best, and is within your budget, however, that’s really not a point I’m personally able, willing or feel comfortable to advise upon.

What I do feel comfortable doing, and what I’ve done below, is to pull together a list of links and resources for you to access, all neat and tidy and in one place.

All the links open in a new browser window and go direct to the listed resource.

two green charity support ribbons against a green background, one larger than the other, supporting mental health awareness

Links & Resources

General Resources:

The Mental Health Foundation

Information on Mental Health Awareness Week 2023 and it’s core aims is on the MHF Website, and they also have a great Get Help page with links to other resources.

ITV’s Britain Get Talking Campaign

More details can be found on the ITV website.

Mind

Have a lot of information and support on the Mind Website, as well as an infoline number (which is 0300 123 3393)

Young Minds

Similar to Mind but aimed at young people and teens, they also have information for parents, teachers and the like about how to suppport young people with mental health issues on the Young Minds Website.

Anxiety UK

Have helpline services available by phone, text and an online chatbot service, details of which are on the Anxiety UK website.

CALM ( the Campaign Against Living Miserably)

Have a late night helpline and chat bot available 5pm to midnight every day of the year. Can be accessed by phone (0800 585858) and on the CALM website.

Construction Industry Specific Resources:

The Lighthouse Club

This is a construction industry specific charity that provides multiple different types of support for construction workers and their families. They have local clubs across the UK and Ireland and an industry helpline.

They can be contacted by phone in the UK on 0345 6051956 and via the Lighthouse Club Website.

Benevolent Funds

Many professional organisations also have Benevolent Funds (usually charities aligned with the parent organisation) that are free to access for members of that professional body and who are able to provide help and resources.

What is available from each depends on that professional organisation, so you’re best off giving them a call or looking through their website, but I’ve linked a few of the more obvious construction industry ones below.

The Chartered Association of Building Engineers: CABE Benevolent Fund

The Institution of Civil Engineers: ICE Benevolent Fund

The Chartered Institute of Building: CIOB Benevolent Fund

The Institution of Structural Engineers: IStructE Benevolent Fund

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors: LionHeart Organisation

Other Resources:

If you or your company want to do more to help out in the workplace, the Barnsley & Rotherham Chamber of Commerce is offering access to a course to train as a Mental Health First Aider. The cost is £325, and it is a two day course, held online, and the next available date is the 17^th May 2023, though there are other dates available later in the year, with more details available through the Chamber Website.

The Chartered Association of Building Engineers (CABE) is hosting an online Mental Health Awareness Webinar on the 16^th May. You need to be a member to access this, but the details are on the CABE Website.

Mental Health UK also have a series of webinars (available online after the date if you miss the live event) that discuss Mental Health in the workplace, available on the Mental Health UK website.

References Cited Above:

Mental Health Foundation Survey: link.

NHS AMP Survey: archive link.

Priory Group Mental Health Statisticks: link.

Mind Mental Health Statistics: link.

Commons Library Statistics: link.

two green charity support ribbons against a green background, one larger than the other, supporting mental health awareness

So, every now and then, often at the pub and / or late at night when everyone’s tired, conversations happen that are either weird or surreal or, more often than not, both.

Such conversations include things like ‘who would win in a fight between spacemen and ninjas’ and ‘who should play such and such a character from my favourite book’. They nearly always devolve into further nonsense and have been known to elicit arguments leading to people not speaking to each other for several minutes at a time.

Despite all that, they’re still nowhere near as divisive as Monopoly.

Anyway, one recent discussion, and one which even has a tenuous (very, very tenuous) link to the construction industry, is the eternal:

How feasible is it to build the Death Star?

It’s a question that has also weighed heavy upon the denizens of the internet, although, as one such denizen, I can confirm that we’re also weighed heavily upon by pictures of cute animals, videos of cats with their heads stuck in cups, and discussions of the finer points of colour theory.

Back on topic, it weighed upon people so heavily that in 2012 a petition with over 34,000 signatures was sent to the White House asking them to consider building a Death Star.

No, really. It even made BBC News !

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) the White House was forced to concede that there were no plans to build a Death Star, nor was there likely to ever be any such plans. The official response from the White House is hilarious and surprisingly well thought out and can be read in full here on Wired.com .

I’m not even going to allow myself to consider how different the response would have been from the Trump Administration.

What would a Death Star even cost?

The estimated price alone would surely put most nations off the idea of building something as astronomically (heh) expensive as the Death Star, because the estimated cost put forward by the White House is in excess of $850,000,000,000,000,000. That’s eight hundred and fifty quadrillion dollars, which is an amount of money that even my limited knowledge of economics says is going to be hard for a planet to scrape together, let alone a single county.

It does though raise interesting questions about the economy of the Galactic Empire and their movement of materials and goods before you even get onto the technology required to move a giant metal football through space.

And how long would it even take to build?

On to the subject of materials, it’s estimated that it would take 830,000 years at current global output levels to produce the amount of steel needed for just the superstructure of the Death Star.

I mean, steel probably isn’t the best option for building space craft anyway considering its strength vs its mass, and surely you’d go for something like ceramics or carbon fibre or even aluminium like they used in the space shuttles, but that’s beside the point.

Then you’ve got to get all that metal into space, along with all the infrastructure for putting it together, and then you’ve got to keep it all in a consistent geostationary orbit, which even my (admittedly basic) grasp of physics says is going to require its own infrastructure and fuel supply.

So, let’s assume that to get past that issue, you build it in open space. There’s plenty of that around even within our solar system. You could even wrangle a handy asteroid or two to mine for minerals and resources for the building project (as discussed on Space.com ). You’d then still have to account for how you’re going to protect everything against solar radiation and space debris, how to get your workforce to and from the infrastructure, and the little things like how to shield the giant laser so it doesn’t kill everyone within the Death Star.

Then, then, assuming that you happen to have a spare planet or three’s entire GDP lying around next to your conveniently placed asteroids, you still need to think about running costs.

Speaking of Running Costs…

My handy Haynes Manual (yes I’m that much of a nerd, also my parents are awesome) tells me that the Death Star operates with a population of around 1.2 million people, though other equally nerdy estimates put this closer to 2.1 million people.

Carrying enough consumables to feed that population, plus all the people, superstructure, armour, engines, guns and the whopping great laser system puts the estimated weight of the Death Star at around 900 trillion tonnes.

Ovo energy calculated, in an admittedly fast and loose fashion, that the cost of pushing all that weight through space, firing and charging the laser and keeping the crew going for just one day would be in the region of £6.2 OCTILLION!!

TL;DR

I suppose that what this really boils down to is, to paraphrase a quote from another famous movie, just because you can do something it doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. Or rather, just because you can theoretically do something, it doesn’t mean that you can actually afford it.

No matter how cool you might think the Death Star is or how much of the strength of humanity it might prove to the hollow remains of the bacteria that once lived on Mars, the Death Star is (currently) an impossibility at the size shown in the movies from the point of view of cost, materials and technology.

That said, 54 years ago we landed a man on the moon using a computer with considerably less processing power than my mobile phone, so I suppose anything could be possible in another 54 years.

So long as you remember to shield the exhaust ports.

Disclaimer:

This post is not an endorsement of Ovo Energy, the White House or building your own Death Star.
The author has no legal rights or ownership to the Death Star, now owned by Disney, nor does she endorse world or galactic domination.
That said, all model Death Stars will be gratefully received and zoomed around the office complete with pew pew noises, because the author is not so secretly still a 12 year old at heart.
And on one last note, yes, there really is a Haynes Manual for the Imperial Death Star DS-1 Orbital Battle Station.

Month: May 2023

Mental Health Awareness Week