Almost half of British people have had a conversation about mental health in past three months and 82% of those who have discussed their issues said that it helped, according to a new YouGov poll undertaken to mark the launch of the Heads Together campaign.
Heads Together is a coalition of eight mental health charities, including CALM – the Campaign Against Living Miserably – and Mind. To support the campaign, Heads Together has created a series of short films involving public figures such as Professor Green, Andrew Flintoff and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge discussing mental health in the hope it will push the issues further into the mainstream. Films featuring Rio Ferdinand and Stephen Fry will be released next month.
While the YouGov survey, which polled 5,000 people, was encouraging in showing that those who discussed their mental health benefited from the experience, it also found that men still lag behind women when it comes to talking about problems they are having.
Only 37% of men said they discussed mental health, compared with 54% of women. There is also a gulf between young and old people, with 57% of those aged 18 to 24 saying they had talked about mental health compared with just 32% of over-65s.
Heads Together is set to be the lead charity at the London Marathon this year, and if you have already secured a ballot spot in the event you can sign up to raise funds for one of the campaign’s partner charities at headstogether.org.uk.
You can view all of the Heads Together films on its YouTube page and get more information about the campaign and the charities behind it on the Heads Together website.
