We all need good mental health and good physical health, it’s essential to living happy and healthy lives and looking after both is equally important.

Asking for help for your general wellbeing

Looking after your mental health and wellbeing involves being able to recognise when you might need help and asking for support if you need it. If you feel stuck in a rut and need a bit of encouragement and support to get you back on track, visit the information and links below for general advice and support.

If you can’t cope and need support for your mental health right now, visit the I need help right now page.

I need help right now

Support directory

Visit our support directory for a searchable list of local and national mental health and wellbeing support services making it easy to the right information for you.

Looking after your physical health

Poor physical health can increase the risk of developing mental illnesses and poor mental health can negatively impact  our physical health, leading to an increased risk of some conditions.

Better Health

Visit the Better Health website

Taking care of your physical health can improve your mood and mental wellbeing. Healthy changes start with little changes. Whether you want to lose weight, get active, drink less alcohol or quit smoking, Better Health is here with lots of free tools and support. For further local information about looking after your physical health, visit Warrington Borough Council’s Public Health page.

Livewire Lifestyles

Visit the Livewire Lifestyles website

Livewire is Warrington based and here for the community. We believe keeping fit and eating healthy has never been so important, this is what drives us to help you change your lifestyle for the better! For information and support to lose weight, stop smoking or get back into exercise, visit the website above. 

Healthier lifestyles

Find out more about healthier lifestyles

There are a range of activities that you can access within the community to increase your activity levels from walking, to low impact exercise classes to exercising within your home.

Looking after your mental health and wellbeing

The 5 ways to wellbeing

Find out more about 5 ways to wellbeing

Evidence suggests there are 5 steps you can take to improve your mental health and wellbeing. Trying these things could help you feel more positive and able to get the most out of life.

Mental Health Foundation

Visit the Mental Health Foundation website

The Mental Health Foundation aim to help people look after their mental health, prevent more serious problems from developing and help everyone live mentally healthy lives. The site has publications/booklets on different aspects of mental health and wellbeing e.g how to manage and reduce stress. 

Self-help

Self-help on the NHS website

Find tips, guides, tools and activities to support and improve mental health

Mind

Find out more about Mind

Mind's site explains what mental wellbeing means, and gives tips to help you take care of your mental wellbeing. There is also a range of booklets, which you can download free, these include:

Social Prescribing

Support and activities for wellbeing

Creative Remedies

Find out more about Creative Remedies

The community arts scheme has been set up to offer an alternative treatment for people, having or recovering from, mild to moderate mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression.

MyLife Warrington

Health & wellbeing on MyLife Warrington

People are living longer and it is therefore important that we look after our health so that we can remain active and healthy and take part in our community for as long as possible.

Warrington Wellbeing

Get support from Warrington Wellbeing

The Warrington Wellbeing service provides one to one support to help you get the information and support you need to start feeling back on track. They can provide some personal advice, or they help get support from an expert

Podcasts for wellbeing

Digital audio recordings

There’s a huge range of free mental health podcasts available. We’ve chosen the selection below as they're from key mental health charities, or NHS organisations; and the focus is on wellbeing or relaxation, rather than on specific mental health problems.

Mental Health Foundation

Visit the Mental Health Foundation website

The Mental Health Foundation has a number of podcasts to listen to.

CNTW NHS Foundation Trust

Visit the CNTW trust website

The Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust offers a range of short audio relaxation exercises. The exercises focus on wellbeing through breathing, visualisation, progressive muscle relaxation and candle gazing. There are also self help booklets available to download.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

CBT is a talking therapy that can help you manage your problems by changing the way you think and behave. Its most commonly used to treat anxiety and depression but can be useful for other mental and physical health problems.

BBC's Activity scheduling sheet

Download the BBC's activity scheduling sheet

Activity scheduling is a simple CBT technique, which can help make your week more structured and satisfying. The aim of activity scheduling is not to fill every day, but to get a balance of different activities throughout the week, including pleasurable, social, physical and necessary activities.

Get.gg Self Help

Visit Get.gg's website

This site offers a range of CBT self-help resources, which can be downloaded for free. The resources include worksheets, information sheets and MP3 files.

Living Life to the Full

Visit Living Life to the Full website

This site offers free online CBT-based, life-skills courses to help you to work out why you feel the way you do, how to tackle your problems, ways to build confidence and feel happier. You can also download free worksheets from the site, including worry strips and an anxiety diary sheet.

Talking Matters

Visit the IAPT - Talking Matters websiteTalking Matters Warrington is designed to help anyone registered with a Warrington GP, to deal with common mental health problems. These may include depression, anxiety, panic, phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Making Space

Visit the Making Space website

Making Space is a community day service offering a safe and welcoming environment for people to attend both at the Allen Street property and at a range of community venues. Our goal is to provide support focused on improved independence that suits the individual needs and aspirations of each individual. 

Mindfulness for wellbeing

Mindfulness is a technique which can help you maintain or improve your mental wellbeing. It is often practiced through simple meditation, or breathing exercises, which involve focusing awareness on the present moment and calmly acknowledging your feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations. 

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy is recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), as an effective treatment for people who have experienced several episodes of depression.

Be Mindful

Visit the Be Mindful website

Be Mindful’s online mindfulness course offers the first session for free.

BUPA

Visit the BUPA website

This site has short podcasts, with suggestions for practising mindfulness when doing the routine activities of brushing your teeth, eating a satsuma, standing in a queue and walking.

Mind

Visit the MIND website

This charity has a number of pages focusing on mindfulness. These include how to practise mindfulness; how mindfulness can help with mental health problems and tips for taking a mindful moment in nature.

CNTW NHS Foundation Trust

Visit CNTW NHS Trust's website

The Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust website has a short audio exercise on mindful breathing.

Kindness and Wellbeing

Research has shown that being kind to other people can also have a positive impact on our own mental wellbeing. It can help reduce stress, create a sense of belonging, reduce isolation,  boost overall mental wellbeing and get rid of negative feelings.

Kindness Matters guide

Visit the MHF websiteThe Mental Health Foundation's (MHF) site explains how being kind to others can also be good for your own mental health. The guide outlines what is meant by kindness and encourages people to be kind to themselves, as well as to others.

Action for Happiness

Visit the Action for Happiness website Action for Happiness encourages us all to help others, in order to improve the happiness of our communities and societies. The website lists ten simple actions which can lead to increased happiness. One of the actions is Do kind things for others. 

Kind to Your Mind

Visit the Kind to Your Mind campaign website

The website was developed to help us look after our mental wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the site is still live and provides useful tools and links to be kind to ourselves.

Self-compassion.org

Visit the self-compassion.org website

Self-compassion is about noticing when you're suffering and being kind and caring towards yourself. The self-compassion site has information, tips and exercises to help people practise being kinder to themselves.

Reading for wellbeing

If you like reading, then these reading for wellbeing initiatives might suit you.

Reading Well

Visit Reading Well

Reading Well for Children and Young People
This collection of books aims to help children aged 7-18 years cope with daily life and difficult feelings. All the books can be borrowed free from LiveWire Libraries.

Reading Well: Mood-Boosting Books and Books on Prescription
Both Mood Boosting Books and Books on Prescription (self-help books for issues such as depression, anxiety and sleep problems) can be found on LiveWire Libraries' website.

The Reader

Visit The Reader

The Read to Relax groups aim to promote wellbeing and reduce social isolation through shared reading. The Reader offers free training and ongoing support to help volunteers set up and run shared reading groups, to promote wellbeing in their community or workplace.

Read to Relax

Visit Read to RelaxThe Read to Relax groups bring people together to read, have a cup of tea and a chat. Group members are read to, so they can just sit back and listen. There are currently four Read to Relax Groups running in LiveWire's libraries.

Creative Remedies also offers a Read to Relax Group.

Food and wellbeing

What we eat and drink and how frequently we eat affects how we feel, think and behave. Making improvements to our diet can help us think more clearly, feel more positive and give us more energy.

Mind 

Visit the Mind website

The Mind website provides information on how food and drink can affect how you feel, how food and medication can interact and how you can manage your diet when you're unwell. 

The Mental Health Foundation

Visit the the Mental Health Foundation website

The site includes information on how diet and mental health are linked and what to eat. The site also discusses eating disorders, which some people may find triggering. 

CNTW NHS Trust

Visit the CNTW website

CNTW NHS Trust's site has a free Self help leaflets including a PDF booklet Food for Thought

Workplace mental wellbeing

There are several different elements to mental wellbeing in the workplace, you might wish to focus on one or more of the following:

  • Encouraging your  colleagues to look after their own mental wellbeing.
  • Supporting colleagues who have mental health problems.
  • Challenging stigma relating to people with mental health problems.
  • Addressing workplace issues which could negatively impact people’s mental wellbeing.

Visit the support directory to view all services offering workplace support.

 

The Resilience Hub

Visit The Resilience Hub websiteThe hub aims to help NHS, social care and emergency service staff to find information and psychological support for themselves. The site includes links, videos and downloads to help staff manage the impact of different situations. 

Mental Health at Work

Visit the Mental Health at Work websiteThe site includes a wide range of resources relating to mental health at work. This includes videos, courses, podcasts, templates and information from organisations across the UK which can be used to improve workplace mental health. You can search the site for industry specific resources.

Mental Health Foundation

Visit the Mental Health Foundation website

The site has a page on 'work-life balance'. This includes practical suggestions for helping yourself and how your workplace can help.

MIND

Visit the MIND websiteMind has pages on its website covering different aspects of workplace mental health. Examples include information about taking care of yourself/your staff, types of work stress and how to get support, plus e-learning related to workplace health. 

NICE

Visit the NICE 'Mental Wellbeing at Work' guidance

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) have produced the “Mental Wellbeing at Work” guidelines, which outlines how organisations can create the right conditions to promote mental wellbeing at work. This document can be downloaded as a PDF. 

Additional resources

Visit our I’m looking for mental health training and resources page for links to additional mental health and suicide prevention resources. Although these aren't specific to workplace mental health, they could be used to promote mental health within the workplace.

Sleep and wellbeing

Sleep is important as it can help us to look after both our physical health and our mental wellbeing. Good quality sleep can improve our mood, mental wellbeing and memory. Whereas lack of sleep, or poor quality sleep, can have a negative impact on our mental health and wellbeing. Living with a mental health problem can also affect how well we sleep.

Every Mind Matters

Visit Every Mind Matters websiteThe Every Mind Matters site has information and advice on how you can look after your mental wellbeing, or find support for mental health problems. It includes several pages on sleep, including top tips for a better sleep. The site also has an interactive tool ‘Your Mind Plan’ which will suggest simple actions you could take to improve your mental health.

Sleep problems

Visit CNTW NHS Trust's website

Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear (CNTW) NHS Foundation Trust have a range of free self-help booklets, one of them focuses on sleeping problems. They're available in a variety of formats and can be downloaded for free, plus accessed online via a free app. 

Mental Health Foundation

Visit the Mental Health Foundation’s website

Information on this site covers the different types of sleep problems, self-help strategies and treatments. Podcasts and booklets on sleep, relaxation and mental wellbeing are available on the site. One of the booklets includes “How to Sleep Better”.

 Coping with sleep problems

Visit Mind's websiteThe site has information about different types of sleep problems, including insomnia. This can be downloaded free as a PDF booklet and includes practical self-help tips and details of where you can go for support.

The NHS

Visit the NHS website

The sleep pages on this site cover tiredness and fatigue, sleep tips and children’s sleep. There’s also a page on insomnia, which includes a sleep self-assessment with practical tips for improving sleep.

Support for older adults

Mental health problems are very common. Depression affects one in every five older people living in the community and two in every five older people living in a care home. (www.mentalhealth.org.uk). People can and do recover. It's easier to make a full and quick recovery if you get support or treatment early, so it's important to let people know if you're experiencing difficulty coping with your thoughts or feelings. Talk to your GP, a friend, a member of your family, or someone else you trust. It's important to let someone know how you're feeling as it's the first step to getting the help or support you need.

For support specifically for older adults, visit the service directory.

Age UK

Visit Age UK Mid Mersey's websiteThe organisation supports older people (50+) to live healthily and independently. The range of support offered by Age UK Mid Mersey includes information and advice, a befriending service, social activities, and a counselling service. 

Visit Age UK's mental wellbeing webpages

Independent Age

Visit Independent Age's websiteThis charity provides free information and advice to older people and their families. The areas covered include care and support, money and benefits and health and mobility. Independent Age also offers a free phone call and visiting service, to help reduce loneliness.

On the website you'll find a wide range of free advice guides and fact sheets.

Stigma, discrimination & mental health

Many people who experience mental health problems don't talk about their feelings, or ask for help. They could be  afraid of what other people might think,  say, or do. Jokes and insults are often linked to mental health problems, this can hurt people's feelings and make them less likely to seek help when they need it.

Stigma - is a negative attitude towards something or someone, based on a misunderstanding. When we talk about the stigma of mental health problems we mean that people are often thought less of, or seen in a negative way because of their mental health problems.

Discrimination - is treating people differently, unfairly or less well. Often people are treated unfairly or less well because they have mental health problems.

"Get Warrington Talking" ask all of us need to think and talk in a more responsible way about mental health problems. The campaigns encourage us to change our attitude and behaviours towards people who experience mental health problems. The aim is to reduce stigma and discrimination.

The local Get Warrington Talking project recruits and supports volunteers with lived experience of mental health problems (champions). The champions’ role is to challenge stigma and discrimination associated with mental health problems, through campaigns, events and activities across Warrington. The project is led by Warrington Speak Up.

Find out more about ‘Get Warrington Talking’

15 May 2023

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